Broad St, The Old Red Store

photo by Rene Elliott, comments courtesy of Janet Washbon, Gary Norman, and Rene Elliott.

Janet Washbon
In the Morris Chronicle of 13 April 1898, A.S. Avery wrote: “Later, the old red store was moved down Broad street, and was used as a tin shop by Church & Briggs and afterwards by Jackson & Briggs. It has been in many hands since then in 1868 was used as a dry goods store by Beekman & Ward, and is now [1898] owned and occupied by Seymour and Frank Isbell.”
I am trying to figure out if this tin shop occupied the location of the current American Legion Hall. If not there, which lot on Board Street did this building occupy?

Gary Norman
The hardware store in 1868 was next to the creek where Naylor's is today.

Rene Elliott
YES it is the Legion building, if you go up the stairs in the addition side (towards the bank) you could see the original timber structure, and red plank walls, where they raised the second story. On the west end of the building, at the peak, you could see the end of the five sided ridge beam, a style of rafter and ridgepole common in New England c. 1780 -1810. You can dig a hole behind the addition and find rusty tin (Ken Cooke had a metal detector). They moved it when the present bank building was built (Capt. Dan Smith generally credited as the stone mason on these buildings). The building which stood where the Pizza place is now was moved to the present gas station site and stood as a house on Grove St. until c. 1984? when torn down.