Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

61-63 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.

Number 61-63 Brook Street was probably built by Edward Hewitson, a painter, as an investment property. The Hewitson family, who lived nearby on Grandview Avenue in the elegant Wo1laston Hill neighborhood, retained the property until about 1923 when it was sold to Montclair realtor Lora A. Merrill. The property quickly changed hands again being bought by W. W. Willson, another Montclair realtor. Willson converted the building to three apartments at a cost of $3000 in 1926 and converted it again in 1927 to seven apartments at a further cost of $6000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Building Permit, alterations.
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.
Vincent J. Scully, Jr. The Shingle Style and The Stick Style. Yale University Press, 1971.
Daniel Munro Wilson. Three Hundred Years of Qincy 1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
In the 1890s, there was a spurt of building ample Shingle Style/Colonial Revival houses in the Montclair area such as at 42 Brook Street and at 61-63 Brook Street responding to development pressures. 61-63 Brook Street was constructed as a large double residence (today it contains seven apartments) in the Shingle Style with an overhanging second floor made of shaped shingles which is a holdover from the Queen Anne Period. The double hip roof with hip dormers, the bowed two story projections, and the simple window enframements and the strong rectangular massing suggest elements of the forthcoming Colonial Revival Period. It is its simplicity of form, lack of architectural ornamentation and compact massing that characterizes this as a good example of late 19th century Quincy rental property.

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