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Home My Public Portal AboutCharlesSt_132Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.4/11 FORM B  BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph View from NE. Locus Map (north at top) Source: Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer. Recorded by: Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson Organization: Brewster Historical Commission Date (month / year): May 2019 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 69-62-0 Harwich BRE.492 Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): East Brewster Address:132 Charles Street Historic Name: Nellie F. Monk Cottage Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1904 Source:deeds, historic atlases, newspapers Style/Form: summer cottage/end house Architect/Builder: possibly George Foster Exterior Material: Foundation: unknown Wall/Trim: wood shingles Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: sheds Major Alterations (with dates): 2 rear additions, garage addition Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:0.46 Setting: The house is situated in a dense residential area characterized by summer cottages and retirement homes built in the early- and mid-20th century. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 132 CHARLES STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 BRE.492 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: The Nellie F. Monk Cottage, built 1904, is a story-and-a-half summer cottage with a front-gable street façade now covered by the first of three in-line gabled additions. An open veranda wraps around the remaining three sides; shed dormers distinguish the roof on both sides. A double window is centered on the first story on the water side and is flanked by later porthole windows; a single window is centered in the gable. An entrance is located at the water side of the east elevation where a tall brick chimney is engaged to the center of the wall and dormer. A wide, one-story wing was added to the southerly end of the cottage with windows on either side and a doorway at the westerly corner exposed on the southerly end. A second one-story addition covers all but the doorway of the intermediate wing; a one-car garage wing telescopes from the second addition with an overhead door centered on the southerly end wall. The cottage is centered on a narrow lot that extends from Charles Street to the bay shoreline. Sited on a bluff above the bay, wood stairs lead down to the beach. Two small sheds, one possibly a privy, are located near the southwest corner of the house. A driveway leads directly up to the added garage. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: Cape Cod newspapers document that 132 Charles Street was built in 1904 for Nellie F. Monk on land she had bought that year from Ellen Anna Turnbull Penniman (1848-1916).1 Both women were from Braintree. Penniman and her husband Henry Austin Penniman (1849-1900), a boat and house painter, had been vacationing in Brewster since at least 1884, and in 1898 they bought a parcel on Cape Cod Bay from Eugenia S. Dutton.2 The widow Ellen Penniman’s cottage was certainly built by 1903, and newspapers noted the construction of a second cottage near hers in August 1904. This was very likely Nellie Monk’s. On the 1905 Brewster map, three cottages—marked from west to east Monk, Penniman, and Dearborn—are shown on the shore on the east side of Point of Rocks Road at Clarks Point. The Barnstable Patriot noted later that year Nellie Monk “was resting in her summer cottage at Brewster.” In 1907 the newspaper reported that the “Misses Monk,” meaning Nellie and her youngest sister Louie, were at “their cottages in the Crocker settlement.” In 1910 Louie Monk acquired a parcel from Benjamin Crocker that was clearly in this neighborhood, and it was probably her cottage the Yarmouth Register described in 1911. “Mr George Foster has completed a fine job in the building of Miss Monk’s cottage at Clark’s Point,” the Register reported in June 1911. “The house stands out prominently on the bluff and is a handsome addition to the summer residences along the water front.”3 Area journalists called the aggregation of cottages here the Crocker settlement, Clark’s Point, Point of Rocks, or Penniman Shores. “Brewster’s summer colony is very much in evidence,” the Yarmouth Register noted in July 1913. “The permanent summer residents are enjoying their Brewster homes, and the vacationists are coming and going as usual. All the cottages at the Park, the Crocker and Penniman shores are occupied, the larger number being rented for the season.” In July 1911 Monk and Ellen Penniman came to Brewster together to