168A Commercial Street

This 14-by-25-foot, one-and-a-half-story, 618-square-foot cottage is like some little principality that gets tossed around through history by its larger neighboring states. It was constructed in the 1890s as the shed for 166 Commercial Street. By the early 1910s, it was serving as the garage for 5 Central Street — in fact, it was numbered 5½ Central Street in the 1912 Sanborn insurance map. Then, under the Allen family, it came to be associated with 168 Commercial Street, which is actually the house to which it’s closest. The Barnetts, Frank H. and Marion, were living here in the early 1960s. He was a real estate salesman. She was a bank clerk. The cottage was purchased from the Allens in 1964 by Leonard W. Ferguson and his wife, Edith P. Ferguson, along with the main house at No. 168. The Fergusons split off the cottage in 1981, selling it for $30,000 to Ronald A. Pavao and Carol Ann (DeMello) Pavao, owners of 5 Central. In recent years, it’s been occupied by Kerry Adams, the president of the Fireside Insurance Agency, 35 Shank Painter Road, of which Ronald Pavao is chief executive officer.