Downey Parcel (Provincetown Conservation Trust) | Including Conservation Land 13
Downey Parcel boundaries superimposed on a Google Maps aerial view.
Three separate tax lots on Bradford Street Extension form a contiguous 3.67-acre tract of wooded swampland that was given in October 1994 to the Provincetown Conservation Trust by James K. Downey. “Impressively tall oaks and maples dominate this wooded swamp,” the trust said about Conservation Land 13 at No. 25R. “Many shore birds seek respite here, being so close to the National Seashore ‘moors’ area. Herons, hawks, and other birds have been found nesting on this property.”
The southern parcel, No. 25R, has 1.224 acres. It was once part of a larger parcel owned by Ursula T. Thompson. The subdivision of the old Thompson parcel yielded new building lots at 19 Bradford Street Extension, 21R Bradford Street Extension, and 10R Commercial Street. The lot at No. 25R was purchased in 1983 by Paul L. Abare and Richard J. Abare as trustees of the Rinn Realty Trust. (“Rinn” was evidently a portmanteau of Red Inn, 15 Commercial Street, which was also owned at the time by the Abare family.) Their mortgage lender, the Guaranty-First Trust Company of Waltham, foreclosed on the property in 1991. The bank failed the next year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation assumed ownership of No. 25R in 1994 as the liquidator of Guaranty-First Trust. Months later, Downey bought this and the other two parcels from the F.D.I.C. for $70,800.
Three separate tax lots compose the Downey Parcel owned by the Provincetown Conservation Trust, named after James K. Downey.
The central parcel, No. 27R, has 1.194 acres. The northern side of its trapezium form is the line that Point Street would follow had it been constructed all the way between Commercial and Bradford Street Extension. The land was once part of a larger lot owned by Mary Agnes (Jason) Ramos (1879-1956), of 11 Tremont Street.
The northern parcel, No. 35R, has 1.252 acres. The southern edge of the irregular nonagon follows the imaginary line of Point Street. Even more intriguingly, a surveyor’s plat from 1937 shows a meandering “old cart road” north of — and roughly paralleling — the mapped but nonexistent Point Street.1 (I wonder whether you can still see traces of the cart road as a clearing among the trees, or even as parallel ruts in the ground.)
Downey gave all three parcels — or, rather, sold them for $1 — to the conservation trust and its trustees individually, including prominent figures like Martha R. Davis, William Fitts, Roslyn Garfield, Ruth Hiebert, and Munro Moore.
25R Bradford Street Extension on the Town Map, showing property lines.
27R Bradford Street Extension on the Town Map, showing property lines.
35R Bradford Street Extension on the Town Map, showing property lines.
In memoriam
• Mary Agnes (Jason) Ramos (1879-1956)
Find a Grave Memorial No. 135510859.
1 Plan of Land in Provincetown, by Francis J. Alves, Barnstable County Registry of Deeds, recorded 24 July 1937, Plan Book 87, Page 107.
¶ Last updated on 12 April 2022.