HomeMy WebLinkAbout15 Old Shore Road Cotuit Continuation LetterINVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET TOWN Barnstable/Cotuit ADDRESS 15 Old Shore Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
Cotuit HD, Brn MRA BRN.345
Update to Form B by Dr. James Gould, 2020.
Childs Homestead, c. 1799
One of the oldest houses in Cotuit Port is the half Cape Cod cottage at 15 Old Shore Road. The historian Florence Rapp believed that
it was built by Capt. James4 Childs (1767-1834, James3-2, Richard1;l Brownson et al. Cape Cod Genealogies, vol. 10, Childs p. 25;
Rapp, Reginald Prior House p. 2). His son Daniel5 Childs (1788-1857), an active housewright inherited the house, which by estimate
was built before James’s death in 1834, and after Daniel’s birth in 1788, say 1800 or earlier. Daniel later built a wharf at the base of
what was long called Old Oyster Road, and 2000 feet of saltworks south of Ropes Beach (Patriot 2 Apri l, 13 June 1832; location in
deed 9/268, 1836). Childs also owned the lot on which the Library is located, and his estate sold the #11 schoolhouse (which he may
have built) to the town for $99 (67/293).
In 1847 Childs sold the acre at the corner of Main Street and Old Oyster Road to mariner Japheth T. Fisher for $950 (42/155, 51/544).
Fisher was a Falmouth mariner who had three children there 1838-1846 by his wife Mary. He was trading in Mayaguez Puerto Rico in
1846. In 1849 he was in the slave trade in New Orleans on the ship Susan owned by C. Sabatul (American Slave Trade, Lexisnexis,
series D , p. 45; also Susan for M. Harrison arriving Jan.-March D 46, again outward for Robert Habersham J.-May 1849 D 164).
Fisher’s venture evidently failed, for only 20 months later storekeeper Capt. Samuel Nickerson (1810-1884) bought the “wooden
store” at auction Nickerson had gone to sea at age 11 in Harwich where he was born, but at age 15 crippled by an accident he retired
from the sea. He came with his family to Rushy Marsh, and moved to Highground about 1838, living in the ho use on Ocean View later
called “Rosemead” about 1838 (CTC 53). In 1852 he built a shoe store at 1058 Main St., now the Knisses’ (CTC 101). Rapp said the
store at the Childs was owned by John Coleman married to Daniel’s niece Dorcas Childs, but this may confuse the store on the
opposite corner run by John Coleman. One of the stores was moved to the back of Freedom Hall to serve as the first library, and later
demolished. The land reverted to the owners of the main property, the Lovells, in 1877 (CTB 77).
On Childs’ death in 1857 his estate auctioned the house and buildings on 1 ¼ acre (excluding the store ) (66/279) for $790 to Daniel’s
brother Capt. Alexander C. Childs (1799-1872) who lived in the house he had built at 10 Putnam Av. in 1833 (CTB 17). A captain at
age 20 he had a profitable career in the Northwest fur trade and whaling but lost the ship Nantucket to Confederate raiders in the Civil
War. Known as Squire Childs he entertained all of Cotuit residents in a two-night open house. His brother’s house may have been
rented.
In 1863 Alexander Childs sold the house on 1¼ acres for $700 to Capt. Andrew Lovell (1813-1900, son of Zenas, Andrew Jr.) (84/14).
From 1833 to 1860 he was a master in the co astal trade, still sailing in 1865 as master of the two-masted schooner John J. Huntington.
He was known as an upstanding stern man. Although New York schoolmaster Morse described him as “a slow indolent man” he was
the leading political figure of the village, holding offices of state representative, 19 years as selectman, assessor of taxes, road-master,
overseer of the poor, justice of the peace, often at the same time. Lovell became postmaster in 1882, with the office in the back of this
house until 1885 when his firing precipitated Cotuit’s greatest fight. He made additions that show on the 1885 atlas, but the house is
still on the road. When Lovell regained the post office in 1890, he had his daughter Lizzie E. Lovell (1849-1922) appointed postmaster
and built her the office that still stands on the corner at 842 Main St. (CTB 77; 198/344). She had been a Cotuit school teacher for
years, reputedly a stern disciplinarian who would send bad boys to her father for a licking. She was postmistress for over 25 years,
1890 to 1915.
On Andrew’s death in 1900 both house and post office were inherited by his wife Caroline and her daughter Lizzie (post office
198/344; no deed for house). The 1907 atlas shows the house next to the road, with two outbuildings, one above on the hill. Evidently
sometime after this the house was moved up the hill. The brick foundation is typical of this era. Cotuit had a thriving moving business
run by the builder Owen M. Jones. Rapp said that Lizzie added a second story to the house.
