From Dave Brigham:
I vacationed on Cape Cod for many years with my wife and kids, as well as my wife's family, renting a variety of houses in Pocasset. Inevitably, each summer, someone raised the idea of buying our own house in the small village that is part of Bourne. I mostly ignored these conversations, as I wasn't interested in owning a second home.
During the summer of 2020, spurred in part by the pandemic, the conversation about owning a vacation home intensified between my wife and her sister. When they learned that a small cottage was about to hit the market, they decided to put in an offer. I didn't want to stand in the way, so I gave them three conditions: I don't want my name on anything, I don't want to have to do anything for the house, and I don't want to be expected to be there every time my wife wanted to go.
I can be quite the curmudgeon.
Long story, short: their offer wasn't accepted. But they persisted. Before long, my wife found a listing in the town of Sandwich. Long story, short: they bought the house, which is located in the Jarvesville Historic District, which is "centered on the site of the former Boston and Sandwich Glass Company factory," per Wikipedia.
Suddenly, I was excited to own a second home! I realized that my issue wasn't with buying a vacation property, but with doing so in Pocasset, because not much goes on there. But when my wife told me the house in Sandwich dates to 1858 and is a former tenement house for the glass factory, AND had a workshop in the back that had been converted to a guest house, AND that the bustling village I'd been to before was a short walk across Route 6A, well I was all in.
I became instantly hooked on our house, as well as the surrounding historic district. So naturally I have taken a lot of photos and done some research into the historic area.
So, let's check it out.
This is the workshop in our backyard. As you can see, the previous owner hung some cool old signs on this little guest house. There are neat touches like this throughout the property, although my wife tells me there were a lot more such flourishes when she and her sister first looked at the house. Many of them were sold at a yard sale prior to our closing.
There is a large shed on the property, as well as an old camper, below, that was used to store a lawnmower and other gardening stuff, I think.
I am somewhat obsessed with this little gem (OK, diamond in the rough). The inside is somewhat of a disaster, so restoring it for use as a sleeping quarters would require a mammoth amount of sweat equity and time. And I'm about as handy with tools as Roseanne Barr is with singing, so there's no way I can take this project on and finish it before I die. So what to do? Hire someone? Chip away at it with my wife and her sister and brother-in-law? That sounds like a good plan.
Railroad tracks cut right across our street; trains go by once in a while, more so during the summer. I knew the stars had aligned on this place when my wife told me about the rusty old train car you see below.
What better neighborhood oddity for the guy who runs the Backside of America blog?!
On my first stroll around the neighborhood, I spied the beauty below.
(Late '60s/early '70s Oldsmobile Cutlass wagon.)
Right around the corner from our place is Sandwich Auto Parts.
(Vintage Dodge Dart that I hope to one day see driving through the neighborhood.)
Hard by the railroad tracks, the auto parts building dates to 1850 and is known historically as the Keenan and Daniels Store. Perhaps this is where factory workers used to buy their groceries.
Across Church Street from the old store I found the garage below, which sits on a lot by itself, and may be part of the auto parts business.
As for the Boston and Sandwich Glass factory, it was torn down ages ago, but on the site where it stood from 1825-1888, there is a cool plaque, below, that features a map of the complex.
Built by Deming Jarves -- hence the name of the historic district -- the factory was one of the earliest in the nation to produce pressed glass, per Wikipedia. Jarves "chose Sandwich [for the factory] because of its proximity to a shallow harbor and the possibility of a canal being built through Cape Cod that would allow for the shipment of goods," according to the Sandwich Glass Museum web site. "The local availability of timber could be used to fuel the glass furnaces. Even the salt marsh hay and grasses could be used for packing material." The factory closed in 1888 amid disputes with a newly formed glassmakers' labor union, per Wikipedia. Below, a detail from the plaque map.
Jarves brought with him to Sandwich master glass blowers from the New England Glass Company in East Cambridge, Mass., where he previously been an executive. For more on the New England Glass Co., see October 19, 2018, "Through the Looking Glass." Jarves left Boston and Sandwich Glass in 1858 and started a competing company, Cape Cod Glass Works, close by. He ran it with his son, but both men were dead by 1869, and the company shuttered.
