Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

9 Brook Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Montclair neighborhood in North Quincy is bordered by the Neponset River to the north, Beale Street to the south, Newport Avenue to the west, and the Town of Milton to the east. It was once part of Dorchester and became part of the Town of Quincy in 1792. Like its neighbors, Atlantic and Wollaston, most of the community of Montclair was built in the first third of the 20th century. From earliest colonial times until the Civil War, North Quincy was referred to as "The Farms" and it was to the farmlands of Montclair that real estate entrepreneurs beckoned the nearby inhabitants of Boston and its suburbs. The Micaih Pope farm was one of the largest to be subdivided; Arthur D. McCellan cut it into street and house lots in 1883 calling it "Montclair". Other active real estate developers were Maurice E. Kilpatrick, Edward L. Parlee, and Henry J. Grass. The development process was greatly accelerated by the Old Colony Railroad which began operations in 1845 as well as by the advent of Quincy's extensive street railway system.

This interesting commercial building at 9 Brooks Street has had an amazing 90-year longevity of family ownership. James McFarland, who owned a carpentry and building firm, J. N. McFarland & Son, was in possession of the land at 9 Brooks Street in 1888. Shortly thereafter he erected this very long narrow structure and opened up a hardware business with his son, Charles A. McFarland. This was one of the first businesses established after the Wollaston Land Company began development in the area. The McFarlands were still in possession of the property in 1980 and it is only recently the building has changed hands.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
William Churchill Edwards. Historic Quincy, Massachusetts, 1957, p. 297.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
H. Hobart Holly, ed. Quincy: 350 Years, 1974, p. 4.
William S. Pattee. A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 55.
Quincy City Directory, 1888.
John Ramsdell. "Historic North Quincy". ["Written about 1934"]. Typed manuscript at Quincy Historical Society.
Daniel Munro Wilson. Three Hundred Years of Quincy-1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Were one to remove the metal brackets off the facade and ignore the contents of the shop windows, one would see a fine small commercial structure or the 1890s. The symmetrical facade is composed of a central double recessed entrance, and two well proportioned shopwindows atop a low dado. The parapet is simply decorated with a corbel table which gives visual interest to the building. The ends are articulated with fluted pilasters. It is a good example of a modest commercial structure of the end or the 19th century.

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