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FORM B BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
View from south.
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
26-23-0 Harwich C, G BRE.504
Town/City: Brewster
Place:(neighborhood or village):
West Brewster
Address:699 Main Street
Historic Name: Lewis-Cahoon House
Uses:Present: single-family residence
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: ca.1849
Source:deeds, historic atlases
Style/Form: Greek Revival/end house
Architect/Builder: unknown
Exterior Material:
Foundation: stone
Wall/Trim: wood shingles/wood
Roof:asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
garage (attached)
Major Alterations (with dates):
dormers, rear wings & garage added, late 20th cent.
wood shingles added & window sash replaced,
Late-20th century
Condition:fair
Moved: no yes Date:
Acreage:0.88
Setting: The house is situated in a dense residential area
characterized by summer cottages and retirement homes
built in the 19th and 20th centuries.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 699 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
C, G BRE.504
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 Lewis-Cahoon House is a story-and-a-half wood frame single dwelling with a gable roof built in ca. 1849 with its entrance on
the easterly façade perpendicular to the street. Assuming no serious alterations have been made to the fenestration pattern, the
gabled street façade contains three windows on the first story and two in the upper story in the gable. A cornice with a tall frieze
distinguishes the raking edge of the roof and terminates at short eave returns above wide corner boards. The frieze carries along
the eave lines on the side walls. An entrance is centered on the west side, while an off-center entrance is located on the
principal east side. The entrance is contained in a small gabled vestibule and is flanked by three widely spaced windows on the
south and a double window on the north; four gabled dormers are spread across the roof. A shed-roof dormer has been raised
above the entrance on the west side, probably to create space for an upper-story bathroom. A large brick chimney exits the roof
above the east entrance; the plan of the house evidently has been altered with late 20th-century alterations. A one-story hyphen
with a brick chimney links the house to a wing farther in the rear and a large, gable-roof two-car garage in an ell on the east side.
The house is sited near the center of a narrow frontage set back from the street and west boundary behind lawns. A driveway
enters the east side of the frontage and leads to a parking area in front of the garage. A large yard with mature trees occupies
the rear of the parcel.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
In August 1849, Nathan Foster of West Brewster sold a parcel of cleared land of unspecified size to Remegio Lewis (1818-
1892), a native of the Portuguese island of Madeira who had come to the United States through Boston in 1834 and was living in
Brewster by 1844, when he married Eliza G. Sears of Dennis.1 The deed states that the property was “near the dwelling house
of Remegio Lewis,” but no earlier deed of land to him was recorded, and the 1850 census shows him with no real property. That
census, however, clearly lists Lewis, his wife, and their two children Remegio Gibbs and Almond Sears in this house. He was
enumerated between Nathan Foster, who lived opposite him on the south side of Main Street, and Freeman Dillingham, whose
house was next west on the north side. Lewis worked as a laborer in 1850 and afterwards as a farmer, and by 1860 the census
credited him with $1075 in real property. The household then included his wife and five children—Remegio, Almond, Maria B.,
Moses H., and Joseph L.
By early 1864 the Lewis family moved to Yarmouth and sold the West Brewster “homestead” to fisherman Azarias Cahoon
(1831-1910), whose family owned and occupied the house for more than 50 years afterward.2 The son of Grafton and Vianna
Cahoon, Azarias (sometimes spelled Ezerias) was born in Harwich and worked as a mariner in 1850 when he married Fannie M.
Howland (1836-1905), the daughter of Elisha and Roxana Howland of Harwich. He, his wife, and daughter Ezraetta were renting
in this neighborhood in 1855 and 1860, and by the latter year two other children had been born—Herbert E., in 1855, and Ira E.,
in 1858. The 1870 census shows Azariah Cahoon as a fisherman with $900 in real property. By then daughter Etta was a
seamstress, and a daughter, Anna or Annabel, had been born in 1867. By 1880 the Cahoons had two more children—Azarias
A., called Azzie, and Fannie B.
Brewster tax records for 1890 list Ezerias Cahoon with a cow, a house valued at $250, a one-acre homestead lot, and more than
five acres in three other parcels, one of them a cranberry bog. By 1905 Cahoon and his wife were alone in the household, and
Fannie died in August 1905. In 1908 Azarias deeded the 699 Main Street property to his son Ira, who had owned and operated a
creamery in Fontanelle, New Brunswick, since 1883. Azariah Cahoon died in August 1900. Ira and his family remained in New
Brunswick and sold his parents’ homestead to Willis E. Clark for $600 in 1917.3
1 Nathan Foster to Remegio Louis, 4 August 1849, BCD 46:166.
2 Remegeo and Eliza G. Levis, Yarmouth, to Ezerias Cahoon, 6 January 1864, BCD 289:7
3 Ezerias Cahoon to Ira E. Cahoon, Fontaniello NB, 1 April 1908, BCD 289:77; Ira E. and Amanda A. Cahoon to Willis E. Clark, 25 September
1917, BCD 356:463. On Ira Cahoon see his obituary (on Ancestry.com) from a newspaper titled the Pilot, 27 April 1921.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 699 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
C, G BRE.504
Born in Brewster in 1885, Willis Emery Clark was the son of mariner Rufus Clark and his wife Amanda Perry, and in 1906 he
was working as a clerk when he married Ella Albertina Higgins of Orleans. By 1910 Clark was working as a plumber and living in
Orleans, and he and his wife had two children—Reginald Shattuck (1907-13) and Karl Leroy in 1910. By 1913 Clark was
working at the Nickerson poultry farm in Brewster, and by 1920 he was working as a farmer and living with his family at 699 Main
Street. By then another son, Leon, was part of the family. Willis Clark died suddenly in 1924, and by 1929 the widowed Ella
Higgins Clark appears to have left the house, and her son Karl, then working as a Coast Guard surfman, lived there with his new
wife Mildred. The 1930 census indicates that he rented 699 Main Street and lived there with his wife and their infant son Karl
Leroy Jr. By 1940 three more children—Willis, Edward, and Nancy—were living with their parents at 699 Main Street. Two years
earlier his mother and brother Leon had deeded the property to Karl, who owned it until 1961.4 Virginia M. Daland and Paul V.
O”Leary owned 699 Main Street from 1972 to 1998, when it was sold to Diane E. Kellogg. She and her husband Clyde P.
Mosher remained the owners of record in 2019.5
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.
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.
4 Ella and Leon Clark to Karl L. Clark, 3 November 1938, BCD 545:504; Karl L. Clark to Andrew W. Neal and Nina S. Wolff, 5 July 1961, BCD
1121:92.
5 James B. and Ruth J. Harbison, Acton, to Virginia M. Daland and Paul V. O’Leary, 13 March 1972, BCD 1616:136; Paul V. O’Leary,
Sandwich, to Diane E. Kellogg, 699 Main Street, 12 March 1998, BCD 11339:141; Diane E. Kellogg, 699 Main Street, to Clyde F.Mosher and
Diane E.Kellogg, 15 December 1998, BCD 11966:23; Clyde F. Mosher, trustee Clyde F. Mosher Investment Trust, 699 Main Street, to Clyde F.
and Diane E. Mosher, 16 Ocrober 2003, BCD 17842:322.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 699 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
C, G BRE.504
PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2019)
View from NE.
Aerial view from south.