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FORM A - AREA
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
View of south side of Capt. Dunbar Rd. looking west
from Ellis Landing Rd,
Assessor’s Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area
91 Harwich M BRE.432 - 448
Town/City: Brewster
Place (neighborhood or village):
East Brewster
Name of Area: Ellis Landing Cottage Colony
Present Use:single-family dwellings
Construction Dates or Period: ca 1918-40
Overall Condition: good
Major Intrusions and Alterations:
none
Acreage:2.10 acres
Recorded by: Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson
Organization: Brewster Historical Commission
Date:June 2018
Locus Map (north at top)
Source: Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
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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 Ellis Landing Cottage Colony occupies a two-acre tract bordered on the east by Ellis Landing Road and the north by
Cape Cod Bay; a public beach known as Ellis Landing and its parking lot adjoins the colony on the east. Cottages are
arranged in three tiers, staging back from the bay and front on two legs of Capt. Dunbar Road that intersect with Ellis
Landing Road. The first five cottages were built at 29, 35, 41, 47 and 51 Capt. Dunbar Road in 1919-20 (see historic
postcard view below). All were nearly identical story-and-a-half wood frame buildings that with one exception had gable
roofs aligned perpendicular to the road and the bay; the easternmost one (#51) was the outlier with its gable roof parallel
to the road. A living room, bedroom, kitchen and privy occupied the first floor plan and two bedrooms were located under
the roof. Of these, two remain at #35 and #47 (PHOTOS 9-12); the others were replaced after the Post WWII Era. A
second tier of six cottages was built along the southern lot line fronting on Capt. Dunbar Road and elevated enough by
topography and posts to view the bay. Five of these cottages are identical one-story, hipped-roof buildings with porches
tucked under the front (north) side of the plan (PHOTOS 1-6). The sixth cottage (#21), located in the southwest corner of
the plan, is a story-and-a-half, front-gable building smaller in size than those on the bay (PHOTO 7). A matching cottage is
extant at 27 Capt. Dunbar Road in the central tier of the plan, between the two legs of the road (PHOTO 8). What
probably were similar cottages at #23 and #24 were replaced with new buildings in 1985 and 1966, respectively. In ca.
1940, two one-story front-gable cottages were built in a Craftsman style at 189 and 195 Ellis Landing Road, essentially
building out the subdivision plan. According to a 1957 site plan, a cottage located of #24 has been lost (see below).
The colony contains little open space. The street frontages on the bay side are covered with scrub growth, and the high-
tide line of the bay approaches the rip-rap embankments below the cottages. Small yards in front of the upper tier are
largely used for parking now; the backs of the buildings are on the rear lot lines.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
The Ellis Landing Cottage Colony—sixteen cottages on Ellis Landing and Captain Dunbar roads—was initially developed
between 1910 and 1918. The area was shown as completely undeveloped on Barnstable County maps up to 1910. The
cottages were built by Gilbert Everett Ellis Sr. (1867-1944), some on an acre of beach land he had acquired from Sarah F.
Hopkins in 1903 and the rest very likely on land that the children and heirs of Thaddeus Ellis (1831-1913) had deeded to
their brother Gilbert in 1918, roughly five years after their father died. The first four cottages, almost certainly built by the
summer of 1918, were on part of the former Hopkins land, and in 1915 Ellis donated the rest of that beach land to the
town of Brewster for a public landing.1
Thaddeus Ellis had been a master mariner and later in life a farmer and weir fisherman.2 Son Gilbert E., the fifth of his six
children, was born in 1867. Gilbert began his career as a store clerk when he was fourteen, if not when he was younger,
and at the time of his marriage in 1887, to Lydia F. Cahoon of Brewster, he worked as a salesman. He was later a
cranberry and asparagus grower and later still a realtor. In addition, with his father and on his own, Gilbert Ellis owned and
operated a weir fishery. The 1900 census shows Ellis as a fisherman; the 1910 census shows him more specifically as a
weir fisherman. He was among a declining number of Cape fishermen in what was termed the “shore net and pound
1 Sarah F. Hopkins to Gilbert E. Ellis, 13 November 1903, BCD 265:262; Julia A. Ellis, New Bedford; Angie M. Smith, Bridgewater; Thadeus F. Ellis and
Edwin P. Ellis, both Orleans, to Gilbert E. Ellis, 27 November 1918, BCD 365:308. “Brewster,” Barnstable Patriot, 8 November 1915, 4, reported that
Ellis had given the town land at the foot of “old Mill Road,” now Ellis Landing Road, “to be called Ellis Landing,” but the deed executing the transfer was
not recorded until 1926. See Gilbert E. Ellis to Town of Brewster, 12 July 1926, 437:545. Ellis Landing Road was originally called Old Mill Road because
the Higgins windmill, since moved to Drummer Boy Park in Brewster, once stood at the northwest corner of the road and Main Street.
