Abraham Wagener's individual sales - 3
his block of lots was the farthest south of Abraham Wagener's sales to individuals. Adjacent on the south was the two-acre lot John Dorman bequeathed to his granddaughters; and the lots to the south of that were all part of the so-called "Mansion House" sale in 1836.
The earliest of these sales was in 1818 when the lawyer William Morrison Oliver, newly arrived from New Hampshire, needed to own land to run for political office. Wagener sold him nearly three acres, with a south boundary on Dorman's Lot and stretching all the way west to what was then called "the back street," that is, Liberty Street. This property was subdivided much later into two lots facing Main Street and several others facing Liberty Street.
In 1825 Samuel F. Curtis bought a lot to the north of Oliver's for his chair factory. This was its second location, after the first on Head Street. Curtis' house faced Liberty Street behind the factory.
The next two lots on the north were sold in 1824, the southerly one to Elijah Ryno, and the other to Henry Plimpton. Ryno built a house (which he may have run as an inn), and Plimpton a cabinet-ware factory (dishes).
Cornelius Masten, who probably bought it for investment purposes, purchased the corner lot in 1823. It's certain at least that he never built anything on it, though he did hold onto it for another 10 years, until the village was incorporated.
Wagener liked to sell lots all of the same size, and except for Oliver's expansive three-acre freehold, this block is no exception. The original deeds, like those in blocks farther north, mention an alley that ran north and south through the middle of the block. It's quite easy in this block to see where it was.
Use the buttons below to find out more about the smaller plots made from this one:
Abraham Wagener sold these lots to individual buyers, between 1818 and 1824. Few were residential at that time, and only one is now; but it's the once-residential structures built later that make this one of the village's most impressive blocks.
