No. 20233 7 Fairfax Street, photograph March 26, 2020.
Date of construction: probably 1889
Nathan Carruth owned an estate on what is today the north side of Beaumont Street. In the early 1880s his son Herbert S. Carruth began buying property facing Carruth Street including what is now Fairfax Street. Nathan died in 1881, and the 1884 atlas shows that Ellen and Emma Carruth owned not only the original estate but also the land between it and Carruth Street. Ellen and Emma were Herbert’s sisters. Herbert began to subdivide the properties in the mid 1880s. It appears that the house at 7 Fairfax Street was built by Herbert and later sold to the Hutchinson family.
The following is from the inventory form for Carruth Street – Peabody Square at the Boston Landmarks Commission
7 Fairfax Street was built ca. late 1880’s for Lizzie M. and H. Dana Hutchinson (1855-1943) of the, William and Stearns Co., Boston. Henry Dana Hutchinson and Lizzie M. Tuttle were married April 22, 1880. By the early 1930s, the Hutchinsons are listed as living at Portage Lake, Maine, in addition to living at this address.
William and Stearns Co. were wholesale grocers.
Owners from atlases:
1884 no houses on the south side of Fairfax Street
1889 H. S. Carruth
1894 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
1898 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
1904 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
1910 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
1918 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
1933 Lizzie M. Hutchinson
Boston Directory
1889 H. Dana Hutchinson (William Stearns & Co.), wholesale grocer, 60 Chatham, h. 6 Sumner, Dor.
1890 H. Dana Hutchinson (William Stearns & Co.), wholesale grocer, 60 Chatham, h. 7 Fairfax
deed
July 13, 1889 from Herbert S. Carruth to Lizzie M. Hutchinson, wife of Henry Dana Hutchinson, 1888.82 lot D 1657.298 and part of Lot E 1792.371
land with the buildings thereon
consideration $1.00 plus a mortgage for $7,000