2 “East Brewster: Death of Capt. Thaddeus Ellis,” Barnstable Patriot, 17 March 1913, 3. Thaddeus and his first wife Caroline J. Norway (1833-1901) had
six children—Thaddeus F., Edwin P., William Warren, Julia A., Gilbert Everett, and Angie B.—between 1857 and 1871. William had died in 1884 at the
age of 23, and in late November 1918 the four other Ellis children deeded eighteen parcels of East Brewster, South Brewster, and Orleans to their
brother. The first two parcels described in the deed involved seven acres of cleared and cranberry land, and from the description of abutters they may
have been the site of these cottages.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
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fishery,” which used large nets attached to a wood framework extending from the shore outward to catch such inshore
schooling fish as herring and menhaden, as well as flounder, bluefish, and occasionally such larger fish as sturgeon and
“horse mackerel,” or tuna.3 Like other weir fisherman, Ellis sold the smaller fish as bait to the offshore fishing industry, and
other species caught in the nets were sold to urban fresh-fish markets after rail lines reached the Cape in the 1870s. In
1914 the town of Brewster granted Ellis a permit to build six fish pounds in its coastal waters, and by 1920 Ellis was one of
three Brewster men who ran a pound fishery; he employed seven men, among the most of any of the 43 pound fisheries
in the state, and caught $3100 of fish.4
Once a prosperous industry on Cape Cod, the pound fishery began to decline after World War I, and by that time Ellis
may have been preparing for its demise when he began to build, rent, and maintain cottages for the summer tourist trade.
He may have been inspired by the development of the summer cottage colony Brewster Park, created between1906 and
1910 in his native town. According to Beatrice Hayes Hunt, whose family rented Ellis’s Mill Road Cottage (on the site of
51 Captain Dunbar Road) from 1919 to 1929, that cottage, closest to Ellis Landing Road of the five beachfront cottages,
was new in 1919. “It turned out,” Hunt later wrote, “that Mr. Ellis owned four cottages and a large piece of land. When he
received a summer reservation from our family, that made five rental opportunities—so he built a fifth cottage. It was
barely finished by the time of our arrival. There were still a few shavings in corners and not yet one hook or nail on which
to hang belongings.”5 Hunt identified the other four cottages as Brewster Bars (47 Captain Dunbar Road), Channel View
(41 Captain Dunbar Road), Sea Breeze (35 Captain Dunbar Road), and Bay Side (29 Captain Dunbar Road), which, with
Mill Road, were the names ascribed to the five beachfront cottages on a 1957 plan of the cottage colony.6
The Hayes family, from the Boston suburb of Arlington, made their first trip to the Ellis Landing cottage in 1919 by train, a
five-hour ride from Boston. Gilbert Ellis met them at the East Brewster train station, which to Hunt “seemed to be out in the
woods,” and drove them in his car to the cottage; G. Carleton Clark followed in a horse-drawn wagon with the family’s
luggage.7 Mill Road Cottage, she noted, was the only one of the five whose ridgepole went east to west; the other four
had their gable ends to the beach. The cottages all had one front room that served as a living and dining room, a front
first-floor bedroom, a kitchen at the rear, and a stairway to a second floor where two bedrooms were separated by a wall
that reached only to the point where the outer walls joined the roof. Mill Road Cottage had a two-hole privy in the back hall
near the kitchen, while the four earlier cottages had indoor privies accessible only from their rear porches. Ellis had built in
a cabinet in the kitchen and a shelf for a three-burner kerosene stove; beneath this shelf was an oven that could be set
over two of the stove burners. There was also a small tank for kerosene in the kitchen, set in a bracket on the stove, and
this tank was filled from a five-gallon can in the back hall, where there was also an ice box. Hunt recalled that it was clear
from the old paint and other marks on the ceiling boards upstairs that Ellis had reused lumber from other buildings for the
cottages:
The cottage was sturdy, though quickly built. The floor boards on the second floor had not been fitted with
great precision. We soon learned either not to put food on the table when anyone was upstairs, or, if it
must be set before the meal, to keep it covered—unless one of group was partial to the taste of sand and
