By Mary Carter
EAGLE TIMES CORRESPONDENT
Claremont — The Off Broad Street Players will join the City of Claremont and The Greater Claremont Chamber of Commerce’s Second Saturday Celebration this weekend with a tribute to 175 years of downtown mercantile history.
From all around the square to the businesses on Pleasant Street, shops and their shopkeepers from the mid-1800s to the present will be honored with street performances that offer history, humor and song.
One such shopkeeper was Frederick Jewett.
Fredrick began his career in 1848 with Kidder, Danforth & Jewett, located at the Dickinson Block on the square. Relocating to the newly built Brown (now Union) Block, they offered West Indies products including tapioca, sugar and “prepared and cracked cocoa.”
In addition to household and larder items, the store proudly advertised an onsite dining room serving hot and cold oysters “all hours of the day.”
Jewett left the partnership to operate a grocery store, first with his brothers, and then with his sons. In an 1887 edition of the National Eagle, the then 60-year-old Jewett was noted as being the longest living proprietor with one of the largest establishments in town.
“His natural good judgment has won for him a host of friends and patronage,” the article went on to say, concluding that Jewett’s favorite sport was hunting woodchucks.
Jewett remained in business on Pleasant Street until his death in 1909. His sixty-one year record of service was surpassed by a member of the Rand family in 1923.
Mike Grace, Director of Fiske Free Library, will portray Jewett just as he did 14 years ago in connection with a production during Claremont’s 2009 Fall Festival.
As his character, Mike corrects a statement about the evolution of Claremont’s Fiske Free Library. It’s an inside joke his fellow castmates enjoy.
This weekend’s Second Saturday Celebration will have a theme of “History and Heritage.”
Saturday’s “History and Heritage” event runs from 4 to 8 p.m. and will include music, food, vendors and games. During the celebration, the Off Broad Street Players will present two 20-minute productions at 4:30 and 5:30 p.m in front of the Eagle Times office at 27 Pleasant Street.
The Second Saturday Celebration is free.
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