Waterfront and the Old Fair Grounds area of the Old North End

38 & 40 North Street

This simple two-story vernacular style rectangular house and it has its entrance on the gabled side.

The building stands in an area that was identified on the 1869 Beer’s Map of Burlington as part of the Chittenden County Fairgrounds where the Floral and Mechanics Hall used to stand. The building first appears on the 1877 Bird’s Eye View Map so one can assume the house was constructed between 1870 and 1877. The house has been identified as the L.S. Drew house on the 1890 Hopkins Map. L.S. Drew was the manager of the Van Ness House, a popular hotel in Burlington at the time. There were also boarders living in the house in 1890 that were employed as laborers at W & DG Crane, a lumber company, and Pope and Watson, a manufacture of packing boxes.[1] The house continued to shelter blue-collar employees such as a foreman in 1910, a blacksmith in 1920 and a painter in 1930.[2]

[1] 1890 Burlington City Directory

[2] 1910 Burlington City Directory, 1920 Burlington and Winooski (Vermont) Directory, and 1930 Manning’s Burlington, Winooski and Essex Junction (Vermont) Directory.