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Home My Public Portal AboutMainSt_3661Follow 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 SE 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 126-10-0 Harwich BRE.466 Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): East Brewster Address:3661 Main Street Historic Name: Eldredge Tenant House Uses:Present: two-family residence Original: two-family residence Date of Construction: 1910-20 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: indeterminate Architect/Builder: unknown Exterior Material: Foundation: concrete Wall/Trim: vinyl clapboard, wood shingles Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: none Major Alterations (with dates): Window sash replaced Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:0.28 acre 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 3661 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 BRE.461 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 one-story wood frame duplex dwelling has a front gable center section flanked by cross-gable wings; a one-story, flat-roof wing has been added to the rear. Single and paired windows in the front-gable section gable are flanked by entrances in the wings. A single attic window is centered in the gable, and the wing on the east side has been extended with a narrow addition containing a triple window on the east side. The odd combination of windows on the front façade suggests later alterations, which also is indicated by the addition of vinyl clapboards. The house is sited close to the highway in the southwest corner of its lot; a semicircular driveway occupies the east side of the frontage. The rear of the parcel is wooded and borders on a bog. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: The house numbered 3661 Main Street does not appear on any historic maps of East Brewster, and a title search leads to the transfer of 0.79 acre of “cranberry meadow and upland” from Christopher C. Eldredge to his nephews Abner L. and Nathan B. Eldredge in January 1903.1 The house might have been built to house fishery or cranberry workers, as the brothers were involved in both industries. The 1905 and 1910 county maps show Abner L. Eldredge living in his parents’ home on the south side of Main Street (3708 Main St., BRE.44), and the 1910 census shows him as a divorced shell fisherman living with his parents. His father had deeded a third-interest in the 40-acre homestead to the brother in 1896.2 The household of Nathan Bassett Eldredge was enumerated next (1896 assessors’ records taxed him on a house valued at $100) and was much larger— it included him, his wife and first cousin Grace E. C. Nickerson (the daughter of grantor Christopher C. Eldredge), and their eight children ranging in age from one to 22 years old—and they may have lived in the Eldredge homestead at 3708 Main Street. Nathan B. Eldredge died in April 1915 at the age of 49, and their father Abner died in 1919. By 1920 Grace Eldredge and her children had moved in with her late husband’s mother and brother, and in 1922 Abner L. Eldredge married his brother’s widow. The 3661 Main Street house is very likely the house valued at $900 and credited to “Abner L. Eldredge et al.,” as it was owned jointly by Abner and his brother Nathan’s family. In 1927 Abner and Grace Eldredge and four of Grace’s children deeded the 3661 Main Street property, then a quarter-acre lot, to Grace’s son Walter Stanley Eldredge, born in 1902. The next year Walter sold the property to Frank A. Andrews of Orleans.3 The 1929 Cape Cod directory lists Abner L. Eldredge as a plumber on Main Street in East Brewster and Walter with no occupation; the 1930 census shows Walter renting part of the Eldredge homestead and living there with his wife Winifred and one-year-old son Walter S. Jr. He worked a picker at a duck farm, probably Mayo’s Duck Farm in Orleans, and by 1935 he and his family had moved to Orleans. Frank Andrews owned 3661 Main Street until 1946, but by 1931 he was living in Provincetown and does not appear ever to have occupied 3661 Main Street. The property changed hands often afterward. Everett L. and Abbie M. Smith owned it from 1948 to 1957, and Abbie Smith had received the house in a divorce settlement, remarried, and continued to own it until 1966. Louise N. Grosner of Stratford, Connecticut, owned the property from 1973 to 2001, when she sold it to Karen Densmore of Chelsea. Densmore and Timothy Winn jointly owned the property in 2003.4 1 Christopher C. Eldredge to Abner L. and Nathan B. Eldredge, 3 January 1903, BCD 261:542. 2 Abner F. Eldredge to Abner L. and Nathan B. Eldredge, BCD 225:379. 3 Abner L. Eldredge, Grace E. Eldrege, Grace E. Weber, Harold B. Eldredge, and Earl M. Eldredge to Walter S. Eldredge, 26 April 1927, BCD 443:329; Walter S. Eldredge to Frank A. Andrews, Orleans, 25 September 1928, BCD 459:172. 4 Grosner and her husband William owned the property from 1973 to 1992, and in the latter year Louise Grosner deeded a half-interest in the property to Linda G. Conlon of Morris, CT; Conlon deeded her interest back to Grosner in 2001. See Laurie J. Cormier Jr., Harwich Port, to William J. and Louise N. Grosner, Stratford CT, 31 March 1973, BCD 1832:114; Louise N. Grosner, Stratford, CT, to Louise N. Grosner and Linda G. Conlon, Morris CT, 3 March 1992, BCD 7900:229; Linda G. Conlon, Morris CT, to Louise N. Grosner, Stratford CT, 26 January 2001, BCD 13573:249; Louise N. Grosner, Stratford CT, to Karen A. Densmore, Chelsea, 1 February 2001, BCD 13573:250; Karen A. Densmore, 3661 Main Street, to Karen A. Densmore and Timothy Winn, 8 March 2003, BCD 16547:60. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3661 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 BRE.461 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. PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2018) View from SW.