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HomeMy Public PortalAboutLongPondRd_636Follow 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): December 2018 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 75-44-0 Harwich D BRE.217 Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): South Brewster Address:636 Long Pond Road Historic Name: Hopkins-Eldridge House Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1835 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: Greek revival / Cape Architect/Builder: Edward Hopkins, probable builder Exterior Material: Foundation: stone Wall/Trim: wood shingles / wood Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Garage (attached) Major Alterations (with dates): Garage added Altered fenestration in ell Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:0.91 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 636 LONG POND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 D BRE.217 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 Hopkins-Eldridge House, built ca. 1835, is a one-story wood frame dwelling with a series of outbuildings of various functions and construction dates. (The age and complexity of this assemblage warrants more intensive investigation and analysis of materials and construction methods.) The house has a traditional center-chimney plan; the front façade is imbalanced with the central entrance flanked by two windows on one side and one window on the other, which could be the result of staging. The one-story height is unusual for the 19th century, although wide boards used in the corners, the entrance frame, and the frieze and dentil band along the eave line are characteristic of the period. A long one-story cross-gable ell extends from the rear of the house on the west side and combines kitchen and domestic service areas. It has been modernized in recent years with functional changes and the addition of sliding glass patio doors on the east side; a small wing added to the west side, probably for a bathroom, appears to be older. The series of attached units makes a 90-degree turn with sheds and a 20th-century garage, which may have replaced an earlier barn. Some of the outbuildings may have related to the Hopkins family’s carpentry business. The buildings are located on the east side of an acre lot, bounded on the east by Mt. Pleasant Road created for a residential subdivision platted on the farm associated with the house. It is set back from Long Pond Road behind a sizeable yard, which wraps around onto the west side of the parcel. A driveway enters the northeast corner of the lot and circles around a large spruce tree screening the L-shaped service wings. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: The house at 636 Long Pond Road was one a cluster of dwellings on this street that belonged to Edward Hopkins (1748-ca 1809) or his descendants. Because the family owned so much property in South Brewster, deeds are difficult to untangle. One local historian has asserted that the 636 Long Pond Road house was built about 1820 for Edward Hopkins and that a dispute between him and an unnamed brother forced them to cut in cape in half and move one half to what is now 958 Long Pond Road. Yet the earliest deed to an Edward Hopkins, dated February 1835 from Lewis Howes, conveyed to him “a certain piece of land for a house lot” that was bounded on the west by land Snow had deeded the same day to Edward’s son Moses Hopkins Jr. and then cutting north through the center of the house “lately built by said Moses and Edward.” In May 1836 Howes deeded to Joshua Clark an acre of land adjacent to his own and on the south side of Long Pond Road, “including the land on which the western half of the house erected by Edward Hopkins and Moses Hopkins Jr. now stands” and the western half of the front yard; in 1844 Clark’s son Thacher deeded this tract, described as “the piece lately occupied as a garden &c by Moses Hopkins Jnr,” to Edward Hopkins, thus bringing the entire property under Edward’s ownership.1 This Edward Hopkins was one of the grandsons of Edward Hopkins and one of the sons of Moses Hopkins (1783-1864) and Betsey Crocker. Moses Hopkins Sr. was a housewright, as were his sons Edward (born 1809), Moses Jr. (born 1811), Elisha (born 1824), and George Crocker Hopkins (born 1828). The 1850 census clearly shows Edward Hopkins and his family in this neighborhood: he was a carpenter with $380 in real estate living with his wife Mary Doane, a Chatham native whom he married by 1831, and their eight children, born between 1832 and 1841; eldest son Isaiah D. had died in 1848. In 1850 sons Edward Francis, then 18 years old, and Otis, then 15, were both mariners. Strangely, Edward Hopkins had died in January 1850 of tuberculosis, and it is puzzling why the census, enumerated in this section in July, lists him in the household. In 1855 Mary Doane Hopkins is listed in this neighborhood with her children Otis and Freeman, both carpenters, Charles, a mariner; Warren H., and Mary. The family is not shown in the 1860 federal census, but in 1865 Mary Hopkins is listed with her children Mary and Warren and two others, probably Warren’s wife and infant child. In 1870 Mary Doane Hopkins remarried, to 1 Lewis Howes to Edward Hopkins, housewright, 13 February 1835, BCD 20:226; Lewis Howes to Joshua Clark, 13 May 1836, BCD 23:28; Thatcher Clark, Dennis, to Edward Hopkins, 1 April 1844, BCD 38:450. