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Clerk Ida Lamphere was startled one day to handle a bunch of bananas — and a very long, flat, winged insect emerged. She at first mistook it for a tarantula. She placed the bug under glass and put it on display for customer inspection at her uncle, C.D. Brown’s, bakery in Williamstown. It was 1898. Typical day.

Brown “Has at The Bakery a Complete Line of Home-made Pastries and Confectionery, 76 Main St., Foot of Consumption Hill,” announced an advertisement in The Guilelmensian, a collegiate publication, in 1902.

Charles D. Brown (1862-1901), a native of Oppenheim, N.Y., had come to Williamstown as a boy to live with his aunt. His first bakery was in a house on Main Street near Cole Avenue. With an assist from his uncle, W.H. Boardman, he acquired C.B. Fowler’s cash bakery and grocery and relocated the business to a building owned by Judge Keyes Danforth on Spring Street.

After a fire destroyed the block, which was also occupied by McCann’s harness shop and George W. Hopkins’ furniture store, Brown bought a building on Main Street on the south side, opposite Southworth Street.

Brown married North Adams native Hattie Louise Lamphere (1865-1958) in 1884. They had seven children.

The North Adams Transcript described Brown as “a quiet, unassuming man, who gained many friends by his honesty in business dealings and his pleasant ways. He applied himself very faithfully to his business which kept him either in his bakery cart or in the store and participated in few social affairs or amusements. He was a Christian man, though not a member of any church and a firm believer in temperance, in which work he was active, being a member of the Sons of Temperance. He was a member of the New England Order of Protection.”

The baker witnessed all sorts of comings and goings. One day, youngest son Homer found a portfolio of newspaper clippings in the street.

The collection had been put together by the Robert and Linn Luce Press Clipping Bureau of Boston but gave no clue as to who had commissioned them. On display.

Also in 1897, Brown found a laundry package on one of his shelves, a puzzle as he had no recollection of placing it there much less to whom it belonged. On display.

Two years later, the proprietor found in his cash register drawer a curious coin that resembled a penny but featured on one side an American flag and the words “The Flag of Our Union” and on the other the name Dix and “Whoever attempts to haul it down, shoot him on the spot.” It bore the date 1863. John Adams Dix was a one-time New York governor, U.S. senator and Union Army major general.

The electric Hoosac Valley Street Railway established a waiting room in Brown’s block in 1895 and equipped it with armchairs. Two years later, Brown “decided to put in a few tables and to serve sandwiches, coffee, pie, cake, etc. This will be very convenient for the people desiring a light lunch while waiting [for the streetcar], as well as for others, and the chances are that quite a trade will be built up,” a Transcript writer ventured in October 1897.

Brown, whose family lived in the same building above the business, installed bath, water closets and other plumbing in 1897. The next year, he removed a partition inside the bakery that had enclosed the trolley waiting room, installing a counter and soda fountain made by Tuft of Boston. He sold hot cross buns at Easter.

When Santelle’s Circus came to town in 1898, advance men and carnies ordered 75 loaves of bread from Brown. By that time, Brown had company in his commercial building including Kinsman the photographer.

After his day’s baking was done, his niece Ida Lamphere commanded the counter while Brown steered his delivery wagon on a delivery and sales route. In 1898, the wagon was painted rose color and lettered with gold leaf. Its running gear was painted straw color with black striping.

The business ended abruptly in 1901 with Brown’s death from pneumonia.

Mrs. Brown sold the bakery business to John and Thomas Hughes of Blackinton. She fixed over the upper floors of her building into tenements. Store occupants one by one left the Brown Block in favor of Spring Street quarters in 1903. Among these were Ingraham Printing & Publishing and Charles Noyes’ shoe store.

Mrs. Brown married Israel S. Fowler (1841-1922) in 1912. By 1955, at 90 she was the oldest member of the Methodist Church in North Adams and was active with its Ladies Aid Society. She lived in North Adams with her daughters Ruth, a teacher, and Cora, a nurse.

The Brown Block is gone. Driscoll Hall Drive is in its place today, the entry flanked by MountainOne Bank and Williams College’s Currier Hall.

Bernard A. Drew is a regular Eagle contributor.

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