Buildings of New England

Adjacent to a near replica, this 1818 Federal style commercial building and its neighbor anchor the west side of tiny Chelsea Vermont’s Town Common. The store’s gable-front, three bay, two-story form, with its twin end chimneys connected by gable parapets, is trimmed with granite splayed lintels and frieze, a glazed fanlight with radiating muntins in the front gable peak and an arched, recessed, entryway filled with an arched granite piece above the door (likely infilled from an original glazed transom). This well-preserved structure has continuously housed a commercial operation since its construction by Amplius Blake in 1818. In 1874, it was bought by Amos Hood and run with his son William, as a drug store. William’s brother Charles, is believed to have been responsible for developing sarsaparilla, a popular product at the Chelsea store, in a drug store in Lowell, Massachusetts, later developing it in mass in a factory. The building is now home to Will’s Store, a local market.