Mary and Gilman House/Chester Place

139 Main Street

By the way, across the street raised high on Rose Hill, is the house built in 1871 by Oliver’s first cousin and her husband, Mary and Charles Gilman.   Their house at 139 Main Street, a year-round home but about as imposing as Cousin Oliver’s cottage, is the only example in the village of the stick-style of architecture, a variant of the Gothic.  So costly was the house, and so uneconomic was lawyer Charles Gilman, that it is said he went bankrupt in the building but was bailed out by his wife, who may have inherited more than her share of stern Yankee financial acumen. Continue now past the Moses Bulkley house, with its late 19th century wrought iron fence, and pause for a moment at the corner of Chester Place.