grit in every bite! We joked about the cracks, and the little house became known privately as “the little
cracked cottage.”8
Hunt recalled that Ellis had arranged for the Ellis Landing cottagers to receive milk from the Crocker farm on Main Street,
run by Watson B. Crocker, and that Faith LaFort and her siblings used to walk with that milk, as well as with eggs from the
LaFort family farm, down Ellis Landing Road to the cottages. An ice man she identified as Ralph Allen came twice a week,
as did an employee from the W. W. Knowles store in Brewster; he would take orders in the morning and deliver them that
3 On Ellis’s weir fishery, see, for example, “East Brewster,” Sandwich Observer, 4 July 1911, 3; “Brief Locals,” Barnstable Patriot, 25 May 1914, 2.
4 On the pound fishery, see Matthew McKenzie, Clearing the Coastline: The Nineteenth-Century Ecological & Cultural Transformation of Cape Cod
(Hanover, NH, and London: University Press of New England, 2010), especially 11-12, 33, 91, 96, 138-39, 164, 172; Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of the
Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners For the Year 1914 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1915), 100; and “Returns from the Shore Net and Pound
Fisheries for the Year 1920,” Annual Report of the Division of Fisheries and Game for the Year Ending November 30, 1920 (Boston: Wright & Potter
Printing Co., 1921), 151-58.
5 Bernice Hayes Hunt, A While Ago in Brewster (North Eastham, MA: Byte Size Graphics, 1994), 11.
6 See “Plan of Land in Brewster as Surveyed for Heirs of Gilbert E. Ellis,” 20 January 1957, BCP 200:75.
7 Hunt, A While Ago in Brewster, 9-10, 80
8 Ibid., 21-24.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
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afternoon. A man she identified only as “Mr. Taylor” regularly peddled fresh vegetables from a basket among the
cottagers, and a butcher came twice a week. The summer people at Ellis Landing got fish from the weirs that Gilbert Ellis
and Warren Burgess maintained at Ellis Landing. The cottagers were told to dispose of anything they could not burn by
digging “garbage holes” in the grass across Ellis Landing Road.9
Hunt’s father, J. Howard Hunt, was part of the family firm Hayes Pump and Machinery Company of Boston, which had
business with the owners of fish-freezer plants in Provincetown and other coastal towns, and he probably came to know
about Brewster from business trips, which he sometimes combined with vacation. Otherwise Hayes left from the East
Brewster rail depot early every Monday morning and returned on Friday evenings. By contrast John M. Gallagher, who
occupied the Brewster Bars Cottage with his family in 1919, taught at the High School of Commerce in Boston and so
could stay for the summer.10
The five rental cottages were evidently in such demand that Gilbert Ellis built an additional eleven cottages on land just
south of them. Hunt described the development of this tract:
Over the course of the next several years, Mr. Ellis built several more cottages. His property was quite
large. He had, however, used all his waterfront footage so he set the next three cottages in a diagonal
line behind first row. They too, were two-story cottages, quite similar to most of the others, though, like the
original five, each had a few differences in lay-out and construction. They all contained the same general
plan; living/dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, “bath”, and of course, had their own names: Bayberry,
Overlook and Wild Rose. During this same time, Mr. Ellis built a [sic] other row of cottages. They also ran
parallel to the beach but were several house-lots back from the row on the shore.11
Wild Rose and Overlook are now 23 and 27 Captain Dunbar Road, respectively; deeds confirm that Bayberry, though not
named on the 1957 plan, is 21 Captain Dunbar Road. Assessors’ records for 1926 taxed Elis on, among other property,
eight cottages, which probably indicates that not only the five beachfront cottages but the three at 21, 23, and 27 Captain
Dunbar Road were built by that year. The second row Hunt described were the six cottages now numbered 5, 9, 11, 15,
17, and 21 Captain Dunbar Road and may have been built by 1929. Ellis built three other cottages that Hunt did not
mention—Remembrance (189 Ellis Landing Road), Souvenir (195 Ellis Landing Road), and an unnamed cottage at 24
Captain Dunbar Road, which stands just west of the two Ellis Landing Road cottages and just across from and east of 23
and 27 Captain Dunbar Road.
