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FORM B BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
View from south.
Locus Map (north at top)
Source: Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer.
Recorded by: Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson
Organization: Brewster Historical Commission
Date (month / year): June 2018
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
103-13 Harwich BRE.453 - 460
BRE.939
Town/City: Brewster
Place:(neighborhood or village):
East Brewster
Address:261 Linnell Landing Road
Historic Name: Linger Longer
Violet I. Taylor House
Uses:Present: summer resort
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: ca. 1913
Source:deeds, historic atlases
Style/Form: Shingle Style
Architect/Builder: unknown
Exterior Material:
Foundation: stone
Wall/Trim: wood shingles
Roof:asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Stone gateposts & stairs to beach, ca. 1913
7 cottages, late 20th century
1 playhouse, late 20th century
Major Alterations (with dates):
Window sash replaced
Condition:good
Moved: no yes Date:
Acreage:2.42 acres
Setting: The house is situated in a dense residential area
characterized by summer cottages and retirement homes
built in the mid-20th century.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
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 large two-story house with multiple hipped roofs known as Linger Longer was built in ca. 1913 as a summer house on Cape
Cod Bay; it was functioning as an inn by 1940. The land entrance is located on the south façade tucked under a deep porch on
its west side where the wall is beveled in three planes; a brick chimney is engaged to the far side. A second entrance is
contained in a service wing on the east side of the façade, The beach side is distinguished by a faceted bay window on the
northeast corner, and angled box bay in the center, and an octagonal turret with tall hipped roof on the northwest corner; upper-
story decks and exterior stairs have been added. An elaborate cobblestone stairway leads from the rear of the house to the
beach; it has been compromised by erosion of the shoreline. Large, square cobblestone posts demarcate driveway entrances on
Linnell Landing Road.
A one-story, hipped-roof cottage west of the house appears to be a former outbuilding associated with the house before it
became a summer resort. Five identical cottages with Garrison facades were built in the late 20th century in a compound behind
(south of) the house, and a sixth, smaller version functions as a playhouse. The seventh cottage is a larger multiple-unit
residence. The rental cottages are concentrated in what had been the yard for the house. Gateposts on the street in the
southeast corner of the property suggest that a barn was located in the area.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
The house at 261 Linnell Landing Road was built on land that had belonged in the 1850s to Orleans-born carpenter Robert
Snow and had earlier been part of the holdings of Nathan Crosby (1768-1838) and his wife Anna Pinkham Crosby (1767-1854)
and returned to the Crosby family after Snow died in 1857. In 1859 Nathan Crosby Jr. (1793-1882) sold a 3.50-acre property,
with a house and outbuilding to mariner Peter D. Cottell (1812-90).1 In 1894 Cottell’s daughter Mary deeded the property to her
brother Peter D. Cottell Jr.2
Like his father, Peter Dennis Cottell Jr. was a mariner. Born in 1841, he married Boston native Martha R. Haskell in 1865, and
he was a manufacturer of shoe finishing in Boston in the 1880s. His father died in 1890 (what became of his mother is not yet
known), and by 1894 Peter Jr. had returned to East Brewster. By 1900 he was listed as a day laborer living alone at his Linnell
Landing Road home; the 1901 directory lists him as a laborer living on “Linnell av” near the shore. In January and February 1911
Cottell and his brother-in-law Albert H. Cottell of South Yarmouth deeded the 261 Linnell Landing Road property to Violet I.
Taylor on the condition that Cottell be permitted lifetime occupancy; he died in March 1913 at the age of 78.3
Born about 1881, Violet I. Taylor was the adopted daughter of Boston attorney Jeremiah Joseph McCarthy, who had married
Violet’s widowed mother Annie B. Middleby Taylor in 1905. The Barnstable Patriot first described the McCarthys as summer
residents in February 1913, the year Annie Taylor McCarthy died in Watertown. In July 1913 the newspaper noted that Taylor,
Miss Alma E. Colby, and J. J. McCarthy of Watertown “are at ‘Linger Longer’ for the season,” the name they gave to the Linnell
1 Roland F. Crosby, Chicago IL, to Robert Snow, 9 March 1855, BCD 61:495; Benjamin Paine, guardian to Emma C. Snow and Robert F. Snow, minor children
of Robert Snow and by power of attorney from Cornelius V. Ford, guardian to Cornelia S Ford, Philadelphia, Joseph Snow of New York NY, Azariah Snow,
Orleans, Elizabeth Slade, Chelsea, and Mary Perkins, Chelsea, Freeman B. Myrick, Tewksbury, and Alpheus Hardy, Boston, guarding of Joshua M. Sears minor
child of Joshua Sears, to Nathan Crosby, 10 March 1859, BCD 69:346; Nathan Crosby to Peter D. Cottell, 24 December 1850 or 1859 [bet it’s 1859], BCD
321:396.