open their cottages for the season.4 Born in Braintree in 1875, Nellie Frances Monk was the daughter of Henry A. and Emma J. Tilley Monk. Henry Monk was town clerk in Braintree for 30 years and had served as town selectman and on the state’s General Court in the 1880s. In 1934 he was one of two members of the Braintree Grand Army of the Republic post who was still living, and he was active in the GAR at both local and state levels. Nellie, a teacher by 1910 living in her parent’s household, was the oldest of three children.5 Her brother Dallas, born in 1883, was a shoe factory leveler in 1900, and her sister Louie, born in 1887, was also a schoolteacher. Cape newspapers regularly noted the comings and goings of the Monk sisters, their father, and their brother Dallas into the late 1930s. 1 Ellen A. Penniman, Braintree, to Nellie F. Monk, Braintree, 15 November 1904, BCD 268:512. 2 Eugenia S. Dutton, Leominster, to Henry A. Penniman, Braintree, 4 November 1898, BCD 235:446. 3 See “Brewster,” Barnstable Patriot, 19 September 1904, 3, and ibid., 13 July 1907, 4; “East Brewster,” ibid., 10 June 1911, 2; Benjamin Crocker to Louie C Monk, Braintree, 25 August 1910, BCD 303:163. 4 “Brewster,” Yarmouth Register, 19 July 1913, 3; “Brewster,” Sandwich Observer, 11 July 1911. 5 From 1909 to 1921 Nellie Monk taught at the Froebel School in Newton, in 1923 she was the principal’s assistant there, and from 1929 to 1940 she taught at Newton’s Peirce school. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 132 CHARLES STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 BRE.492 Dallas Monk worked for the engineering firm Stone and Webster and traveled to construction jobs frequently; he lived with his sister Nellie both in Braintree and Brewster.6 Nellie Monk owned 132 Charles Street until she died, and in 1955 her married sister Louie sold the property to Oscar M. and Alberta B. Lambine of Walpole. The Lambine family was the owner of record in 2019.7 BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES American Ancestors.org. Massachusetts vital, tax, and probate records. Ancestry.com. Federal and state censuses, vital records, historic maps, and “Valuation List of the Town of Brewster 1890.” Barnstable Patriot Digital Newspaper Archive. Sturgis Library website, http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/APA/Sturgis/default.aspx#panel=home. Brewster Assessors’ Records, Brewster Town Clerk Archives and 1926 Town Report. Deyo, Simeon L. History of Barnstable County, Mass. New York: H. W. Blake Co., 1890. Freeman, Frederick. The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of Barnstable County. Boston: George C. Rand and Avery, 1858-62. Otis, Amos. Genealogical Notes on Barnstable Families. 2 vols. Barnstable, MA: Patriot Press, 1888. Sears, Henry J. Brewster Ship Masters. Yarmouthport, MA: C. W. Swift, 1906. Simpkins, John. “Topographical Description of Brewster.” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 10 (1809): 72-79. MAPS Walling. Henry Francis. Map of the Counties of Barnstable, Dukes & Nantucket, Massachusetts. Boston: 1858. Atlas of Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Boston: George H. Walker & Co., 1880. Atlas of Barnstable County Massachusetts. Boston: Walker Lithograph & Publishing Co., 1910. 6 Henry Monk died in 1934 and Dallas in 1937. See “Henry A. Monk Dies in Braintree,” Boston Globe, 10 March 1934, 5, and “Dallas P. Monk,” Hyannis Patriot, 25 February 1937, 3. 7 Louie C. Gillett, Montpelier VT, to Oscar M. and Alberta B. Lambine, Walpole,15 June 1955, BCD 911:506; Oscar M. Labmine to Oscar M. and Janna Lambine, trustees Oscar M. Lambine Trust, 27 January 1984, BCD 4008:283; Oscar M. Lambine, 132 Charles Street, to Janna Lambine, Portland OR, and Paul M. Lambine, Newport News VA, 2 December 1987, BCD 6078:187; Janna Lambine, Yarmouth Port, and Paul M. Lambine, Newport News VA, to Janna Lambine, trustee Janna LambineTrust, and Paul M. Lambine, BCD 19246:302; Paul M. Lambine, Newport News VA, to Paul M. and Shelia T. Lambine, trustees Paul M. Lambine and Sheila T. Lambine Living Trust, 21 November 2011, BCD 25869:36. The parcel is Lot 6 on “Plan of Land in Brewster, Massachusetts, Surveyed for Oscarr M. Labmine Trust,” 2 February 1984, BCP 380:6. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 132 CHARLES STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 BRE.492 FIGURES Plan of land of Oscar M. Lambine Trust,February 1984, BCP 380:6. PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2019) View from SE. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 132 CHARLES STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 4 BRE.492 View from south View NW from cottage.