In 1911 Lizzie sold the house to Thomas Dempster Rennie (1864-1936) and his wife Elsie E. (1866-1925; 311/360). Rennie had come
to Cotuit from Newton about 1900 as caretaker for the Perkins/Parker estate in Little River (son Francis Rennie 23 Sept. 1993). He
was a leading forest fire ranger for the county and led the first Cotuit Fourth of July celebration in 1915. Elsie ran a boarding house
here, renting the house in summers, and moving to an unheated summer house out back, southeast (demolished 1946).
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET TOWN Barnstable/Cotuit ADDRESS 15 Old Shore Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
Cotuit HD, Brn MRA BRN.345
In 1916 Lizzie sold the post office to schoolteacher Maude Crocker Hamblin (1875-1950; 350/323). Service continued here until 1937
when it moved to the Sears Block. The building itself was owned by Bertha A. Anderson four years, then Harold DeVeer for two
decades. In 1956 it became the real estate and law office of Helen Bradlee Robinson (1877-1975; CTB 77).
The house was inherited by Rennie’s daughter Marjorie Borden Rennie (1904-1989), a teacher who was an early graduate of Hyannis
Normal School. In 1925 she married Hiram C. F Harlow of Santuit. She ran a coffee shop in Falmouth. In 1946 the house was sold by
Osterville broker Helen MacLellan to David A. Robertson and his wife Joan D. of Washington D.C. (659/358, 648/360).
After a short three years the Robertsons sold the house to the retired missionary Rev. Lloyd G. Davis D.D. and his wife Nelly
(742/519). He had been Dean of the Honolulu Theological Seminary, pastor of the Union Church in Kohala on the big island of
Hawaii and was co-organizer of the UCC Church of the Crossroads in Honolulu, significant as the first inter-racial church in the
islands. He was frequently guest preacher at the Federated Church in Hyannis.
In 1955 the house was sold to Ernest G. Wiggins (1915-2003) and his wife Ruth A. Prior (957/485). He was vice president of B.B.
Chemical Company of Cambridge, having served in the Army in World War II. His brother Paul H. Wiggins was Cotuit water
commissioner and master of Cotuit Mariners Lodge. The house was rented for years by a relative of his wife, Reginald Prior, whose
name was attached to the house by Florence Rapp.
Wiggins sold the house in 1965 to Dorothy F. Tompkins (b. 1915; 1294/625) taught Spanish and won many prizes for her flower
arrangements, including “Tidal Marshes” showing saltmarsh plants. She may have had her garden here. The road on the north side was
named Old Shore Road, after long misrepresentation as East Main St ., but originally Oyster Place Road. Note that every earlier deed
shows the bound with the Chatfield property shows an “open passageway”.
Tompkins sold the place in 1973 to John M. Grant Jr. and Nancy J. Grant of Foxboro for $62,000 (1947/295). John (1923 -1989) was a
regional manager of New England Bell Telephone in Quincy. He served as Cotuit’s Town Representative in the interim between town
meeting and town council. He also served on the board of Cotuit Library. He was a graduate in political science from University of
Massachusetts Amherst 1951 and a veteran of US Army WWII in the Philippines and Japan. Nancy Hawkes Grant (1929-2016), from
Ashburnham, ran a bed and breakfast here. The Grants named the place “Laughing Gull Hill”. Nancy was curator of the Historical
Society. After 43 years possession in 2016 she sold it to L. Philip Odence and his wife Bethany Jane Tanner Odence for $500,000
(29550/191). Philip is a general manager at tech company Synopsys in Burlington. Beth’s company Design No Five produces coastal-
inspired linen fabrics.
The Odences have made extensive improvements throughout. They gutted most of the first floor and guest house at the west end of the
house, modernizing the kitchen, baths, heating, plumbing and electrical systems. However, they extended the footprint only slightly
and made only minor modifications to walls and doorways, thus maintaining the basic room layout up and down. The renovation
revealed much in the way of old construction materials and methods. Like many old cottages, the house started as a half Cape a nd
ceilings in some rooms on the second floor are little over six feet. Timbers in the old parts were fastened with wooden pegs. Un der the
house, the floor joists are logs, some with bark. Similarly, the rafters are unfinished logs, many with severe damage from po wder post
beetles. Removing layers of paint from the floors upstairs revealed pine boards same as wide as twenty-two inches.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET TOWN Barnstable/Cotuit ADDRESS 15 Old Shore Rd
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
Cotuit HD, Brn MRA BRN.345