2 Mary P. Cottell, Yarmouth, to Peter D. Cottell, 7 November 1894, BCD 211:433.
3 Albert H. Cottell, South Yarmouth, to Violet I. Taylor, 19 January 1911, BCD 309:45; Peter D. Cottell to Violet I. Taylor, 18 February 1911, BCD 310:38. Six
months before his death Cottell nearly drowned and was rescued by East Brewster’s Maurice Lee. See “Brewster,” Barnstable Patriot, 30 September 1912, 4:
“Peter D. Cottell had a close call from drowning one day recently [12 September] when he attempted to board a boat from his skiff during a gale. The boat sank
from under him and he was left struggling in the water. Maurice Lee was called to the scene and swam out to Cottell and rescued him in an exhausted
condition.” Lee later received a bronze meal from the Massachusetts Humane Society for the rescue; see Brief Locals,” Barnstable Patriot, 9 December 1912, 2.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
Landing house.4 Jeremiah J. McCarthy died in Watertown in December 1917, and in June 1918 Taylor deeded her undivided
half of the property to Eleanor McCarthy “so that the said Eleanor McCarthy may have the whole of said premises.”5
Eleanor McCarthy is the “Miss Alma E. Colby” who had accompanied Taylor to East Brewster in 1913, and she was perhaps
shown as “Miss” because her first marriage, in 1906 to chauffer Edward Louis Colby, had by then ended. She was born in 1887
in Germany as Alma Eleanor Zacharias. When she first came to the United States is not yet known, but she may also have been
adopted by Jeremiah J. McCarthy.
In 1919 Eleanor McCarthy was living in East Brewster when she married Charles Sherman Gleason, a native of New Hampshire
then practicing medicine in Wareham. The 1920 census shows the couple in a Wareham household. Their son Charles Sherman
Gleason was born in Boston the same year, and in 1927 Charles Gleason died in Southport, Maine.6 The 1930 census shows
Eleanor McCarthy Gleason and her son in Wareham, and by 1940 they were still there; that year’s census states that Gleason
was a summer hotel innkeeper. The Gleasons evidently were operating a hotel at Linger Longer. In 1956 Eleanor sold the
property to Robert John and Emma Louise Delahanty, and a few months later the Delahantys transferred title to the property to
Captain Del Associates, which presently manage the inn and associated cottages built there as a summer resort named Linger
Longer by the Sea.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.
4 The 261 Linnell Landing Rd. property is now called Linger Longer by the Sea.
5 “Brewster,” Barnstable Patriot, 17 February 1913, 4; “East Brewster,” ibid., 21 July 1913, 3; “Brief Locals,” Hyannis Patriot, 24 Dec 1917, 2.
6 Charles Gleason’s death was reported in Hyannis Patriot, 25 August 1927, 4.
7 Eleanor Gleason, Wareham, to Robert John and Emma Louise Delahanty, 10 January 1956, BCD 932:51; Robert John and Emma Louise Delahanty to
Captain Del Associates, 14 May 1956, BCD 941:100. Barnstable Patriot, 20 December 1915, 4, repoted that Violet I. Taylor had petitioned the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts Land Court to register and confirm her title to the 261 Linnell Landing property, and a plan titled “Plan of Land Belonging to Violet L. Taylor, East
Brewster, Mass.,” 10 May 1913, on file in Land Court with case 5643, is cited in BCD 941:100. Taylor is not, however, listed by name in Barnstable County land
registration records, nor was the plan apparently filed.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
Aerial view of property from south showing house with seven cottages and one playhouse. Source: Google.com/maps.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 4
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
Site Plan. Source Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer
1 BRE.453 Linger Longer House, ca. 1913
2 BRE.454 Outbuilding/cottage, ca. 1913
3 BRE.455 Garrison Cottage, ca. 1960
4 BRE.456 Garrison Cottage, ca. 1960
5 BRE.457 Garrison Cottage, ca. 1960
6 BRE.458 Garrison Cottage, ca. 1960
7 BRE.459 Garrison Cottage, ca. 1960
8 BRE.460 Large Cottage, ca. 1960
9 BRE.939 Stone stairway, ca. 1913
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 5
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2018)
View from NE.
View from NW.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 6
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
View from SW.
View of cottage west of house from SE.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 261 Linnell Landing Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 7
BRE.453-460
BRE.939
View of four cottages looking SW from house.
View house, cottages and playhouse from SE.