I aim to find out in the future whether that old factory site is accessible.
A short distance away from the glass factory plaque stands a Liberty Tree Monument, below.
"This American Liberty Elm was named after 'The Liberty Tree: Our Country's first Symbol of Freedom,'" the plaque reads in part. To quote myself, from a June 2018 blog post about the former Brigham's Hotel & Restaurant and a Sons of Liberty plaque located in Boston's current Chinatown neighborhood, "By 1765 the tree had become integral to the burgeoning revolutionary movement in Boston, and effigies of those who supported the Stamp Act were hung here. That year, the tree was dubbed the Tree of Liberty and from that point on many important meetings were held here."
Currently, there are several trees rising above this plaque located in a small park along Jarves Street in Sandwich. None of them, to my non-arborist eyes, are majestic Liberty Elms. The plaque was placed by the Elm Research Institute of Keene, NH, which was founded in 1967 to "develop the research to save the American Elm from Dutch Elm Disease," per its web site.
Many of the houses in this historic district are former homes of glass factory workers, and are quaint as all get-out.
As you can imagine, preservation of these historic homes is a priority for neighbors and for the Town of Sandwich. Sometimes, however, people want to tear these wonderful old homes down, or need to because they are in such disrepair. One house in the area has been the subject of teardown talk for quite some time, as the owners claim several contractors have walked away from the possibility of restoring it. Two years ago, the Sandwich Historic District Committee encouraged the owners to hold off on demolition; to date the house still stands.
Another house in the historic district has an "X" on it that indicates demolition is in its future.
I just love how that pink door sets off against the darkened shingles. The inside, I'm assuming, must be in rough shape, as the outside doesn't look too bad to my untrained eye.
Among the reasons that Jarves built his glass factory in Sandwich were the marsh grasses and hay his company could use as packing material.
Just down the road from that lovely marsh scene is the Sand Hill School Community Center, which has been doubling as the town library. Built in 1885 as a school for children of the glass factory workers, the building has been used over the decades as an American Legion hall, the office of the school superintendent and a community center.
There are commercial properties in the historic district, too. Below is the sign on side of the Sandwich Antiques Center, at the corner of Jarves Street and Route 6A.
The sign reads, in part, "On this site in the early 19th century stood dry and fancy goods stores and a barber shop." After a fire in 1869, the property was rebuilt and "became the home to the Victorian photograph studio of Miss Minnie Cook. For most of the 20th century these buildings housed the Yankee Clipper," a popular restaurant. The antiques center has been here for more than 20 years.
Across 6A, heading southwest, behind MacDonald's Sandwich Emporium, is a beatifully restored barn known historically as Quail Hollow Barn.
Built in 1845, this shingle-covered barn is one of the few buildings of its type and age still left in the area. I believe it is owned by the emporium.
Steps away on the same side of the street is an apartment building known as the 1883 Block.
Constructed on the site of a former hotel called Harpers (and also the Sandwich House), this place used to have retail on the ground floor. Around 1960, it was converted to all apartments, per MACRIS.
Next, a couple of related places that I look forward to patronizing whenever life returns to something approximating normal.
The Next Door Burger Bar is located in the former Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church Rectory. Built around 1880 as a private home, this Victorian Gothic Revival treasure has undergone significant change over the years. Many years ago, it was the first building of the complex that is now known as the Belfry Inn and Bistro. Opened in 1995, the place has changed names and layouts since, and today has guest rooms above the first-floor restaurant. Next door to Next Door is the former church for which the rectory once housed the priest and other church staff.
The Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church rose in 1901, after its predecessor was damaged in a storm. In 1998, Belfry owner Christopher Wilson acquired this property from the New Bedford Diocese and began transforming it into the inn and bistro it is today. The resort is completed by the adjacent Village House.
Let's finish with a place that I plan to visit countless times over the next few decades.
The Sandwich Package Store sits along Route 6-A, within view of our house. I don't know what you call the architectural style, but I refer to it as Western storefront. The building dates to 1940, per MACRIS, and was formerly known as Arnold's Package Store.
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