Benjamin Ricker and George Wilson Stables
Washington cor Parsons Sts.
Brighton, Mass.
Year Built: 1869
Charles Brigham made designed two stables for hoteliers Benjamin Ricker and George Wilson in Brighton in 1869. The stables appear to have been demolished and no pictures are known to exist of these stables.
Brigham remarked to Sturgis that “I go to Brighton tomorrow to look at land and discuss plans for two stables for the parties of whom I wrote some time ago—jobs which should have been done in the winter but “better late than never,” particularly as they may be considered “pot boilers” in anticipation of the Reservoir Hotel on of these days.”
Ricker and Wilson were owners of the Cattle Fair Hotel. By the 1850s, the Brighton livestock industry earned more than $2 million a year and more people worked in cattle-related jobs than in any other trade. The Cattle Fair Hotel was built here in 1830 and expanded in 1852 to become suburban Boston's largest hotel. The excitement of Thursday market day in Brighton Center would end in 1881 when the stockyards moved to the Abattoir along the Charles River.
Brigham was hoping that these smaller jobs for Ricker and Wilson would put him in a favored place for when they let the contract for design services for the anticipated Reservoir Hotel was finalized. There was a Reservoir Hotel built in nearby Brookline, but it was owned by a Dr. Simonds, so it is less likely that Sturgis & Brigham designed it.
References
• Letters from Charles Brigham to John Hubbard Sturgis, April 26, 1869 and May 19, 1869, Sturgis Papers, Boston Athenaeum Library.
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