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 636 LONG POND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 D BRE.217 farm worker Hiram Bumpus of Wareham, and in September 1871 she and her children, in separate deeds, sold the house and four acres for $250 to Richard H. Hopkins, a distant cousin who had grown up in South Brewster.2 Edward Hopkins had descended from Moses (1722-76) and Hannah Berry Hopkins (1723-1809), while Richard H. Hopkins descended from Moses’s younger brother Nathan (born 1729) and his second wife Polly Berry Hopkins. Richard’s father was Freeman Hopkins (1801-86), born in Chatham, and Keziah Harding of Chatham, who married in 1825. Richard H. Harding was born early in 1826, and in 1847 he married Emily Eldridge (1829-81) of Harwich. In the 1855 state census the couple is shown in a nearby household with their children Anna Young Hopkins (1848-1938) and Richard F. (1852-98). In 1860 the four are listed in a household with Richard’s father Freeman, then 60 years old; both were farmers and both were credited with real estate. In 1872 Richard H. Hopkins became South Brewster’s postmaster, and by 1880 he was a railroad agent. He and his wife then lived alone at 636 Long Pond Road. In 1881 both Richard and Emily Eldridge Hopkins died within two months of each other, and in November of the same year their heirs sold the property to Joseph M. Eldridge for $340.3 The Eldridge family owned 636 Long Pond Road for more than a century afterward. Born in Brewster in 1849, Joseph M. Eldridge was the son of farmer Jesse Eldridge and his wife Lydia Harriman, a native of Goffstown, New Hampshire. Jesse Eldridge was a miller and farmer. In 1876 Joseph was working as a mariner when he married Mary E. Murphy, the 20-year-old daughter of Irish immigrants Patrick and Margaret Murphy. In 1880 Joseph Eldridge was working as a fisherman and living with his wife and their children Joseph H., born in 1878, and Beulah M., born in 1879. He died in an accident aboard a vessel in January 1886, and in 1900 his widow Mary Murphy Eldridge was living in Harwich with her daughter Beulah, by then a schoolteacher. Beulah Eldridge married East Harwich salesman and plumber Everett H. Doane in 1904, and the 1910 census shows the couple living at 636 Long Pond Road with her mother and their son Donald W., then ten months old. The 1910 map attaches the name “M. E. Eldridge” to the 636 Long Pond Road house. The 1920 census lists Mary E. Eldridge with two granddaughters in a household just before the dwelling her daughter Beulah and her family were renting. Mary E. Eldridge is listed as owning her home and was very likely at 636 Long Pond Road. Everett H. Doane died in 1929, and in 1930 his widow and son Donald, by then an assistant to Henry T. Crocker at the Crocker store (William W. Knowles & Son’s store until 1926) in Brewster Center, were living with her mother at 636 Long Pond Road. Mary Murphy Eldridge died in 1932, and by 1940 Beulah Doane was living at 636 Long Pond Road with her son Donald. She was then a dressmaker working from home, and Donald remained at the Knowles store; he acquired it from Crocker in 1946, housed his collection of artifacts on the second floor, and owned and operated it until he died in October 1870.4 Beulah Eldridge Doane died in 1983, and in February 1985 636 Long Pond Road was sold to Stefan P. Galazzi. The year before the property had been divided into three lots, the first with the house and bar and the other two fronting on Mt. Pleasant Road. In 1985 Galazzi sold 636 Long Pond Road and its 0.92-acre lot to Paul P. Sullivan and Maureen T. Hourihan, the owners in 2018.5 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. 2 Hiram S. and Mary A. Bumpus to Richard H. Hopkins, 2 September 1871, BCD 107:59; Edward F. Hopkins, Luther Knox, and Carrie S. Knox, all Dorchester; Ebeenzer and Louisa A. Sumner, Methuen; Freeman Hopkins, Groton; Warren H. Hopkins, Orleans; and Charles Hopkins to Richard H. Hopkins, 2 September 1871, BCD 106:393. 3 Richard F. Hopkins, Celia L. Hopkins, and Benjamin F. and Annie J. Fessenden to Joseph M. Eldridge, 14 November 1881, BCD 254:332. Celia L. Thacher was Richard’s wife; Benjamin F. Fessenden was Annie J. Hopkins’s husband. 4 George H. Boyd III, Brewster: The Way We Were (Brewster, MA: by the author, 2016), 65, 66. 5 Earle L. Messere, Barbara E. Messere, Peace Dale RI; and Paul R. Eldridge, Wenonah NJ, to Stefan P. Galazzi, 12 February 1985, BCD 4471:240; Stefan P. Galazzi, South Orleans, to Paul P. Sullivan and Maureen T. Hourihan, 29 March 1985, BCD 4477:238; Paul P. Sullivan and Maureen T. Hourihan to Paul P. Sullivan and Maureen T. Hourihan, 636 Long Pond Road, 3 June 1991, BCD 7566:108. The 636 Long Pond Road house and barn are depicted on Lot 1 on “Subdivision Plan of Land in Brewster, Massachusetts Prepared for Stefan Galazzi,” 11 April 1984, BCP 388:94. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 636 LONG POND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 D BRE.217 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. PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2018) View from NW. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 636 LONG POND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 4 D BRE.217 View from NE. View from east. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 636 LONG POND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 5 D BRE.217 View of attached garage from NE. View of west yard.