I think there were stores across the street [before] Springdale Park... But they were all gone before we came to Dover. There had been fires you know and they had all been destroyed... There was nothing but cellar holes.
I think there was one [cellar hole] on the Main Street side and then I think the cigar factory was on the Springdale Avenue side. But the foundations had pretty well fallen in you know and it was just full of rusty junk and weeds. The hillside was up above it. The cellar holes were practically on the level of the road and they went down around the corner.
But you see in those days we could go round up high right in front of Mary Grace's house. And we used to say that when they closed that and graded it and took it over for a park, we had to start for the train two minutes earlier. Had to go down around the corner.
RV- Mary Grace lived in a house set down...?
Oh no. Mary Grace lived in that house that's there now. Oh yes. They've remodelled it. The big white house..Williams house. Well, of course they've built onto it. That house..looked more like a cottage from the Vinyard. It had you know what my husband used to call [wooden filagree]..work that was cut out and hung down from the eaves.. You remember on Main Street it's a sharp peaked roof? Well, it was [like that] in those days.. Her brother lived with her and she had one or two men boarders that worked on the road. I think her brother was a stone mason and was an expert with explosives. For blasting. And the other men were day laborers of some kind.
RV- Then where was Chapel Street..?
Well that was the cutoff that we used to use but we never called it anything. It was a road a country road and it had a railing around it too. It had one rail on iron posts...where it went around the curve right near her piazza. Because there it sloped off you know down steep.
RV- So the road went in front of that house?
Oh yes, went south of the house. You thought it went in back of it? Oh, no. No. That was Judson's land in back of it.
RV- Ooooooo
The road went about where the pine trees are. Well, it dropped off. When they made a park out of it the levelled it you know, they filled in. They had to fill in the cellar holes.
RV- The foundations for the old cigar factory and what would have been the old stores were down fairly near the level of Springdale Avenue..the end of Main Street?
And they were fallen in.
RV- Kind of buried in and with weeds?
Yes
RV- And then..if you stood on Springdale Avenue and looked at that what was behind that?
Well, it would be this slump you know and then the land went up like that. And the road [Chapel Street] went around fairly near to the house and curved around and then went gradually down the slope in front of the church. The road wasn't real close to the front of the church either. It was down a ways and was on a slant. And went down to where you went in to the gravel pit.