ANDOVER
Archaeologists to create dig in middle of town  Eagle Tribune 10/31/00
Developers of Powder Mill Square will demolish six historic houses on North Main St.

By Shawn Regan
Eagle-Tribune Writer

ANDOVER — Developers of the Powder Mill Square complex have agreed to an archaeological dig of the historic five acre property wedged between North Main Street, Stevens Street and the Shawsheen River.
   On a large, crumbling parking lot — perhaps the site of a 1776 powder mill where minuteman once filled their kegs with ammunition to fight British soldiers—town officials met last week with neighbors and the developers who want to build a medical office building and 72 apartments.
   NorthPoint Realty Development Corp. received approval earlier this year from the Planning Board and Conservation Commission to build on the mill site.
   Selectmen visited the site after receiving a request from the Andover Preservation Commission to join it in asking the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to mandate the study.
   After a 30-minute, onsite briefing of the project, selectmen moved the meeting to the Town Offices, where they voted unanimously to support the comnilssion.
   The exact location of the old powder mill, the first in the country, has yet to be proven, Andover- Preservation Commission Chairman Karen M. Herman said. But, she added, the site has a long and rich history of historically important buildings and industry. The dozens of droopy Catalpa bean trees which surround the property were planted in 1917 by Andover school children, she said.
   Archeologists will look for remnants of historical structures buried on the property, such as the old powder mill, built by Samuel Phillips Jr., founder of Phillips Academy.
   Mrs. Herman said the commission fears the project — which includes demolishing six old houses on North Main Street — will permanently harm the town's most historic area.
   "We're talking about a large number of buildings to be lost in a National Registry District," Mrs. Herman said. "Not only will we lose a residential part of North Main Street, but combined with widening the road, this is a recipe for future commercial development and the loss of the historical district."
   Mitchell Mulholland, an archeologist with the University of Massachusetts, just retained by NorthPoint, said the dig, no matter what is found, would not stop the project.
   "Archeology doesn't stop projects," Mr. Mulholland said. "If we find something, we'll try to move a walkway or a parking lot. If it's something we can't move, we go to the next step and see if it's something for the National Register of Historic Places. They're the one that makes the call."
   "If something of high historical importance is found under a major building, we can try to excavate it out of the area."
   Northpoint's Louis P. Minicucci said the best scenario would be to save the homes, but added that they are too dilapidated to keep.
   "So we said, if we can't keep the homes, we'd like to replicate the architecture as closely as possible," he said.
   To that end, Mr. Minicucci said the office buildings and the apartments will be "the Georgian Colonial-style architecture once common in Shawsheen."