| Address: 113 Front Street |
| Historic Name: John and Catherine Pitcher House |
| Uses: Present: Parish Hall |
| Original: Single Family Dwelling |
| Date of Construction: ca. 1813 |
| Source: Visual, deeds |
| Style/Form: Federal / Cape |
| Architect/Builder: Unknown |
| Exterior Material: |
| Foundation: Cut granite |
| Wall/Trim: Wood / wood |
| Roof: Asphalt shingle |
| Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Playground |
| Major Alterations (with dates): Conversion from a house to a rectory (late 19th century); addition of a lean to (after 1933) |
| Condition: Good |
| Moved: no yes Date: |
| Acreage: 0.60 acres |
| Setting: Outside of the main commercial core of Sippican Wharf Village, in a primarily residential area. Surrounding buildings are a mix of late 19th and early/mid-20th century single family dwellings. |
| Recorded by: Jennifer B. Doherty |
| Organization: Marion Historical Commission |
| Date (month / year): March, 2021 |
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
The John and Catherine Pitcher House is a ca. 1813 Federal style Cape house that has been converted from a residence to a parish hall. Sited with its back to Front Street at the west, the façade of the house, facing to the east, is difficult to see from the public way. The house takes the Cape form, one-and-a-half stories tall, five bays wide, and two piles deep, with a center entry. Notably the house appears to now have internal end wall chimneys, as evidenced by the chimneys projecting from the ridgeline at each gable end. This would be a marked contrast to most examples of this type, which more commonly have a five-room center chimney plan rather than the center hall plan the chimneys suggest. The rear of the house has been raised to a full two stories, and due to its location on a hill, also features a walk-out basement. Extending from the rear pile of the south elevation of the house is a large ell, a full two stories in height. The ell sits back from the façade of the house but extends beyond the rear elevation. Finally, extending from the south elevation of the ell and set perpendicular to the house and ell is a large leanto, at least one-and-a-half stories tall. The lean to is not shown on maps as late as 1933, indicating it is a mid/late-20th century addition to the building.
The house and ell sit on a cut granite block foundation, while the lean to sits on a poured concrete foundation. The whole buildings is covered in wood shingles and has an asphalt shingle roof. Entrances are visible centered on the façade of the house, centered on the rear basement level of the house, and on the lean to at its angle of entry with the ell. The façade entrance on the house is difficult to see but looks to feature sidelights. At the rear, a Federal-style surround features half-height sidelights and a pediment over the entry. While it is possible this dates to the early 19th century, it is more likely to date to the house’s later conversion to a public church building. The entry on the lean to features no additional trim and is reached by a set of stairs composed of modern dimensional lumber. The house features a mix of windows, including some historic 6/6 wood sash, with other 1/1 replacement sash. All are protected by exterior storm windows.
Real estate listing photographs of the interior from March 2021 show that it has been heavily modified from its 19th century appearance. It does not appear as though there is any original trim or finish left inside the house. The floorplan may also have been altered, as the house now has several function and office spaces, as well as multiple kitchens.
The Pitcher House is elevated above Front Street, providing for a walk-out basement, likely not original to the house. The large, rectangular lot is mostly open, and includes a large children’s play area to the north of the house. Fenced with modern split-rail fencing, the play area features modern playground equipment. A granite block retaining wall separates the playground from the building. The south property line is bordered by a short extension of Pitcher Street, off of which a driveway leads to the front of the building.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
The John and Catherine Pitcher House has long been identified as likely constructed ca. 1813, and recent research confirms that attribution. That year, John Pitcher (1788-1867) purchased a large lot of land in Marion’s Wharf Village from Joseph Allen.[1] There were no houses mentioned in the deed, but a barn was standing on the property. That same year, Pitcher married Catherine Clark (1791-1871); it does not appear that the couple had any children.[2] Pitcher is frequently identified in records as a mariner, and local histories state that he preserved a bell from a Swedish ship that he would ring in his yard every evening at 9 pm. The couple were recorded together in the 1850 census, and in 1855, were joined by three others, relationships to the Pitchers unclear: Catherine C. Cardy (b. ca. 1817) and presumably her son, Edmond C. Cardy (b. ca. 1849), and George S. Atwood (b. ca. 1842). Their relationships to the Pitchers were not given, nor were their occupations. Pitcher was marked at the house on the1855 map of Marion. In 1860, the Pitchers were joined by Ann Copland (b. ca. 1825), a Canadian immigrant, and Edmond C. Cardy again.
