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Home My Public Portal AboutLowerRd_793, BRE.225Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.12/12 FORM B  BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph Locus Map N Recorded by: Eric Dray, Preservation Consultant, for Organization: Brewster Historical Commission Date (month / year): June 2017 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 57-6-0 Dennis B,G,I BRE.225 Town/City: BREWSTER Place:(neighborhood or village): Address: 793 Lower Road Historic Name: Cobb, Barnabas F. and Polly House Uses:Present: Residential Original: Residential Date of Construction: 1830s Source:Deed research, vital records Style/Form: Greek Revival Architect/Builder: Unknown Exterior Material: Foundation: Fieldstone, granite block Wall/Trim: Wood clapboard/ Wood Roof: Asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Barn/garage (19th c.) Major Alterations (with dates): Renovation, including complete window replacement (2016) Condition: Good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage: 2.60 acres Setting: This large parcel is located on the north side of Lower Road just north of the intersection with Rt. 6A. This stretch of Lower Road is sparsely developed, giving this house an isolated setting. To the north is a large, late-20th century townhouse development. This house is set close to street on a parcel that slopes down gently behind the house. The property is largely open with a broad expanses of lawn and a few deciduous trees. An asphalt driveway leads past the east side of the house to a large garage. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 793 LOWER ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 B,G,I BRE.225 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. This is a 1 ½-story, gable-front Greek Revival-style house with a stepped-down, one-story rear ell. The house rests on a fieldstone and granite block foundation. The walls are clad in wood clapboards with heavy corner pilasters (a Greek-Revival- style detail). The roof is clad in asphalt shingles and has a projecting molded box cornice with partial returns across the gable front (another Greek Revival-style detail intended to evoke a full pediment), and broad trim boards below. Narrow brick chimneys rise from the center of the main roof ridge and the rear ell roof ridge. The three-bay wide front elevation has an off-centered entrance that has an elaborate surround with narrow pilasters, partial sidelights, and a projecting lintel. Fenestration on this and the other elevations consists primarily of replacement 6/6 double hung sash set in flat surrounds. There is an unusual window system centered in the front gable with a 6/6 window flanked on each side by a four-light fixed sash – this window has a surround that echoes the detail of the front entrance surround. The left side elevation has three small 3/3 double-hung sash set into the trim boards of the cornice. The right side elevation has a broad wall dormer. The right side of the rear ell has a centered entrance flanked by a 6/6 window on either side. The entrance surround is similar in detail to the front entrance but without the sidelights. Behind the house is what appears to have been a 19th c. barn that and is now used as a garage. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. Lower Road was the site of residential development starting in the 18th century. Interestingly, through the 19th century, residential development occurred exclusively on the north side of the road. Many of the original parcels were quite large, some extending to the bay, and both sides of the road were used for agriculture and cranberry bogs. It was not until the early-20th century that infill residential development began, including both small and large subdivisions, but the road retains its rural character. A house is shown on this section of Lower Road on the 1858 Map of Cape Cod with the name B. Cobb and on the 1880 Barnstable Atlas with the name B. F. Cobb. This refers to Barnabas F. Cobb (1801-1884). He married Polly Bangs in 1830, and they had one daughter Matilda (1834-1892). The house was likely built following their marriage, i.e. in the 1830s. The Old King’s Highway National Register District nomination also dates this house to the ca. 1830s. This was the time period when the Greek Revival style was popular. Barnabas Cobb was listed as a laborer in the 1855 and 1865 State Census and the 1870 US Census, and in the 1880 US Census he was listed as a stone mason. He was one of the first members of the Universalist Society in Brewster organized in 1824. Following Matilda’s death in 1892, the house stayed in the Cobb family until 1893 when William B. and Mercy S. Cobb of San Francisco, CA conveyed the property to sisters Priscilla Nickerson (b. 1844) and Adeline (Nickerson) Parker (b. 1846) of Brewster (Book 208/Page 350). By 1910, Adeline and her husband George Parker were living in Boston’s Back Bay, where George worked as a teacher. Priscilla Nickerson and her two children, Adeline and Myra, were living with them, along with three servants. Adeline Parker died in 1916, and that year George Parker conveyed the Brewster property to his nieces, Myra and Adeline Nickerson (Book 346/Page 55). They owned the house until 1931, when they conveyed it to John Healy of Maplewood, NJ (Book 486/ Page 324). John Healy (b. 1875) and his wife Catherine had one daughter, Mary Healy. This house passed to Mary Healy. Mary H. (Healy) Howe (1919-2013) was born in Nitro, WV and lived in Maplewood, NJ before moving to the family home in Brewster in 1958 where she lived for the remainder of her life. Mary attended Colby Junior College for women and the Catherine Gibbs School. Following college, she worked for Pan Am Airlines and later during WWII she volunteered for the Office of War Information in North Africa. She met her first husband, Frederick Ryan, while working in INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 793 LOWER ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 B,G,I BRE.225 Washington, D.C., and they later moved to Liberia in West Africa. After returning to Brewster in the 1950s, she married her second husband, Thomas Kimball Clark of St. Paul, MN. Following his passing in the late 1950s, she began to work in real estate and then the travel industry. In the early 1970s, she met and married her third husband, John Howe of New Jersey. Following her death in 2013, this property passed through a trust to her daughter and son, Catherine R. Macauley of Brewster and Michael Ryan of St. John, USVI (Book 27535/ Page 16). This and other deeds referred to the property as the “Cottage Lot.” In 2016, they sold the property to Hooshang and Leam Shamash of Newton (Book 29489/ Page 172). This property is located within the Old King’s Highway Regional Historic District (adopted 1973) and the house and barn are contributing resources in the Old King’s Highway National Register District (listed 1996). BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES 1858 Map, Map of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, & Nantucket, Walling, Henry. 1880 Map, Atlas of Barnstable County, Boston, MA: George H. Walker & Co., 1880. 1910 Map, Atlas of Barnstable County, Boston, MA: Walker Litho. & Publishing Co., 1910. Barnstable County Registry of Deeds Deyo, Simeon L., ed., History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts: 1620-1890, New York: H. W. Blake & Co., 1890. www.ancestry.com - Vital records, US Census (1870, 1880), State Census (1855, 1865) http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20130203/OBITS02/302030334 (Mary Healy obituary) Brewster Assessor sketch. Photo 2. View looking north.