Page 25 - Taverns Stands in Woodstock - for Flipbook_Neat

Park Cottage Hotel- New Park Hotel (1884-1917)

They gutted the house at No. 7 the Green in 1984, but it wasn’t the first time for this venerable brick build-
ing. We can name two other occasions and suspect extensive renovations were made several other times as well.
We are referring to the building now occupied by William Ryan as both home and real estate office. To quote
our article of Jan. 5, 1985: “Everytime I see it, the brick work jumps out at me. Do note the uneven runs of brick
near ground level, and the bricks on end marking the lintels of the original windows and doors. Not one of
these matches current windows and doors. The original structure was built as a store and residence by George
and William Raymond in 1807.”
Since the house was reopened, shrubs in the summer and snow in the winter will tend to obscure the une-
ven run of bricks, the out of place lintels however, remain obvious to all. They mark the dual purpose for which
the building was originally created.
Without a doubt the wider openings were for the multipaned, but large,
store windows. The house today, and we suspect, for much of its long existence presents a symmetrical appear-
ance with a central
front door flanked by two windows on each side, with
five windows above on the second
floor. While this is
a common pattern in brick, the evidence of asymmetry is all too clear. This is, indeed, an
uncommonhouse.
Dana tells us that William, son of Barnabas Raymond, came to West Woodstock from Middleborough,
Mass. in 1780, with his wife Phoebe. Their eldest son, George, and third son, William, in about 1796 went into
business together. Their trade, a successful one, was in English and West Indies goods. About 1807, notes Dana,
they transferred their business to the Green where they built “a fine brick store, on the Common... and placed
their brother Isaiah in as clerk.” Col. George Raymond died in 1811, leaving William to carry on. Ultimately,
he moved the business to Bridgewater. William died in 1815 but his business continued until 1882 through de-
scendants.
After George Raymond’s death in 1811, the house continued to be used as a store, saddler’s shop and
schoolhouse by (among others), Justus Burdick, Lewis R. Morse, Abraham Stearns, Benjamin F. Mower, Hayden
and Dana, George C. Pratt, saddler and Mrs. Cook and Mrs. Bates, school teachers. It was Benjamin Mower
who built the house next door at No. 5 the Green in 1825.

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