This Was Then: Kennebec

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A summertime scene in the early 1880s on Kennebec Avenue, Oak Bluffs. Courtesy Chris Baer.

This photograph — originally half of a stereo card — was made on the corner of Kennebec and Park Avenue in Oak Bluffs, looking north. The house on the immediate right is about where Offshore Ale is today.

Lining the street are cottages built mostly in the early 1870s for summer residents. Most were seasonal rentals, or took in lodgers.

  • The building on the right (No. 28 in the original street-numbering system) was owned by Mrs. C.W. Davenport of Boston. She advertised seven “cool, shady rooms, from $4 to $10 per week” in the Boston Globe, and she may very well be the woman in the foreground. Mrs. Davenport began advertising it as Harmony Cottage by 1885. It was enlarged and renamed the Grand View House in the 1890s, and became a hotel called The Kenmore in the early 1900s.

  • The next cottage on the right was owned by Betsey Legg of Mapleville, R.I. An 1882 news report in the Hartford Courant remarked, “A flag flying from No. 26 Kennebec Avenue was used to cover the casket of the late President Garfield.” The building may have been used as a dining room for Harmony Cottage.

  • The next, No. 24, was owned by Boston furniture dealer and realtor Rufus Kimball. It became The Brookline Dining Rooms during the 1890s or early 1900s, where photographer William Haynes also advertised film developing and printing.

  • Samuel Stratton of Worcester owned No. 22. In the 1890s it was known as Soulis Cottage, and by the early 1900s, Brookline Annex.

  • No. 20 Kennebec was owned by Nathan Chase of New Bedford and his family.
  • No. 18, notable for its gambrel-style roof, was also owned by Chase. During the 1890s it became known as Daisy Cottage.

  • The rooftops of No. 16 and No. 14 are also visible. Popcorn dealer Albert Farwell summered in No. 14 in the 1890s, followed by his successor in business, Carroll Darling of Darling’s.

Very few of the buildings seen here still stand. Of the first six cottages seen on the right, only the fifth (No. 20) and the sixth (No. 18 with the gambrel-style roof) survive. The first four were all razed before 1940.

The massive roller-skating rink in the background, later known as the Casino, was built in 1879, roughly where Santander Bank stands today. It was destroyed in a catastrophic fire in 1892.

Special thanks to Harvey Garneau for his expert eye in precisely identifying these cottages.

Chris Baer teaches photography and graphics at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. His book, “Martha’s Vineyard Tales,” containing many “This Was Then” columns, was released June 1.