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FORM B BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
View from SW.
Locus Map (north at top)
Source: Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer.
Recorded by: Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson
Organization: Brewster Historical Commission
Date (month / year): December 2018
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
93-46-0 Harwich D BRE.223
Town/City: Brewster
Place:(neighborhood or village):
South Brewster
Address:1795 Long Pond Road
Historic Name: Ezekiel & Polly Cahoon House
Uses:Present: single-family residence
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: ca. 1824
Source:deeds, historic atlases, vital records
Style/Form: Federal / two-thirds cape
Architect/Builder: unknown
Exterior Material:
Foundation: stone
Wall/Trim: wood shingles / wood
Roof:asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
barn
shop
Major Alterations (with dates):
front porch added
shed dormer added
Condition:good
Moved: no yes Date:
Acreage: 2.245
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 1795 LONG POND ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
D BRE.223
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 Ezekiel and Polly Cahoon House, built ca. 1824, appears to have originated with a one-story, two-thirds cape plan and an
internal chimney now contained in the easterly side of the building. The three-bay façade with an entrance and two windows was
later expanded with the addition of rooms on the westerly side fronted by two windows to create a balanced five-bay, center-
entrance façade. Without a physical inspection of interior features, it is impossible to determine when this section was
constructed, but it probably was before 1880. The absence of a visible chimney, if that can be trusted, suggests that the addition
was made when stoves replaced hearths for heating. A one-story wing was attached to the westerly side of the rear of the house
before the front section was enlarged; it likely was an original feature. Like many historic houses on the Cape, the house
became a summer residence for an urban family in the early 20th century. At that time, it was modernized and “cottage-ized” to
conform to picturesque notions of rural life. Windows were replaced on the gable ends and external chimneys for interior
fireplaces erected on the westerly sides of the house and kitchen wing. A large shed dormer was added to the front of the house
to improve living space in the upper story; gabled dormers were added to both sides of the rear wing. The front entrance was
aggrandized with a “Colonial” porch.
A 19th-century small wood frame, gable-roof barn east of the house could be as early as the construction date of the house. If an
interior examination determines as much, it could be considered a rare and significant surviving component of the property. A
smaller shop building closer to the house appears to be of 20th-century construction. The buildings are sited in the front of an
irregularly shaped parcel set back from the highway and screened by a border of thick vegetation. A driveway enters a wide,
open area between the house and barn. The rear of the parcel is cultivated with gardens.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
In early March 1824, the heirs and attorney for the late Benjamin Bangs of Harwich sold three tracts totaling 21 acres to the
brothers Seth and Ezekiel Cahoon for $175.1 The sons of Seth Cahoon (1753-1851) and Sarah Eldridge Cahoon (born 1764),
the brothers were born in Harwich, and in that town in 1822 Ezekiel Cahoon, born in 1799, married Polly Baker. The 1830
census lists him in this neighborhood in a household of five, and thereafter the property numbered 1795 Long Pond Road is
associated with Ezekiel. The enumeration order of the 1840 census also lists him and his family in this neighborhood, and in
1850 Ezekiel Cahoon was enumerated in the census just before Prince Atkins, who lived in the house just to the south (1831
Long Pond Rd.). In that year Cahoon was a 51-year-old farmer with $678 in real property living with his wife Polly and children
Marietta, Alonzo, Benjamin F., Polly T., Freeman D., and Emma B., born in Brewster between 1834 and 1847; son Ellery, born in
1830, was listed in the household but was then at sea. Cahoon was also the tax collector for Brewster in 1847 and 1848.2 Eldest
son Ezekiel Jr. had married in 1847 and was a mariner and fisherman living in his own household.
The 1858 Barnstable County atlas plate for Brewster attaches the name “E. Cahoon” to the house. In 1860 Cahoon is credited
with $800 in real estate and lived with his wife and their children Polly, Freeman, Emma, and Sarah, the last born in 1851;
Freeman was sixteen years old and a mariner. By 1870 Cahoon and his wife Polly were in the house with two teenagers, one of
them, 14-year-old Frank Cahoon, possibly a grandson.
Ezekiel Cahoon died on 22 September 1877 of typhoid, and his wife died just three days later of the same illness. In 1880 their
children and heirs sold the house and 15 acres to Alva H. Black for $150.3 Born in Brewster in 1834, Alvah Black was the son of
Yarmouth-born African American farmer Nathan Black and his wife Elizabeth Harris, also African American, of Brewster. Black
1 Jonathan F. Bangs, individually and as attorney for heirs Benjamin Bangs, late of Harwich, to Seth Cahoon and Ezekiel Cahoon, 5 March
1824, BCD 999012:185 (Brewster town book 1).
