Ninth in a series on Brandon’s historic buildings
By JAMES PECK
Recently, the Downtown Business Alliance (DBA) unveiled Banker’s Alley located in the alley between the Bar Harbor Bank (BHB) and the National Bank of Middlebury (NBM). As part of the “Park2Park” project, it provides a place to showcase Brandon art and provide a more pleasant route between Central Park and Kennedy Park by the falls.
If you look closer at these two bank buildings, you will notice a decided difference in the bricks as to color, size, and mortar. The Bar Harbor building is a lighter tannish shade while the NBM building (called the Photographer’s Building) is a darker red and the mortar on the NBM is whiter. Obviously, they were built at different times.
In fact, the NBM building at 6-8 Park is much older, the oldest in that row of buildings, which are all over 100 years old. Built in 1851 by George Washington Parmenter as a brick store, it is 67 years older than the BHB building on the corner which proudly displays its construction date at the top of “1918.” As does the building to the east of the NBM/Photographer’s building, also in the light tannish brick which displays its date of “1919” at the top. Maybe an “1851” should go up on their elder sister!
Two fires
As with the Blue Moon building at 31 Center, the survival of the Photographer’s Building was due to the quality of its construction; both have a double fire wall of bricks 24 inches thick on each side. When the fire of 1918 that destroyed the bank corner building occurred, the Dunmore Hose Company was able to stop the fire from spreading east across the alley mainly due to that fire wall.
Then, only 16 months later in 1919, a fire destroyed all the buildings to the east up to the Brandon Inn, the fire wall on the other side saved it again.
After each fire, the same contractor, Brandon’s prolific Tom Rogers, rebuilt the two destroyed blocks, both in the light tannish bricks, both with their construction dates of 1918 and 1919 proudly displayed in marble at the top.
Parmenter’s Block
George Parmenter, the 38-year-old son of Captain Nathan Parmenter, one of Brandon’s first settlers, bought the lot at 6-8 Park in 1850 from John A. Conant for $1,200 and the next year built his “brick store” as it says on the deeds. The first businesses located there were the boot and shoe shop of S. F. Paige (“Poverty is no excuse for going barefoot!”) and the gentleman’s clothing shop of L. C. Scott, both downstairs, and the hat shop of Mrs. Salmon Farr (great grandmother of Shirley) upstairs.
Paige’s Block
In 1857, Parmenter sold the brick store for $3,800 to Sylvester Frederick Paige, whose shoe shop was now called the People’s Shoe Store, run by Milo Mott. The building then became “Paige’s Block” and remained so for the next 56 years, until 1913.
By 1860, Sylvester Paige was a very successful merchant, with $10,000 in assets, mostly real estate. When he moved to Rutland in 1866, he continued to manage the building and his other interests in Brandon.
Photographer’s Building
Downstairs, a grocery store soon moved in and would be there until 1948 under various owners. Upstairs, beginning in 1865, a long line of photographers would lease studios there for 56 years, until 1921.
According to historian Blaine Cliver, because the building faces south, the second floor was ideal for photographers who needed sunlight to develop photos from glass plates. In fact, old photos of the building show that a small bay window was added in the 1890s, likely to facilitate more solar exposure.
The first to lease was 29-year-old James Cady, who signed a two-year lease at $50 a year in 1864. Cady was known as “an Artist of ability and taste.” Cady took numerous stereophotos (stereopticon, or stereoscopic, slides) while living in Brandon. Many of the early images of the town are his, including the oldest photograph showing the town hall and also the building that is now the library. In 1867, Cady likely took the accompanying photo of the Photographer’s building.
Cady’s assistant, Nathan Capen, took over the lease in 1869, on “the second floor, to be occupied as a Picture Gallery and dwelling—six rooms in number.” Capen was there until 1876. Then Sanford Smith took over the lease, this time from Paige’s widow Augusta. Smith was there until 1887, followed by the Parker brothers, A. O. Phillips, A. E. G. Fuller, Frank Grimes, Clayton Knowlton, and Charles Fuller through 1907. It was Frank Grimes who took the accompanying photo showing the “Photography” sign and bay window.
By 1910, Etta Moody, the first female photographer to occupy the studio, took over the lease through 1921. It was she who took the accompanying photo after the 1919 fire. Her shop had been damaged by smoke and water, but she soon moved back in, as did the grocer downstairs.