Gilbert Ellis built these cottages to rent, and most of them remained in his family for decades. In 1925, however, Ellis did
sell three lots and very likely built the houses on them for their new owners. In February 1925 he sold the lot on which 11
Captain Dunbar Road was built to Agnes L. Brooks of Pittsfield.12 The deed makes clear that no house existed on the lot
and stipulated that “all houses or buildings are to be built in line with other on the road or street so as not to obstruct the
view of others except by special agreement of the abutters.” Agnes L. Stone Brooks was the mother of Faythe (sometimes
Faith) Akers, who married Gilbert Everett Ellis Jr. (called Everett) in 1912. Agnes Brooks, a Pittsfield native, had first
married butcher George Akers in 1889, but he died the next year of tuberculosis; their daughter Faythe was born that
year. In 1909 Agnes Stone Akers married traveling paper salesman Reuben J. Brooks in Pittsfield, and the Brookses kept
their regular home in Pittsfield until about 1940, when they moved to East Brewster to live with daughter Faythe, by then
divorced, and her three youngest children. Reuben Brooks died in 1943, and the next year his widow Agnes sold 11
Captain Dunbar Road to the sisters Anne V. and Alice H. Hillquist of Medford.13 The sisters were born in Boston in 1910
and 1909, respectively, and were the daughters of Swedish immigrant machinist John Frederick Hillquist, who had come
to Boston from Sweden in 1906, and his wife Hannah Erika Ostling, who had come from Sweden to the United States in
1904. By 1930 daughter Alice was working as a secretary for a wool company and by 1940 was a registrar for an
unnamed association; she lived with her parents in Medford through at least 1940. Anna Hilquist deeded her share of the
9 Ibid., 13-14, 38, 42, 53.
10 Ibid., 11-12, 16. Hunt’s description of this family has been corroborated through censuses and directories, which list Gallagher as a junior master at
the High School of Commerce from at least 1923 through 1943.
11 Ibid., 91-92.
12 Gilbert E. Ellis Sr. to Agnes L. Brooks, Pittsfield, 4 February 1925, BCD 616:464.
13 Agnes L. Brooks, Pittsfield, to Anne V. Hillquist and Alice H. Hillquist, Medford, 16 August 1944, BCD 617:32.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
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11 Captain Dunbar Road property to her sister in 1955, and in 1970 Alice Hillquist sold it to Ralph E. and Mary E. Felice of
Cross River, New York, whose family remained owners of the cottage and its 2396-square-foot lot in 2018.14
In October 1925 Ellis sold two adjacent lots just west of 11 Captain Dunbar Road to Edna M. Dodge with the same
proviso about building in line with other cottages along its stretch of road.15 Born in Gardiner, Maine, in 1869, Edna M.
