Dandrow's old store building originally was located
at the corner of Walpole and Centre Streets.
Dandrow built it for a store and he had the post office in it ... He was the postmaster in those days .... Dandrow got the [postmaster] job but then when he built this [tea room building] he moved out of there and had it in this building.
[It] was moved back onto Whiting Road where the.. hardware store is now. There was one lot between the firehouse and Higgins' store. Homer Hanchett bought the place and.. moved [it] back onto Whiting Road and added on to it and built the house...
RV- The 1909 map shows the post office in that little store on Frost's corner there.. and that would have been Dandrow at that time?
He would have been the postmaster.
RV- Postmaster in that building?...
But that building at that time... belonged to Eben Higgins. See.. he owned
that and Bryant's house that was on the same lot where he built the store.
Then when he... finally sold the house to Bryant ..he sold a piece of the
land to Frost. Frost had the house built there that they use now for the..
Frost Center.. Frost gave the building to Cap Schaffner to get rid of it.
[The store] was never much of a success.. was empty for quite a while.. In
fact the fella that ran it gave up and went to Norwood and operated a taxi
business.
Dandrow's old store building originally was located
at the corner of Walpole and Centre Streets.
RV- And then Cap moved it over the road and put it in where.. the auto body shop is now?
Yeah.. Alec Rafter and Arthur Bernard from Natick moved it.
Breagy and Roach started a general store where the drug store is now. The telephones were up in this part of the building.. Dick Breagy had a little room for an office on the left as you go up the stairs opposite where the barbershop is now.
There was quite a bank [embankment] there where the Draper Building sets now. That was all dug out and hauled away.
The first gas pumps were right out in front of the building there 'stead of where they are now.. Socony gas...
Advts for one of Dover's earliest truck and automobile dealers.
Natick Bulletin Newspaper, Courtesy of Bob Comiskey
The start of the Hodgson Factory was the Peep-O-Day up here on Farm Street. The little house almost opposite the Smith's upper driveway. That was the first factory. You know where Hazel Law lives now? Well there's a little house in the yard besides the one she lives in... the.. third house on the left going up Farm Street... just on the curve.. Ernest Hodgson started the Peep-O-Day Brooder there.. in that little building.
And then he went into building garages and small houses down.. where the
Town Garage is.. And from garages and camps he went into the bigger houses
as the years went on. In fact I've got one of the smaller houses.. part of
my place at Manomet. He sold it to Fred Curtis for a brooder house and later
on Fred.. gave me the building. Les Holt helped me take it apart.. and Charlie
Burbank carted it down to Manomet for me.. in 1949.. In 1951 I had the house
built and added it on..
RV- How was the house was put together?
... When you had two studs come together you'd have a bolt go through and there was a little slot in one end of the bolt and then you'd put a pin in... [You'd] drive your bolt through and put the pin in. ..I bought some roof sections and floor sections from Hodgson down here after I bought the place in Manomet and they went right exactly with the building that I had. Same bolts and everything....
Mrs. Skimmings had a little store in the downstairs of her house and we used to jump off the barge and run in there and buy candy on the way to school. (Laughs) Penny candy .. As you look at Dave Lewis' house you can see the bottom there where the store was.
I remember distinctly the fountain setting right in the center of the corner. The water came down off Pegan Hill by gravity flow into the fountain. And at the top of the fountain there was a little place for a kerosene lantern One of the girls boarding at Skimmings would have to go over every night and climb up on the side of the fountain to put the lantern in.. She was one of the home kids that Mrs. Skimmings used to keep.. for the state. 'Course Mrs. Skimmings was the one that [had] charge of the lantern but the kids'd have to go do it..
The Fountain Lantern remained at the
Corner until sometime about 1928
when it was no longer needed for
horses and was an impediment to
increased automobile traffic.
RV- Do you remember anything about the Tavern?
I remember after the Higgins store burned there for a time it was located
in the Tavern and George Howe was postmaster at the time so of course the
post office was in the Tavern temporarily. I been in there buying candy at
the store when I was a kid going to school But that's the only time I was
in there.. I never was in it after they rented it as a house before it burned.
..It seemed as though it was that door that shows in the picture there kind
of a side door you went in.. [The little candy shop was] the room right inside
the door.. Shame they ever lost that.. But in those days all you had was
your bucket brigade.. They'd bring the water and.. they didn't have the equipment
like they have today. And course the fire started from the old chimney....See
they didn't have any liner...
RV- They lost a lot of things by fire didn't they in the old days?
Yeah.. they always used to say .."We saved the chimney.." (Laughs)