Following John Pitcher’s death in 1867, his estate was probated.[3] His will, signed a year before, left his wife Catherine Clark Pitcher the use of all his property until her death. After that, the remainder of his estate was to go to the Congregational Society. This included his house and 10 acres of land, valued at $3,900; the value of all of his real estate totaled $5,900. Pitcher was the brother of Elizabeth Pitcher Taber, known in Marion for her philanthropy, and notably because of her own wealth, he left her and their brother J. S. H. Pitcher the small sum of $5 each.
The Pitcher House was marked as the Congregational Parsonage on both the 1879 and 1903 maps. For much of the 19th century, Front Street did not extend down to the house. Instead, the property was reached by a lane running east from Pleasant Street. This was eventually formalized as a public way and given the name Pitcher Street. The Congregational Society likely inherited all of John Pitcher’s lands on either side of Pitcher Street, and by the early 20th century had begun to subdivide the property for individual residences.
In 1966, Marion’s First Congregational Church conveyed the property to private owners, Lawrence P. and Edith G. Pangaro.[4] Although there are no distances given in the deed, describing how large the parcel was, it was presumably quite smaller than the original 10-plus acres the Congregational Society received from John Pitcher. Lawrence P. Pangaro (1925-2017) was a native of Ohio, a graduate of Columbia University, and an Army veteran of World War II, awarded the Purple Heart for his service.[5] He worked for many years in the advertising and newspaper worlds in New York City and later Southeastern Massachusetts. In New Bedford, he served as the national advertising manager for the New Bedford Standard-Times, leaving that position to found the Southeastern Advertising Agency, Inc. He and his wife, Edith V. Goddard Pangaro (1924-2014) founded the Marion Sentinel and its parent, the Sippican Publishing Company. He was an active tennis player, serving as president and treasurer of the Sippican Tennis Club. Lawrence P. Pangaro’s wife, Edith V. Pangaro, was a native of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and a graduate of Wheelock College. Beginning her teaching career in Greenwich, Connecticut, she continued it in the Old Rochester Regional School District when the couple moved to Massachusetts. As noted earlier, she also co-founded the Marion Sentinel with her husband.
The Pangaros owned the property for 11 years before selling it to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Fall River, its present owner.[6] The church serves as a parish hall for St. Rita’s parish (121 Front Street, MRN.195), across Vine Street. While the playground on the property is closed during school hours, it is open for public use outside of those hours.
For much of its history, the John and Catherine Pitcher House was not accessed by Front Street, but rather by a long private lane running from Pleasant Street east to the house. This would later become a public street named Pitcher Street, which still has a small, public tail that continues east of Front Street to the south side of the Pitcher House, as shown on this 1855 map by Walling.
By 1903, Front Street had been extended down behind what was labeled as the “Cong.l Parsonage,” and the former lane to the Pitcher House was now known as Pitcher Street.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
1855 H.F. Walling, Map of the Town of Marion, Plymouth County, Massachusetts
1879 Geo H Walker & Co, Atlas of Plymouth County Massachusetts.
1903 L. J. Richards & Co, New Topographic Atlas of Surveys of Plymouth County … Massachusetts
1908, 1921, 1933 Sanborn Insurance Atlases.
Ancestry.com: see footnotes
Digital collections of the Sippican Historical Society
Gordon, Edward W. “MRN.N – Wharf Village,” MHC Area Inventory Form. For the Sippican Historical Society, March, 1998.
Leonard, Mary Hall. Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts. New York, NY: The Grafton Press, 1907.
Plymouth County Registry of Deeds (PCRD): see footnotes, book:page.
Rosbe, Judith. “From Pitcher to Parsonage,” The Sentinel, August 26, 1999.
_____, Marion (2000), p. 20.
Somers, Olive Hiller, Three Centuries of Marion Houses (1972), p 22-23.
Vital Records of Rochester, MA to the end of the year 1849
[1] PCRD 126:265, 1813/1816
[2] Ancestry.com: Find-A-Grave; Massachusetts State Census of Population for 1855; US Federal Census of Population for 1850, 1860.
[3] Ancestry.com: Plymouth County Probate Records volume 105, page 503.
[4] PCRD 3328:521, 1966
[5] “Edith V. Pangaro,” The Sentinel, October 12, 2014; “Lawrence P. Pangaro,” The Standard-Times, May 7, 2017.
[6] PCRD 4300:490, 1977