2 See, for example, “Town Meetings,” Barnstable Patriot, 17 February 1847, 2; 5 April 1848, 3; 12 April 1848, 3
3 Elnora Sears, Louisa Parker, Nellie F. Cahoon, Ella Eldridge, Herbert E. Cahoon, Edgar F. Cahoon, Florence C. Cahoon, Lillie Cahoon, all
Brewster; Samuel Joseph, Mary T. Small, Alonzo F. Cahoon, Harwich; Elery C. Cahoon, Brockton; Charles Cahoon, Lynn, to Alva H. Black, 28
November 1880, BCD 147:221.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1795 LONG POND ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
D BRE.223
was a 19-year-old fisherman when he married Ann Walker, born in either Liverpool or Ireland, in 1860. In 1880 the couple was
living in this Long Pond Road house, and the 1890 Brewster tax records credit Black with a one-acre homestead lot, a house, a
barn, a horse, and a cow. Black died of liver disease on 4 December 1896, just three days after his brother Timothy H. Black, a
harpooner, died and on the same day as Timothy’s daughter Olive died of consumption. The 1900 census lists Annie Black
alone in the house, and the 1910 map attaches her name to it.
Despite the fact that Alvah Black’s wife is always listed as Ann or Annie in the censuses, by 1904 a Sarah J. Larkin, married to
Boston merchant and Harwich native John W. Larkin, was owner of 1795 Long Pond Road and identified the property as
“formerly my homestead lot, being the same as my first husband Alvah Black bought of heirs of Ezekiel Cahoon” in 1880. No
marriage other than to Ann Walker is recorded for Alvah Black in Massachusetts records.4 The Larkins sold the property to Delia
Shaughnessy Leve, the widow of German immigrant tailor Morris Leve of Allston; Leve had died after being struck by an
automobile in September 1901. In 1914 in New York City Leve married again, to George Nimmo, a New Jersey native who
worked as a theater carpenter. Delia Nimmo and her daughter Elsie, born in Boston in 1889, both worked in theater wardrobe
departments. The Nimmos used the house as a summer home. By the early 1940s the Nimmos had moved to Boston, and in
1945 Delia Nimmo sold 1795 Long Pond Road to William W. and Muriel F. Benjamin of Braintree.5 Three years later, the
Benjamins sold the property, along with four other parcels they had acquired (totaling 14.5 acres), to Katherine J. Lengyel.6 She
was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and married the Czech immigrant factory worker George Joseph Lengyel in 1913; they
and their two children lived in Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Lengyel family owned 1795 Long Pond Road until
1983, when they sold it to David L. Westerling of Westminster. Westerling subdivided the acreage and sold a lot with the 1795
Long Pond Road house on it to James Robert and Arlene Rose Granlund of East Orleans in 1983.7 The Lengyels sold 1795
Long Pond Road to Raphael Alatville of Harwich in 1996, and in 2018 it remained in trust in the Altavilla family.8
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 John W. Larkin, Boston, to Delia Leve, Boston, 9 June 1904, BCD 268:113. Despite the reference in the deed to “my husband,” only John W.
Larkin is shown as grantor.
5 John W. Larkin, Boston, to Delia Leve, Boston, 9 June 1904, BCD 268:113; Delia Nimmo, Boston, to William W. and Muriel F. Benjamin,
Braintree, 29 March 1945, BCD 625:374.
6 William W. and Muriel F. Benjamin, Bridgewater, to Katherine J. Lengyel, 9 February 1948, BCD 690:179.
7 Margaret Elizabeth Westerling (fka Lillian Margaret Lengyel), Fairfield CT, to David L. Westerling, Westminster, 30 May 1977, BCD
2651:119; Katherine J. Lengyel to David L. Westerling, Westminster, 10 March 1983, BCD 3690:193; “Subdivision Plan of Land in Brewster,
Mass. as Surveyed and Prepared for David L. Westerling et al.,” 29 March 1982, BCP 3271:24 (where 1795 Long Pond Road is on Lot 1A).
8 “Sbudivision Plan of Land in Brewster, Mass. as Surveyed and Prepared for David L. Westerling et al.,” 29 March 1982, BCP 3271:24;
Raphael Altavilla, 1795 Long Pond Road, to Laura J. Altavilla Clapp, trustee Laurchrisda Realty Trust, 17 January 2008, BCD 22623:210;
Laura J. Altavilla, trustee Lauchrisda Realty Trust, to Raphael Altavilla, 26 October 2009, BCD 24222:270; Raphael Altavilla, 1795 Long Pond
Road, to Laura J. Atlavilla, trustee 1795 Long Pond Road Realty Trust, 1 March 2003, BCD 27207:77. The property is also shown as Lot 1 on
“Plan of Redivision of Land in Brewster as Prepared for Richard & Carole Buehler,” 31 August 1994, BCP 506:27.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1795 LONG POND ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
D BRE.223
PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2018)
View from SE.
View from west, 1985. Source: MHC B Form.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1795 LONG POND ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 4
D BRE.223
View of barn from SW.