Greenwich Notebook: A Brick House

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead
Greenwich News. Greenwich Notebook: December 3, 1986.

If you could go back a hundred years and be a Greenwich farmer out with your family on a Sunday afternoon drive, one of the attractions of the Cos Cob area would be the old Ephraim Mead Homestead. On your journey past this place you probably would have met an ancestor of mine named Isaac Howe Mead, son of Ephraim, tending his fields.

What made to this homestead so very special was that it was the first brick house built in the town. Erected in 1830, the homestead stood opposite the Mianus River on Indian Field Road. It was the only house on the farm which included most of the land north of Mead's Point, including what is now Bruce Park, surrounded by picturesque woodlands and grassy meadows.

In recalling fond memories and describing his contemporary impressions of the area, Frederick Hubbard reflects for a moment in Other Days in Greenwich as follows:

"Along this lane, for the road was scarcely more, where this house stood, the oaks are very old and thrifty and even in those days artists find many a subject for their brush. Cos Cold Harbor and the Sound are in plain sight and to the northwest one could look across the fields and over the treetops, now within the enclosure of Milbank, to the village with its tall church spire."

The brick homestead was a "modern" replacement of an old Colonial era house built by Ephram's father, Deliverance Mead. He was a French and Indian Wars veteran. His family and farm withstood many attacks by Tories and bandit cowboys during the Revolutionary War. Times were so bad that food was kept hidden. Family members made trips at night to the barn so as not to be detected.

The bricks themselves in the "new" house were not made locally, but imported from the Netherlands. It is no small wonder what the Ephraim Mead House was a landmark and the talk of the town. Many people from as far away as Stamford and Port Chester came to give a curious gaze at the house.

Isaac Howe Mead was the only son, with several sisters. After acquiring full ownership of the homestead he lived many years on the farm. He in turn left several sons, most all of whom were distinguished in town affairs. His most famous son we know today was Spencer P. Mead, the author of Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich and the History and Genealogy of the Mead Family. Picture of the homestead is found in these two publications.

William Finch Jr.,  our distinguished town historian and curator emeritus at the Greenwich Historical Society, tells me that Nathaniel Witherell owned this place for a little while and used it as quarters for a summer camp of underprivileged children from New York City. He would bring them to the homestead to enjoy the scenic views and the countryside that dominated the area years ago.

Sadly, the brick house was sold to William Truesdale, the president of the Lakawanna Railroad. This attractive landmark was demolished in 1895, to make room for Mr. Truesdale's new home. And the brick homestead had been completed barely 65 years. Mr. Truesdale's home is long gone. Today the site of the brick homestead which stood majestically facing toward the south in those days is occupied by several single-family homes on the northwest corner of Indian Field Road and Bruce Park Drive.