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Home My Public Portal AboutMainSt_3825Follow 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 126-20 Harwich BRE.469 Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): East Brewster Address:3825 Main Street Historic Name: Doane-Ellis House Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1918 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: Craftsman Architect/Builder: Eugene F. Doane, probable builder Exterior Material: Foundation: rock-faced concrete block Wall/Trim: wood shingles Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Garage, shed Major Alterations (with dates): Window sash replaced Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:0.52 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 3825 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 BRE.469 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 story-and-a-half, wood frame single dwelling with a gable roof has a three-bay front façade with a center entrance, a shed- roof porch spanning the front, and a shed former with exposed rafter tails centered in the roof. The end walls contain two windows on the lower and upper stories; the front space on the west end contains a bay window with shed roof. A one-story wood frame workshop or shed with a hipped roof is sited west of the house, and a garage is barely visible in the woods behind the house. The property is overgrown. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: The house numbered 3825 Main Street is one of three on Main Street in East Brewster built on land owned by Samuel William Doane Jr. (1840-1924) for his adult children. Doane, the son of Samuel W. and Bathsheba Clark Doane, was living in his parents’ household in Harwich in 1850, but the family had moved to Brewster by 1855, and in 1860 Samuel W. Doane Sr. had real property valued at $150 in Brewster. Samuel W. Jr. was then a 19-year-old mariner. In 1867 he married Bessie Anna Eldredge, the daughter of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Dunlap Eldredge of Harwich, whose uncles, Abner and Christopher C. Eldredge, also moved from Harwich to East Brewster. In 1871 Samuel W. Doane bought the former William Freeman homestead on the north side of Main Street,1 and he set off parcels from his homestead and other land to his children—in 1891 to daughter Bessie Anna Doane Rogers (1867-1931), husband of Oscar I. Rogers, for whom 3873 Main Street was built; in 1896 to son Herbert William (1874-1943), who built 3771 Main Street; and in 1918 to youngest son Eugene Franklin Doane (1885- 1967), a house carpenter, who built the house at 3825 Main Street.2 Eugene Doane had been a clerk, a grocery store salesman, and a shell fisherman, and in 1924 he was working as a house carpenter when he and his family moved to Hyannis.3 Doane sold the house and garage with three acres built on the parcel to his sister Evelyn May Doane Ellis (1882-1971), wife of Charles W. Ellis, for $1000 in April 1924.4 Born in Orleans in 1890, Charles Whittemore Ellis was the son of surfman Edwin P. Ellis and his wife Effie Gertrude Gill. In 1911 he was working as a railroad section hand when he married Samuel and Betsy Doane’s daughter Evelyn, a dressmaker, and by 1920 the couple was living in East Brewster in the Samuel Doane household. Assessors’ records for 1926 credit Charles W. Ellis with a house valued at $1500, a garage at $150, an electrical plant, the 3- acre homestead lot, and a half-acre of cranberry land; his wife Evelyn owned three parcels of asparagus and cranberry land. The 1930 census lists Charles Ellis as a railroad worker living on Main Street in Brewster with his wife, and they remained alone in the household in 1940, when Charles was working as a grain mixer at Mayo’s Duck Farm in East Orleans.5 Charles W. Ellis died in November 1957, and his widow Evelyn Doane Ellis remained at 3825 Main Street until her own death in 1971. In that year her executor sold the house, outbuildings, and 1.43 acre to Sumner Robinson of Orleans, who further subdivided the parcel. The property changed hands fairly often afterward. James and Jacqueline M. Ritchie owned the house from 1978 to 1992, when James Ritchie and the co-executor of Jacqueline Ritchie’s estate sold it to Brigid Kavanaugh of Brooklyn, New York. Kavanaugh was the owner of record in 2018.6 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.” 1 Solomon Freeman to Samuel W. Doane, 19 May 1871, BCD 104:428; Caroline Freeman to Samuel W. Doane, 19 May 1871, BCD 104:427. 2 Samuel W. Doane to Eugene F. Doane, 19 June 1918, BCD 407:95. 3 “Hyannis,” Barnstable Patriot, 18 December 1924, 16: “Eugene F. Doane, formerly of Brewster, is erecting a seven-room, two-story house.” 4 Eugene F. Doane to Charles Ellis, 14 April 1924, BCD 412:289. 5 Ellis’s 1942 draft registration card confirms that he worked at Mayo’s Duck Farm. 6 Millard H. Tibbetts, executor will Evelyn M. Ellis, to Sumner Robinson, Orleans, 24 September 1971, BCD 1534:311; Martin J. Larghi, Fort Lee NJ, to James and Jacqueline M. Ritchie, Concord, 3 March 1978, BCD 2669:210; James R. Ritchie and Ann C. Pianka (aka Planka), Lincoln, executors estate Jacqueline M. Ritchie, to Brigid Kavanagh, Brooklyn NY, 11 September 1992, BCD 8200:207. The parcel is shown as Lot 2 on “Plan of Subdivision of Land in Brewster, Mass. Made for Sumner Robinson,” 7 September 1971, BCP 250:11. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3825 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 BRE.469 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. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3825 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 BRE.469 View from west. View of shed from south.