Brewster Completes Town-wide Historic Inventory; More Than 300 Old Houses Surveyed

BREWSTER – A town-wide inventory of houses 100 years or older in Brewster has now been completed, with over 300 houses described.

 “It was a lot,” says Brewster Historical Commission Chairman George H. Boyd III. “It was a slow process.”

 Besides its intrinsic interest, a look at a town’s old houses can tell us how the town prospered through time. Early houses were relatively modest. By the 19th century some were very opulent.

 The John and Elizabeth Freake Dillingham House at 597 Main St., built in about 1660, is the town’s oldest extant house, and is believed to be the second oldest on Cape Cod. It is one of a few in Brewster that remain from the late 17th century.

 Although Brewster was inhabited since about 1650, it was a part of Harwich until 1803, when it was incorporated as a separate town. As the town prospered in the 19th century, sea captains such as William Freeman Jr. built large dwellings. Today Freeman’s house is the Capt. Freeman Inn at 15 Breakwater Rd. Some residents left for Chicago and returned when they had made their fortunes. One example of this is the house that Albert and Matilda Crosby built in 1888 and originally called Tawasentha. Tawasentha was then the largest private home on Cape Cod. Today that is the Crosby Mansion.

 Boyd, who with his wife Missy bought the Brewster Store in 1986 and joined the Brewster Historical Commission about a decade ago, has an interest in historic houses that runs deep. He is the author of the 2024 book “Great Estates of Brewster” which focuses on three of the opulent 19th century properties.

 The historic house inventory began with what Boyd calls a “windshield survey” when a preservation consultant drove down every single street in Brewster identifying historic buildings and later confirming dates in the town assessor’s office. Starting in 2017, between 30 and 50 houses were surveyed each year with the findings written on what are called “Form B” sheets. The project was financed with Community Preservation Act funds. It cost roughly $350 for each house survey.

 The inventories expanded on and sometimes corrected inventories that were researched and written by local people in the 1970s under the auspices of the Brewster Historical Society, Boyd says.

 The town hired preservation consultant Eric E. Dray of Eric Dray Consulting in Cambridge to survey the exteriors of the buildings. He sifted through property deeds, atlas maps, surveys and historic newspaper archives.

 “It starts with a site visit for photography and visual assessment,” Dray says. He then wrote a thorough architectural description, noting the architectural style and its characteristics, and a historical narrative. “The goal is to hopefully bring awareness to those aspects of buildings that are worthy of preservation.”

 Dray included the house’s origins, when it was built and by whom, including their birth and death dates, occupations and more. “I get those names by doing title searches online at the Barnstable Registry,” Dray says. He then followed the chain of subsequent owners into the 20th century. The genealogy website Ancestry.com was useful for that task, as were searchable databases for newspapers such as the Barnstable Patriot. Helpful reference books included Simeon Deyo’s 1890 “History of Barnstable County, Mass.,” and Henry J. Sears’s 1906 “Brewster Ship Masters.”

 Because of an 1827 fire at the Barnstable County Courthouse that destroyed almost all Cape Cod title records going back to the late 17th century, determining construction dates often required outside confirmation such as family records or analysis of construction methods and materials.

 “Finally, the written description and narrative are supported by photographs, including historic views if available, and historic maps that show building footprints and names connected to those properties, such as the 1858 Map of Cape Cod, and the 1880 and 1910 County Atlas maps,” Dray says.

 So how can you read the stories of the town’s historic properties?

 Across from the reference desk on the main floor of the Brewster Ladies’ Library are seven thick notebooks that contain the Form B sheets. You can also look up addresses online through the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System or MACRIS.

 In a related resource, a second bookcase in the library holds four shelves of interviews conducted through the Oral History Project, a joint project of the Brewster Ladies’ Library and the Brewster Historical Society (BHS). 

In the oral histories, town residents tell stories about the town’s historic houses and the families who lived in them.

 “It’s been such a gift for Brewster,” says BHS President Sally Gunning. She offers two concrete examples of how the oral history project directly aided the society’s mission to preserve the past and keep it accessible for the future. 

“When we purchased and restored Cobb House [home of the BHS], the oral history of the former owner was invaluable,” she said. “We offer a Helen Keller exhibit, and the oral histories of the family that knew her while she stayed here added so much color to our informational pamphlet.”

Each recorded interview comes with a transcript and can be checked out or listened to in the library. (Nineteen video interviews are available on both the library’s and the BHS’s YouTube channels.)