Stevens Dodge had divorced her husband Herbert Everd Dodge, a tea and coffee merchant, by 1930 and was renting in
the household of Gilbert Ellis Sr. in East Brewster. The 1940 census enumerates her in a household by herself next to that
of the Gilbert Ellis Jr. family on Main Street. In 1944 she sold the Arbutus and Rainbow cottages and their lots at 15 and
17 Captain Dunbar Road to Gilbert E. Ellis Jr. and his second wife Clara M. Ellis, and those cottages thus returned to Ellis
family ownership.16
Gilbert Ellis Sr. developed other cottage colonies and subdivisions: in 1924 he bought four acres of land in South Eastham
and in April 1925 platted a subdivision along what is now Ellis Road in that town. In 1936 he acquired more than 29 acres
and six summer cottages just south and west of the Ellis Landing cottages from a commissioner of the Barnstable County
Probate Court and platted a 39-lot subdivision and two roads, Gilbert and Robert Road extending west through the
development from Ellis Landing Road.17 The six existing summer cottages were very likely the ones built along the shore
just west of the Captain Dunbar group by Willard Hamblin.18
As his father had, Gilbert Ellis owned a great deal of real property in Brewster and other Cape towns, and he rented the
other thirteen Ellis Landing cottages until he died in 1944. In his will, written a decade earlier, Ellis left eight of these
cottages and their lots to this four grandchildren—Overlook and Bay Side (27 and 29 Captain Dunbar Road, respectively)
to Catherine M. Ellis (born 1914), Sea Breeze and Channel View (25 and 41 Captain Dunbar Road) to Robert Everett Ellis
(born 1919), Brewster Bars and Mill Road (47 and 51 Captain Dunbar Road) to Theodore Brooks Ellis (born 1924), and
Wild Rose and Bayberry (21 and 23 Captain Dunbar Road) to Richard Akers Ellis (born 1928). To son Everett he left his
East Brewster homestead, land and houses in Orleans and North Truro, and “all my unoccupied land at Ellis Landing. It is
my desire that the homestead and the Ellis Landing land be kept in the family so long as practical.”19 In 1938 Ellis deeded
to his daughter-in-law Faythe Akers Elis four lots, including 189 and 195 Ellis Landing Road with Remembrance and
Souvenir cottages and 5 and 9 Captain Dunbar Road, with the Atlantic and Bellevue cottages.20
In January 1957, these heirs prepared a plan of the cottage colony that showed the sixteen cottages, a garage/furnace
building, two other buildings, the names and owners of named cottages, and the dimensions of each lot. In August of the
same year the Ellis grandchildren and daughter-in-law deeded their part of the cottage colony they owned to Gertrude B.
Millard of East Orleans. excepting only 11 Captain Dunbar Road, still owned by Alice Hillquist, and over the next few
months Millard executed separate deeds for the properties Gilbert Ellis left to each of them.21
14 Anne V. Hillquist, Medford, to Alice H. Hillquist, Medford, 14 April 1955, BCD 905:181; Alice E. Hillquist, Medford, to Ralph E. and Mary E. Felice,
Cross River NY, 1 June 1970, BCD 1474:106; Gail A. Felice, Paw Paw WV; Donna J. Bundock fka Donna J. Felice, Fort Worth TX; Gregg R. Felice,
Pawling NY; Jill A. Felice, La Villita NM, to Dona J. Bundock and Gail A. Felice, 27 November 2012, BCD 26939:142.
15 Gilbert E. Ellis to Edna M. Dodge, 1 October 1925, BCD 426:515.
16 Edna M. Dodge to Gilbert E. Ellis Jr. and Clara M. Ellis, 7 Juliy 1944, BCD 618:268.
17 John H. Paine, Commissioner, to Gilbert E. Ellis, 11 June 1936, BCD 519:398; “Ellis Landing Park Property of Gilbert E. Ellis, East Brewster, Cape
Cod Mass,” August 1936, BCP 57:59.
18 Hunt, A While Ago in Brewster, 92: “At the same time all of this building was going on, the man who owned the beach-front property to the west, Mr.
