The Cottage on the Pond
by William Roberts
A rousing game of croquet at The Cottage on the pond
In 1908 The Cottage was sold to my great grandfather for $1.00. We still have a copy of the old hand-written deed. The property was the guest house for a neighboring estate.
The owners admired my great grandfather. He was a founder of the Boston YMCA. He developed the Indian Club and the Medicine Ball and also was the first advocate of aerobic exercise. He stressed the dual importance of physical health and Christianity. We still have several of the books he wrote and treasure them as family heirlooms.
Rt. 137 was an unpaved road then. The train was a major means of transportation. The old depot and the South Brewster Post Office were near the junction of 137 and Underpass Road, near where Ferretti’s Market is today.
My father, was born in 1914, and he spent many of his summers at The Cottage with his mother and father and grandfather. Dad remembered playing baseball and other childhood games as well as picking blueberries in surrounding meadows. Scrub and locust grow there now. I was told much of this growth was a result of the hurricane of 1938.
For all of my father’s childhood, there was no electricity or running water at The Cottage. There was a two-seater outhouse and a kerosene stove in the kitchen for cooking, and water came from an old pump near the cast iron sink. Kerosene lamps provided light. Food was kept cool in a large wooden ice box located in the storeroom beside the kitchen.
In his boyhood my father remembered that much of the food, ice, and supplies were delivered by “Cozzie” Nickerson. There were also others who came down the “lane” selling seafood, meats, dairy products, vegetables, household goods, and services such as knife sharpening.
In the early years of the 20th Century there was a roller skating pavilion located down the lane in a beech grove. My father remembered spending many summer evenings there. Once, in my childhood, I located his initials carved in a beech tree near where the pavilion was said to have been located. Old wooden roller skates are still to be found in neighboring barns. In addition, folks raced horses pulling carts around the pond. The area was a social center for locals who lived nearby.
I went to The Cottage with my parents and my sister all of my childhood summers. We stayed between two weeks and a month. I still remember the kerosene lanterns, the old pump that emptied into the cast iron sink in the kitchen, and the kerosene stove. I also remember vividly the two-seater outhouse that we euphemistically called the “Toodle” House. Sometime in the early ’50’s my dad had electricity installed, and the kerosene lamps were put aside.
My wife and I were married in 1962, and in 1965 our first child was born. We planned to take the baby with us to The Cottage to spend the summer. Our parents did not want their firstborn grandchild to have to deal with such primitive conditions, so my dad had plumbing installed by John Latham, the local plumber, complete with an indoor bathroom with a shower. The outhouse became a storage shed, and actually bathing in the pond became a treat only for the extra warm days.
My wife and I were educators, so we had the luxury of many summertime weeks there with our children, only moving out for my sister and her time there with her family. In the early seventies, Dad deeded The Cottage to my sister and me, and shortly thereafter we had a carpenter from Harwich build a new kitchen. That kitchen, though dated, is still very serviceable today.
Now my sister and I divide the summer months at The Cottage, and our children each have a week or so to enjoy wonderful memories of summers on Cape Cod. We treasure the hours we have spent at the pond, on the screened-in front porch, and sharing meals and family time there.
We do our best to make The Cottage look as it always has. We have refurbished much of the old wicker furniture in the living room and the oak table, chairs, and buffet in the dining room. We still serve our meals on the old Blue Willow china. Painting the old lathe and plaster walls and ceilings is an annual labor of love. And, of course, television remains taboo. Our children and now their children successfully engage in creative play: swimming and playing tag in the pond, exploring the woods, playing cards and board games, and listening to stories.
Our three children and their three cousins are the 5th generation to enjoy the wonders of The Cottage in what was once called South Brewster.