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Home My Public Portal AboutMainSt_3884Follow 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 north 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 126-54 Harwich BRE.471 Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): East Brewster Address:3884 Main Street Historic Name: Harold B. & Deborah C. Eldredge House Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1910 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: Gothic Revival Architect/Builder: possibly Harold B. Eldredge Exterior Material: Foundation: stone Wall/Trim: wood shingles Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: barn Major Alterations (with dates): none Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:2.70 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 3884 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 BRE.471 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 has a front-gable roof and a one-story kitchen wing on the west side. The front façade contains an off-center entrance and two windows and two attic windows in the gable. The steep raking edge of the gable is decorated with deep eaves, and friezes; the sense of a Classical cornice with returns at the base of the gable is absent, associating the design with the Gothic aesthetic. Door and window trim is plain, and there is no evidence of there having been a porch or veranda on the front. The wing is fronted by a broad porch, now enclosed. A shed dormer is located in the roof on the east side of the house to provide more headroom in attic chambers. An upper story deck has been added to the rear. The house is situated in the midst of a small yard screened from the highway by vegetation. A driveway enters the west side of the parcel and runs past the house to a barn complex behind it (not visible). The majority of the acreage south of the buildings is wooded. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: No house appears on the site of 3884 Main Street on Barnstable County maps through 1910, but it is likely that house carpenter Harold Bangs Eldredge built the house in that year for himself and his wife Deborah C. Sparrow Eldredge. When the federal census was taken in May 1910 Harold Eldredge was still living in the East Brewster home of his parents, Nathan B. and Grace E. Eldredge; he married in November 1910. The house was built on the 40-acre Elijah Knowles homestead at 3708 Main Street (BRE.44), which his grandfather Abner Eldredge (1835-1919) had acquired from Knowles’s heirs in 1894. Abner Eldredge died in 1919, and it was not until after his death that his heirs deeded the 2.70-acre parcel to Harold.1 The Harold Eldredge family owned 3884 Main Street until 1990. In 1920, according to the census, Harold B. and Deborah C. Eldredge were living in this neighborhood with their son Elliott B., born in 1911. By 1930 Eldredge was working on a duck farm, possibly Mayo’s Duck Farm in East Orleans, and his wife was working as a domestic servant. In 1935 in New York City son Elliott married Phyllis Arnold, and by 1940 the couple was living in Chatham, where Eliot managed a grocery store. Harold and Deborah Eldredge then were the sole occupants of 3884 Main Street. By 1942 Harold B. Eldredge was working for East Orleans poultry farmer Willis Cummings. He died in 1957, and Deborah Sparrow remained in the house. In 1970 she deeded it to son Elliott, who added his wife to the property title in 1989, when the couple was living in Essex, Connecticut. The next year they sold 3884 Main Street to Dianne Vetromile of Orleans, the owner of record in 2018.2 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. 1 Elijah E. Knowles, Mary F. Knowles, Solomon F. Knowles, Mary J. Knowles, and Lizzie D. Knowles, heirs of Elijah Knowles, to Abner Eldridge, 6 January 1894, BCD 209:436; Abner L. Eldridge to Harold B. Eldridge, 16 January 1920, BCD 369:303; Reliance Eldridge and Grace E. Eldridge, Brewster: Earl M. Eldredge, Jersey City NJ, and Grace E. Weber, Boston, to Harold B. Eldridge, 28 January 1921, BCD 371:105; Grace E. Eldridge, conservator Clifton E. Eldridge, to Harold B. Eldridge, 28 February 1921, BCD 379:40; Grace E. Eldridge, guardian of Walter S. Eldridge, Mildred A. Eldridge, Reliance M. Eldridge, Frances Eldridge, and Allen L. Eldridge as per court 23 Feb 1921, to Harold B. Eldridge, 28 February 1921, BCD 379:40. Harold Eldredge’s father Nathan had died in 1915. 2 Deborah C. Eldridge to Elliott B. Eldridge, 8 June 1970, BCD 1475:462; Elliott B. Eldridge to Elliott B. and Phyllis A. Eldridge, Essex CT, 18 April 1989, BCD 6710:145; Elliott B. and Phyllis A. Eldridge, Essex CT, to Dianne Vetromile, Orleans, 9 April 1990, BCD 7136:3; Walter S. Eldredge Jr., Orleans, to Dianne Vetromile, 3884 Route 6A, 8 December 1990, BCD 7380:251. The house and outbuildings are shown on “Plan of Land in Brewster, Mass., as Prepared for Elliott B. and Phyllis A. Eldridge,” 7 April 1990, BCP 471:1. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3884 MAIN STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 BRE.471 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 west.