Hamblin, whose permanent home was on Main Street at the easterly corner of Mill Road, built two very small bungalow cottages. These little houses
must have proved to be a fine investment, for four more identical cottages, though larger in dimension, were built along the beach front to the west.” The
Ellis and the Hamblin cottages are shown on a postcard titled “Cottages at East Brewster, Cape Cod, Mass.” (the Hamblin cottages at extreme left) in
Brewster Historical Society, Images of America: Brewster (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2002), 62. The six Hamblin cottages are shown on an
Ellis Landing postcard from the 1930s published in George H. Boyd III, Brewster: The Way We Were: Historic Post Cards of Brewster, Massachusetts
(Brewster: by the author, 2016), 45.
19 Will of Gilbert E. Ellis, 5 January 1934, photocopy courtesy Faythe Ellis.
20 Gilbert E. Ellis Sr. to Faythe A. Ellis, 2 March 1938, BCD 537:182.
21 Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis; Richard E. and Catherine M. Hart; Robert E. and Ruth D. Ellis; Richard A Ellis, Providence RI; and Faythe A. Ellis to
Gertrude B. Millard, Orleans, 31 August 1957, BCD 1025:376; Gertrude B. Millard, Orleans, to Richard A. Ellis, Providence RI, 27 November 1957, BCD
1025:380; Gertrude B. Millard to Faythe A. Ellis, 27 November 1957, BCD 1025:387; Gertrude B. Millard, Orleans, to Richard E. and Catherine M. Hart,
6 December 1957, BCD 1025:378 and 1025:387; Gertrude B. Millard, Orleans, to Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis, BCD 1025:383; and Gertrude B.
Millard, Orleans, to Robert E. and Ruth D. Ellis, 24 December 1957, BCD 1025:381. See “Plan of Land in Brewster as Surveyed for Heirs of Gilbert E.
Ellis,” 20 January 1957, BCP 200:75.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
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After these deeds and the plan were recorded, the Ellis heirs began to sell the cottages to others. Everett Ellis and his
second wife Clara sold 15 and 17 Captain Dunbar Road to Everett’s son Theodore and his wife Jean in 1951; they in turn
sold the two cottages and their lot to Frederick J. Reis Jr. and his wife Barbara in 1966.22 Bayside Cottage at 29 Captain
Dunbar Road was replaced about 1958 by another cottage, which Everett Ellis sold in 1990.23 In 1967 Catherine M. Ellis,
by then married to Richard E. Hart, sold 21, 23, and 27 Captain Dunbar Road to Francis T. and Theresa C. Laurin, from
Pittsfield, and in 1998 Hart sold 24 Captain Dunbar Road, referred to in the deed as the “Sunrise/Sanderlin duplex and
beach house at Ellis Landing,” to the Laurins.24 in 1975 Ruth and Robert Elis sold Channel View cottage and its lot at 41
Captain Dunbar to their son and daughter-in-law John R. and Susan W. Ellis, who replaced the original cottage and
owned the property in 2018. In 1998 the widowed Ruth D. Ellis sold 35 Captain Dunbar Road to Scott and Ann
Svenningsen, who owned it only briefly.25
Theodore and Jean Ellis owned Brewster Bars Cottage at 47 Captain Dunbar Road, the least altered of the original four
cottages, until 1978, when they sold it to George and Laura W. Wallis of Lexington. That property was placed in trust in
1989 and remained in the Wallis family as of 2018.26 They sold 51 Captain Dunbar Road with its Mill Road cottage in
1977. The cottage the Hayes family occupied in 1919 must have been taken down by 1967, as it is not shown on the
revised plan of the cottage colony; the house now at that address appears to have been built shortly after the plan was
recorded.27 In 1957 Faythe A. Ellis sold 5 Captain Dunbar Road to Frank and Marion Abey to Katonah, New York; in 1966
she sold 9 Captain Dunbar to Richard H. and Mary J. Kellogg, also from Katonah.28 In 1977 she deeded 189 and 195 Ellis
Landing Road to her brother-in-law Robert Ellis and his wife Ruth, who sold the property in 1981 and retained ownership
of 195 Ellis Landing Road.29
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.
