Little Red Shop 2-story Mystery

For a long time, I've considered the picture at the top of the page to be a bit of a mystery. It certainly looks like the Little Red

Shop,

except that it has an extra floor. It seemed that when the shop was moved across Freedom Street, early in the first

decade of the

20th century, it lost a floor and gained a cupola. Then recently (December 2012) I thought, for a few minutes,

that at last there was

an answer. The Sanborn insurance map for 1892

(map above with the Red Shop labeled "Store Hos"

including a square addition on the left that wasn't moved)

showed the "covered bridge" (referred to elsewhere as a runway)

that ran from

what was evidently the Red Shop, over the river to a three-stor

building. Nothing new there, until I noticed that

the map shows

that the Red Shop had two stories at one end and one at the other. Okay, that's the answer. They moved

the one-story end, but not

the two-story end. The proportions looked more like they should that way, too. Mystery solved. But

then I took another look. The

picture shows the "covered bridge" attached to the second floor, but the map indicates that it

was attached to the first floor.

It seems that the fact that part of the Red Shop was once two stories and part was one must somehow explain the

difference

between the picture and what exists now. The only thing that has occurred to me so far is that maybe

mapmakers make mistakes.

Not a very satisfactory explanation, but that's all I've come up with so far. Actually, though, the

map maker did provide me with

evidence that he wasn't perfect. The church in the center of town has been the Unitarian

Church since 1868. (The first church

there, built in 1860, and the present one, built in 1898, were both Unitarian churches.)

It was some decades before the merger of

the Unitarians and the Universalists, but if you look at

the full version of the

map

, you'll see that it's labeled Universalist Church.

Well, as I said above, thinking the mapmaker was wrong when he

showed the covered bridge attached to the two-story end might

be what happened, but I'd rather find a better explanation. If

you have any ideas about this, there's an email link to me on the

homepage.

While you're looking at pictures from the 1890s, here are a couple more below. At the bottom left of the first photo you can

see a bit

of the covered bridge as it reaches the three-story building. Slightly to the right of center at the bottom is part of a

cupola. It appears

to be the cupola that's on the Red Shop. My guess is that when the shop was moved to the other side of

Freedom Street, or not

very long after that, the cupola was taken off of the three-story factory and put onto the roof of the Red

Shop.

You can see that the picture, below

as taken before the Lake Street houses were built. They were erected c. 1910 - 1912.

The picture shows an icehouse near the little island, left of center, and the Henry Patrick icehouse to the right of center. The

big Hopedale Coal & Ice Company icehouse was off to the left and out of view. Several little boathouses can be seen at the

middle right.

History and early pictures of the Little Red Shop Map Menu Draper Menu HOME

Sanborn insurance map - 1892

The "covered bridge" or "runway" can be seen on

the left in this clipping and in the picture below.

Freedom Street