By Jane Sherwin
Many people are aware that Belmont was a town of farms until the mid-twentieth century, but fewer may know that we also had a cooperative grocery: the Belmont Cooperative Society Market, which opened in 1911. The Market, the earliest commercial building in Cushing Square, was located on the southwest corner, where the Bradford development now stands. A second store stood in Belmont Center. In his wonderful Footsteps Through Belmont, the late Richard Betts, town historian, wrote that among other things the market sold spring water from a nearby well, and later, gasoline for horseless carriages.
A 1905 photo shows a shingled building with a wide veranda, and steep roof supported by unfinished posts before a rough, unpaved road. In the roof is a high window that must have let sunlight flood the produce and other goods within. The man in a suit standing in front may well be Charles Merrow (1882-1962), one of Belmont’s best-known merchants until the mid-twentieth century. He opened the store in 1905, and then managed it for the Cooperative Society for many years. A 1927 Belmont Directory advertised “Cooperative Profit Sharing through the Belmont Cooperative Society, Dealers in First Class Groceries; Telephone either store; C.F. Merrow manager.”
The Belmont Cooperative Market building in 1905. Charles Merrow may be standing in front. Photo: Belmont Historic District Commission
After World War I cooperative societies “sprang up everywhere,” according to a 1922 US Department of Labor report, in reaction to unemployment, adulterated food, and exorbitant prices. Nationally, twenty-seven percent of stores selling groceries or both groceries and meat were cooperative. It is pleasant to imagine Belmont farmers selling pork and their famous strawberries and celery at the Market, although we have no evidence of this.
The Cushing Square market building was moved in 1914 to Common Street and converted into a five-room, one-family bungalow, now at 47 Creeley Road. Merrow himself, and his wife Louise, built a home on Willow Street which still stands.
Jane Sherwin is a Belmont resident with a longstanding interest in history
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