Boyd, George H. III. Brewster: The Way We Were: Historic Post Cards of Brewster, Massachusetts. Brewster: by the
author, 2016.
Brewster Assessors’ Records, Brewster Town Clerk Archives and 1926 Town Report.
Brewster Historical Society. Images of America: Brewster. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2002.
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.
Hunt, Bernice Hayes. A While Ago in Brewster. North Eastham, MA: Byte Size Graphics, 1994.
22 Gilbert E. Ellis Jr. and Clara M. Ellis to Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis, 21 February 1951, BCD 777:185; Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis to Frederick J.
Reis Jr. and Barbara M. Reis, 24 June 1966, BCD 1339:645.
23 Gilbert E. Ellis to Keith Ash, trustee 29 Bayside Trust, Stoughton, 10 August 1990, BCD 7257:55.
24 Richard E. and Catherine M. Hart to Francis T. and Theresa C. Laurin, 14 December 1967, BCD 1387:268; Catherine M. Hart, trustee Catherine M.
Hart Revocable Trust, to Francis T. and Theresa Laurin, 9 July 1998, BCD 11564:149. The property is shown as Lot C on “Plan of Land in Brewster,
Massachusetts, as Surveyed and Prepared for Catherine M. Hart,” 3 December 1982, BPC 370:72.
25 Robert E. and Ruth D. Ellis to John R. and Susan W. Ellis, Centerville, 6 December 1975, BCD 2287:342; Ruth D. Ellis, Pompano Beach FL, to Scott
A. and Ann E. Svenningsen, 23 February 1998, BCD 11264:43; Scott A. and Ann E. Svenningsen, 2601 Main St Brewster, to Mark J. Gerard, Wellington
FL, 15 May 1998, BCD 11431:270.
26 Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis to George and Laura W. Wallis, Lexington, 23 January 1978, BCD 2652:254; George and Laura W. Wallis, Lexington,
to George Wallis, grantor-trustee George Wallis Trust, 15 November 1989, BCD 6970:349; George Wallis, Lexington, trustee George Wallis Residence
Trust II (2007), to Peter W. Wallis, Concord, 18 May 2010, BCD 24580:219.
27 Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis to Felipe A. Querimit Jr. and Donna J. Querimit, Parsippany NYT, 30 June 1977, BCD 2538:167. See “Plan of Land in
Brewster as Surveyed for Heirs of Gilbert E. Ellis,” redrawn by F. T. Laurin, 10 October 1967, BCP 240:85.
28 Faythe A. Ellis to Frank and Marion K. Abey, Katonah NY, 16 April 1966, BCD 1332:934; Faythe A. Ellis to Richard H. and Mary J. Kellogg, Katonah
NY, 16 April 1966, BCD 1332:767.
29 Faythe A. Ellis to Robert E. and Ruth D. Ellis, 10 March 1977, BCD 2480:36; Robert E. and Ruth D. Ellis to Thomas P. and Arlene Manzelli,
Watertown, 7 July 1981, BCD 3326:187; Faythe A. Ellis to Theodore B. and Jean M. Ellis, 10 march 1977, BCD 2480:37.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
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McKenzie, Matthew. Clearing the Coastline: The Nineteenth-Century Ecological & Cultural Transformation of Cape Cod.
Hanover, NH, and London: University Press of New England, 2010.
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.
MHC No. Parcel
No.
St.
No.
Street Name Historic Name Const.
Date
Area
(sq. ft.)
Style Photo
No.
