Eldridge Smith house | Location 9 | Now at 301 Bradford Street
From A map of the extremity of Cape Cod (1835). Boston Public Library. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center. Call number G3762.C35 1835.G7.
301 Bradford Street. [2008, Dunlap]
Text last updated on 18 February 2017 | One of the very few floaters to make it all the way to the East End, 301 Bradford Street was built around 1820. When it was out at the edge of the sea, it belonged to Eldridge Smith, a founder of the Long Point settlement after the War of 1812.
Smith’s grandson, Capt. Ed Walter Smith (1851-1944), earned his place in whaling legend by killing a 73-foot right whale in 1888. Regarded as a town treasure, Captain Smith was described on his 90th birthday by the Advocate as “the only person now living born in the old Long Point settlement.” The same article noted: “A few years ago he made a trip around town making a note of the houses houses here which were moved from Long Point, as a record for the Research Club.” I wonder whether Captain Smith’s observations made the base of the uncredited map, Long Point Province Town and a Location of Inhabitants in About 1857, which can be found in the Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell (Book 10, Page 59). I’ve depended on it for the layout of the settlement. With Captain Smith’s death in 1944, it might truly have been said that Long Point had died as well.
¶ Republished on 26 December 2023.