Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

247 Beale 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.

Beale Street is the dividing line between the Wollaston Hill neighborhood to the south and the Montclair neighborhood to the north. The mansardic cottage at 247 Beale Street falls on the Montclair side of the street. Wollaston real estate developer H. T. Whitman, who also had an office at 85 Devonshire Street in Boston, owned the house in 1888 and may have been the original builder. The next owner was probably Gottlieb Sutermiester, a Boston shipper, listed as owner in 1897. Later owners were Annie M. Kelley in 1907 and John H. Finnan, a foreman. in 1923.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Building Permits, 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 193411"] . Typed manuscript at Quincy
Historical Society.
Daniel Munro Wilson. Three Hundred Years of Quincy 1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The most characteristic element of the Mansardic Style or Second Empire (1860s and 1870s) is the French mansardic roof which is a double-pitched hipped roof with dormer windows on the steep, lower slope. This mansardic cottage at 247 Beale Street is similar in massing and details to the one at 269 Beale Street with only a few differences in the details.Both houses have a one story angular bay window and a side entrance on the facade. Here, the bay window goes up to the bracketed eaves unlike 269 where the bay window has its own roof. Of particular interest is the panel with incised decorations at the top of the front bay window. The entrance is protected by a portico supported by square chamfered posts instead of decorated brackets of 269. Both houses have angular bay windows on the side elevations. It is a pleasant example of a 1860s mansardic cottage in the Montclair area.

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