BRE.432 91-30-0 5 Capt. Dunbar Rd Atlantic Cottage 1925 2700 none 1,6
BRE.433 91-31-0 9 Capt. Dunbar Rd Bellevue Cottage 1925 2280 none 2,6
BRE.434 91-32-0 11 Capt. Dunbar Rd Agnes L. Brooks Cottage 1925 2396 none 3,6
BRE.435 91-33-830 15 Capt. Dunbar Rd Arbutus Cottage 1925 2000+ none 4,6
BRE.436 91-33-831 17 Capt. Dunbar Rd Rainbow Cottage 1925 2000+ none 5,6
BRE.437 91-34-0 21 Capt. Dunbar Rd Bayberry Cottage 1926 2310 none 7
BRE.438 91-35-0 23 Capt. Dunbar Rd Wild Rose Cottage (2nd) 1985 3300 none 14
BRE.439 91-47-0 24 Capt. Dunbar Rd Sunrise Cottage (2nd) 1966 9778 none 14
BRE.450 91-36-0 27 Capt. Dunbar Rd Overlook Cottage 1926 3300 none 2
BRE.451 91-37-0 29 Capt. Dunbar Rd Bay Side Cottage (2nd) 1958 10,000 none 14
BRE.452 91-38-0 35 Capt. Dunbar Rd Sea Breeze Cottage 1920 11,320 none 9,10
BRE.453 91-39-0 41 Capt. Dunbar Rd Channel View Cottage (2nd) 1975 7670 none 14
BRE.454 91-40-0 47 Capt. Dunbar Rd Brewster Bars Cottage 1920 7013 none 11,12
BRE.455 91-41-0 51 Capt. Dunbar Rd Mill Road Cottage (2nd) 1968 4360 none 14
BRE.456 91-48-0 189 Ellis Landing Rd Remembrance Cottage 1940 3318 Craftsman 13
BRE.457 91-49-0 195 Ellis Landing Rd Souvenir Cottage 1940 3486 Craftsman 13
BRE.458 91-50-0 Ellis Landing Rd Vacant lot --- 998 N/A 14
View of cottages on north side of Capt. Dunbar Rd. from beach (NE). Source: George H. Boyd III,
Historic Post Cards of Brewster, Massachusetts (2016).
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 7
M BRE.432 - 448
Site plan, 1957. Barnstable County Plans, 200:75.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 8
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTOGRAPHS (all photos by Neil Larson, 2018)
PHOTO 1: View of 5 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
PHOTO 2: View of 9 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 9
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 3: View of 11 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
PHOTO 4: View of 15 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 10
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 5: View of 17 Capt. Dunbar Rd, from east.
PHOTO 6: View of 5, 9, 11, 15 & 17 Capt. Dunbar Rd., left to right. from west.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 11
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 7: View of 21 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
PHOTO 8: View of 27 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from NE.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 12
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 9: View of 35 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from east.
PHOTO 10: View of 35 Capt. Dunbar Rd. from NE.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 13
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 11: View of 47 Capt. Dunbar Rd., from SW.
PHOTO 12: View of 47 Capt. Dunbar Rd., from NE.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 14
M BRE.432 - 448
PHOTO 13: View on the west side of Ellis Landing Road showing 5 Capt. Dunbar Rd. and 189 & 195
Ellis Landing Rd., left to right. Captured from Google.com/maps.
PHOTO 14: View of colony from south. Source: Google.com/maps.
INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER ELLIS LANDING COTTAGE COLONY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 15
M BRE.432 - 448
[Delete this page if no Criteria Statement is prepared]
National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form
Check all that apply:
Individually eligible Eligible only in a historic district
Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district
Criteria: A B C D
Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G
Statement of Significance by_____Neil Larson___________________________________
The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.
The Ellis Landing Cottage Colony appears to be eligible for the National Register under Criteria A and C as a
distinctive surviving example of a bayside development of rental summer cottages built in the period between the
World Wars to accommodate summer tourists arriving by train from Boston and its suburbs. Affordable cottage
developments such as this helped sustain the local economy just as the fishing industry was going into decline.
Essentially intact in plan and design, with a few new cottages being built after the Second World War, the Ellis
Landing Cottage Colony is a rare example of a vanishing mode of local recreational development. Created by
Gilbert Ellis, a retired fisherman, on land he inherited, the colony has well-established links to one of Cape Cod’s
old families and represents Brewster’s evolving landscape in the 20th century. Containing two types of cottages
built in the 1920s, the colony preserves valuable architectural evidence of the character of the experiences of
summer tourists in the early 20th century.