THE BUILDING IN the 1890s in a photo by photographer Grimes. Note the bay window now protruding from the second floor to allow photographers to maximize the sunlight needed to develop their film. Note also the “new” Brandon Inn on the far right.
Collins Block
While the photographers took over the second floor in 1864, a grocery store had moved in on the first. After exchanging hands a few times, it became Collins & Needham’s grocery in 1898 and would be there for 50 years.
It was operated by Harry Collins and Charles Needham. Harry bought the building from the Paiges in 1913 and it became the “Collins Block.” Their motto was “The Best of Everything” and their picture window displays were legendary (2,500 navel oranges). Like the building, the grocery survived the 1918 and 1919 fires, and flourished up to 1948.
After Etta Moody left in 1921, Collins rented the second floor out as apartments.
Brown’s Pharmacy
In 1954, the building was sold out of Harry Collins’ estate to Harry Lazarus, a department store merchant from Middlebury who bought it as an investment property.
Lazarus already had tenants, including Brown’s Pharmacy, which had moved across the alley in 1953 from 4 Park in the First National Bank building. Brown’s was founded at 4 Park in 1937 by Francis Brown when he bought the Shangraw’s Pharmacy.
Under Francis and his wife, Mary Ann, then his sons Tom and Bill, Brown’s would operate for another 54 years until 2007. They had competition at first, but soon came to be the go-to pharmacy in Brandon. In the 50s and 60s, one of the main attractions was the long lunch counter and the fountain drinks and ice cream sold there.
In 1972, the Browns bought 10 Park Street next door and expanded there, opening a gift shop called Brown’s of Brandon in #6. In 1978, they finally bought 6 Park from the Lazarus family. In 1995, Brown’s of Brandon split from Brown’s Pharmacy, with Tom running the former and Bill the latter.
In 2007, Brown’s Pharmacy was bought by Rite Aid and closed. Bill Brown worked for a time for Rite Aid at their 1 Union Street location next to the Congregational Church.
In 2008, Tom Brown sold the Brown’s of Brandon building at 6 Park to Roseann and Larry Johnson, who bought it as an investment property.
According to Tom Brown, who still lives in Brandon on High Street, the Browns only used the upstairs for storage and not for apartments. It was left largely undisturbed.
Lost Faces of Brandon
Soon after buying the building, the Johnsons gutted the upstairs to build a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom residence for themselves. They created a condominium for the building with a unit on each floor.
In the course of gutting the upstairs, Roseann made an amazing find in the eastern wall bordering #10 Park: a box full of dusty glass plate photo negatives taken by the resident photographers in the late 1800s!
Not realizing their full significance, she put them in a safe place at their self-storage business north of Brandon. There they sat until 2014, when they sold that business and decided to give the box to the Brandon Museum, where they went to the attic.
That’s where Kevin Thornton, a museum board member and historian, found them in 2016 while rummaging around. Thornton then enlisted Tony Rankin, his brother-in-law and an expert on old photographic development techniques, including wet plate development, to help clean the 200 plates up, scan them, Photoshop them, and develop them using the albumen process.
The result was astonishing: photos of Brandonites had come back to life! Tony then printed out seventeen of them to display at a photo show called “Lost Faces of Brandon” at the Brandon Library on August 11, 2017. It was one of the best-attended talks there ever.
Eighty more of the lost faces have never been displayed to the public and Thornton and others are working on arranging that soon. According to Kevin, “the entire collection deserves a showing.”
National Bank of Middlebury
The Johnsons sold the building in 2017 to John and Heather Bierschenk. They sold it in July of 2023 to the current owner 6 Park Street Realty LLC. and a month later, the National Bank of Middlebury, which had leased the first floor and renovated it, had their grand opening on August 2.
A “history wall” that tells the story of the early years of Brandon, with images from the Museum’s collection, was designed by the Brandon Museum. In a conference room are black-and-white photographs by accomplished local photographers Don Ross and Caleb Kenna, as well as photos by bank employees. A wall plaque there that explains the building’s history as a hub for photography in Brandon in the 1800s.
Upstairs, talented local photographer Don Ross, who has leased there since 2016, continues the tradition of lensmen (and women) living and working there, but has his studio at 29 Union Street. When he moved in, Ross had no previous knowledge of the history of the building, but he says he feels “fortunate and honored to have unwittingly contributed to furthering that history.”
