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Home My Public Portal AboutOldNorthRd_41Follow 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 NE. 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 68-51-0 Harwich B, G, I BRE.418 NRHD (02/23/1996); LHD (05/01/1973) Town/City: Brewster Place:(neighborhood or village): Brewster Center Address:41 Old North Road Historic Name: Harvey E. & Mary Eichel Cottage Uses:Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1929 Source:deeds, historic atlases Style/Form: Craftsman/summer cottage Architect/Builder: unknown Exterior Material: Foundation: concrete block Wall/Trim: wood novelty siding/wood Roof:asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: guest cottage, mid-20th century. Major Alterations (with dates): wing added south side Condition:good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage:0.39 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 41 OLD NORTH ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 B, G, I BRE.418 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 Harvey E. and Mary Eichel Cottage, built ca. 1929, is a one-story wood frame summer cottage with a cross gable roof. Essentially a small version of the Craftsman Cottage form with a three-bay, front gable façade, center entrance and gabled porch, it is uncharacteristically narrow with a cross-gable wing on the north side with similar materials indicating it is original to the plan. The wing has an end façade similar to the front. The idiosyncratic design and appearance suggest it was built by the owner. A one-story wing was later added to the south side. An even smaller cottage or guest house is located in the rear of the lot. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: The cottage at 41 Old North Road appears to have been built shortly after Dorchester plumber Harvey Edward Eichel acquired the lot from Annie Anderson Orr, who with her husband Edward had bought the former William A. Arthur house at the northwest corner of Main Street and Old North Road.1 A house had stood roughly on the site of 41 Old North Road since the 1850s, then owned by Owen and Margaret Keeler, owned and occupied by Margaret Fitz from 1866 to 1883, and then owned by Sarah Jane Foster, the wife of Henry M. Foster. Fitz’s house is shown on the 1880 Brewster village map, while a house marked “H. Foster” is depicted just to the west of this one on the 1910 village map. After Foster’s death in 1919, his property was auctioned to Isaac Franklin Bassett, who apparently razed the Foster house. Whether the Foster house of 1910 and the Fitz house of 1880 were the same dwelling is not clear; in any event, this part of the former Foster homestead was vacant by the time Annie Orr acquired it and sold it to Eichel.2 Born in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, is 1885, Harvey Edward Eichel emigrated to Boston in 1904, and he was married by the time he applied for citizenship in 1913. His wife, Mary K. Watson, had come to Boston from Indiana with her mother Aner by 1900. By 1920 the couple and Aner Watson were living in the same Dorchester household, and Eichel had his own plumbing business. The Eichels had been coming to Brewster since at least 1928, and the 41 Old North Road cottage was certainly built by 1937.3 Mary K. Eichel died in 1944, and Harvey Eichel continued to own and use the cottage until 1970, when he sold it to Mary Jellinek of Middleboro; she owned it for nine years and sold it in November 1979 to Donna M. DeMaria of Enfield, Connecticut. DeMaria owned 41 Old North Road until she died in 2008, and her sister Barbara DeMaria McClinton sold it in 2012 to Larae M. and Kenneth R. Fowler.4 The Fowlers were the owners of record in 2019. 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 Annie A. Orr to Harvey E. Eichel, Dorchester, 9 January 1929, BCD 462:241. 2 Owen and Catherine Keeler to Margaret Fitz, 26 April 1866, BCD 90:383; Margaret Fitz to Sarah Jane Foster, 20 July 1883, BCD 153:551; Francis H. Perry, administrator estate Henry M. Foster, to Isaac Franklin Bassett, 19 January 1920, BCD 372:2.How the property came to the Orr is not documented in deeds. Annie Sophia Anderson Orr (1855-1950) was born in Chicago and was a teenager during the 1873 fire that devastated the city. In the late 1890s she came to work at the Brewster estate of Samuel Mayo Nickerson (1830-1914) and there met Edward Willis Orr (1865-1943), who was a Boston musician when he married Anderson in 1898. Orr was later a shell fisherman and cranberry grower. See “She Remembers Chicago Fire,” Yarmouth Register, 17 January 1947, 4. 3 See “Brewster,” Hyannis Patriot, 15 March 1928; Yarmouth Register, 10 December 1937 and 10 June 1938, which latter notes that the Eichels had opened their cottage for the season. 4 Harvey E. Eichel, Dorchester, to Mary Jellinek, Middleboro, 21 April 1970, BCD 1469:653; Mary Jellinek, Dennis, to Donna M. DeMaria, Enfield CT, 16 November 1979, BCD 3016:216; Barbara DeMaria McClinton, executor will Donna M. DeMaria, to Barbara DeMaria McClinton, 4 November 2009, BCD 24154:215; Barbara DeMaria McClinton, Enfield CT, to Larae M. and Kenneth R. Fowler, North Stonington CT, 10 December 2012, BCD 26934:64. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 41 OLD NORTH ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 B, G, I BRE.418 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. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 41 OLD NORTH ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 B, G, I BRE.418 PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2019) View from south. View of guest cottage from east. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 41 OLD NORTH ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 4 B, G, I BRE.418