Description of Historic Place

The Stevens Homestead is an attractive one and a half storey home with a front gable breaking the roofline, and clad in brown shingles. The house is built on a hill, slightly below the main road at 268 Woolastock Drive.

Heritage Value

The Stevens Homestead is designated a local historic place for its association with the Stevens family, and for its heritage value as the oldest farmhouse in the town.
Shubel Stevens (1752-1825), a Loyalist and native of New Haven, Connecticut, came to “Parrtown,” now Saint John, in 1783. He was granted a small town lot but did not settle there; a 200 acre grant in the area of Grand Bay-Westfield historically known as “Ingleside” followed. Stevens, a carpenter-turned-farmer, prospered and acquired at least 600 more acres of land in short order. Upon his death his property was divided amongst his children, with the house and farm bequeathed to his son Benjamin (1799-1867). Benjamin further subdivided the property in his will, giving the house and farm to his youngest son William Bartlett. The property passed to other members of the Stevens family and has continued to be owned and inhabited by descendants of Shubel Stevens up to the present day.

The massing of the house has retained its integrity, with renovations and modernizations completed in a manner sensitive to its age and original design.

Source: Grand Bay-Westfield Historic Place files: Stevens Homestead

Character-Defining Elements

Character Defining Elements of the house include:
- location on the original Stevens land grant;
- original characteristics of the home, including location and massing.