That’s the right house in the photo. Only, don’t look for it here. No. 33 Bradford was long ago moved about two-fifths of a mile away, to 39 Ship’s Way Road, where its ghostly presence has inspired the artists John Dowd and Deborah Martin. When it stood at Bradford and Montello, it was the home of Capt. Ulysses Simmons, a trapboat skipper, and his wife, Mary (Silva) Simmons (±1895-1965). Captain Simmons once claimed to have found a fully feathered hen inside the stomach of a 40-pound codfish. Not long after Mrs. Simmons died, her grief-stricken 37-year-old daughter, Louise, took her own life in this house. While still on Bradford Street in the mid-’50s, the building housed the S’Il Vous Plaît Restaurant, run by Robert L. “Bobby” Werner. This peripatetic establishment finally settled at 186 Commercial Street before closing in the mid-1970s.
¶ Last updated on 12 March 2021.
Thumbnail image: Photo, 2014, by David W. Dunlap.
Fascinating history; which corner of Bradford Street did it sit on?
It sat on the southwest corner, where there is now a parking lot.