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Home My Public Portal AboutMainSt_1424Follow 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 NW. 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 47-21-0 Harwich I BRE.352 BRE.508 NRHD (02/23/1996); LHD (05/01/1973) Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): West Brewster Address:1424 Main Street Historic Name: William E. & Etta Eldridge House & Barn Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1879 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: Classical Revival/end house Architect/Builder: George Hopkins Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: wood shingles/wood Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: barn, ca. 1879 (BRE.508) Major Alterations (with dates): barn front altered w/ addition of door & windows, west wing altered, late 20th century Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:2.22 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 1424 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 I BRE.352 BRE.508 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 William and Etta Eldridge House, built in 1879, is story-and-a-half wood frame single dwelling with a front-gable roof. It is designed in a traditional end house manner with corner pilasters and Classical entablatures distinguishing the front and side roof lines. The first story of the front façade contains an entrance on one side, with its original glazed door within a restrained trabeated architrave, and two windows on the other; it does not appear that the front was embellished with a porch. Two upper- story windows are closely spaced in the gable. One window is located in the east side wall, set back a good distance from the front to provide space for a stair in the entry hall. Each of the two principal rooms on the west side of the house has a window, the rear one being a bay window with canted sides. A one-story kitchen wing is appended to the rear. The story-and-a-half English barn behind the house is a rare surviving example of an agricultural building in West Brewster, even though it has been renovated for a commercial function with the façade altered with the addition of a domestic door and windows. What appears to be a milk house attached on the east end and a wagon house on the west, built ca. 1879, are significant components. The house is situated close to the highway at the eastern side of the parcel with lawns on all sides. The barn is set farther back ay the end of a driveway entering the property on the west side of the house. A large open space in front of the barn and east of the house provides a sense of the farm’s setting. The rear of the parcel is wooded. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: This house was built shortly after March 1879, when Benjamin Freeman sold about 4 acres on the south side of the State Highway west of the so-called “New Hall” to William Emery Eldridge (1846-1914) for $140. A retrospective column in a 1904 issue of the Yarmouth Register stated that “George Hopkins of Brewster built the house of Emery Eldridge at West Brewster in the spring of 1879.” Both a house labeled “E. Eldridge” (Eldridge was often referred to as W. Emery) and the “New Hall” are shown on the 1880 West Brewster map.1 W. Emery Eldridge was the son of Jesse and Lydia Harriman Eldridge, and from his teenage years he worked as a fisherman. In 1877 he married Adelia Etta Joseph of Harwich. Local tax records for 1890 show Eldridge with a house valued at $450, a barn at $150, a 4-acre homestead, and two other small parcels. The 1900 census lists him in this neighborhood with his wife, 17-year- old son Wilber Allen, and 3-year-old niece, Mary C. Eldridge. By 1910 Emery Eldridge was farming and was also the town hall janitor from March 1896 to January 1914; he died in September of the same year.2 The Yarmouth Register offered a brief obituary: His is one of the good old Cape families; his father, Jesse Eldridge, had ten children, nearly all of whom settled and have lived in their native town. In early life Emery followed the sea, sailing with Captain Seth Rogers, filling the position of purser many years. His home in North Brewster is one of those neat, attractive homes, of which our citizens are justly proud.3 The property passed to son Wilber, who transferred the title to his widowed mother in 1916.4 In February 1914, seven months before his father died, Wilber married Charlotte W. Foster, the daughter of George T. and Winnifred Phinney Foster. Adelia Etta Eldridge lived alone in the house in 1920 and 1930, while Wilber and his wife and son Allen were living in Bourne except for a 1 Benjamin Freeman to William E. Eldridge, 10 March 1879, 132:357. The deed states that the grantee was also known as W. Emery Eldridge. The “new hall” was built in 1878 and offered space for various community functions; see MHC inventory form for 1464 Main Street, BRE.55. Hopkins is identified as the builder of 1424 Main Street in “Twenty-five Years Ago,” Yarmouth Register, 28 May 1904, 2. 2 See “Brewster,” Barnstable Patriot, 16 March 1896, 3, and Yarmouth Register, 10 January 1914, 5. 3 “Brewster,” Yarmouth Register, 19 September 1914, 3. 4 Wilber A. Eldridge to A. Etta Eldridge, 15 February 1916, BCD 336:358. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1424 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 I BRE.352 BRE.508 brief time in Florida; the Register reported that the family had gone there “to seek a fortune like many others.”5 The family was back in Bourne by 1926, and Wilber resumed his work as an automobile inspector, and by 1930 Wilber, his wife, and son were living on Tubman Road in West Brewster. In 1938 Etta Eldridge transferred the title to the homestead back to her son, and the 1940 census lists her in a State Road household with Wilber, then farming, and his wife. Adelia Etta Eldridge died in November 1941.6 Wilber’s wife Charlotte died in 1944, and eight years later he sold the house and 3.5 acres to Donald B. Howes; in 1964 he sold the rest, about a third of an acre, to Howes.7 Howes subdivided the property in 1984 and owed it until he died. In September 2005 the executor of his will sold 1424 Main Street to Christopher and Jennifer Bronsdon of Milton, who owned it in 2019 and ran the shop “Antiques by the Bay” from the property.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. 5 “Twenty-five Years Ago November 7, 1925,” Yarmouth Register, 10 November 1950, 7. 6 A. Etta Eldridge to Wilber A. Eldridge, 16 July 1938, BCD 541:236. 7 Wilber A. Eldridge to Donald B. Howes, 23 August 1952, BCD 825:139; Wilber A. Eldridge to Donald B. Howes, 14 November 1964, BCD 1281:312. 8 Marjorie H. Drake, temporary executor will Donald B. Howes, to Christopher and Jennifer Bronsdon, Milton, 20 September 2005, BCD 20290:158. The 1424 Main Street property is Lot 1 on “Plan of Land in Brewster, As Surveyed for Donald B. Howes,” November 1984, BCP 391:31. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1424 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 I BRE.352 BRE.508 PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2019) View from north. View from NW. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 1424 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 4 I BRE.352 BRE.508 View from west.