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INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community: Form No: <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL CUM SSION E-214 <br /> Office of the Secretary, Boston <br /> Property Name: 703 Massachusetts Ave. <br /> Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. <br /> HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE <br /> The Brick Store - East Village* <br /> One of the oldest brick structures in town, this.building was erected in <br /> 1828 for Eli Robbins. Always used for commercial purposes on the street level, <br /> the second floor contained a good-sized meeting room with access from the <br /> outside stairway on the westerly side. In the 1880's, the East Lexington Branch <br /> Library was here on the second floor. <br /> In 1836 the East Lexington branch of the Post Office opened in this <br /> building, and remained here until 1867, when Augustus Childs was appointed <br /> Postmaster and moved the Post Office to his store nearer Curve St. <br /> Following Eli Robbins, Billings Smith operated a grocery store 'here for a <br /> few years, succeeded in turn by Rufus Holbrook in the 18801s. A few people <br /> still remember with a smile one of East Village's most fun-loving characters, <br /> who worked here as a clerk at that period, - Peter T. Gillooly. <br /> By 1900, the business had changed hands once again, and Lucius A. Austin <br /> was the proprietor, stabling his horses in the attached barn. . . . A clerk in <br /> the Brick Store, Edgar W. Harrod, eventually took over its ownership, running it <br /> for some years as a general store with everything from kerosene to hardware. <br /> "Harrod's", as older residents still remember it, continued in business until <br /> (his death in 1928] . . . . <br /> *Written by S. Lawrence Whipple, from sources in the archives of the Lexington <br /> Historical Society. (Published in a brochure for the Lexington Arts and Crafts <br /> Society, about 1972.) <br /> Staple to Inventory form at bottom <br />