Cole's Tourist Home
Known Name(s)
Cole's Tourist Home (Primary) Cole's Brown Bungalow (Secondary) Mrs. A. J. Cole (Tertiary) Mrs. A. J. Brown (Tertiary)
Address
7 Sherman Ave. Northfield, VT 05663
Establishment Type(s)
Tourist Home
Physical Status
Extant
Description
The building at 7 Sherman Avenue in Northfield, known as Cole'sTourist Home or Cole's Brown Bungalow, was built by Alonzo Cole in 1926 as the family's home. The property is today noted as 65 Sherman Avenue. The Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Northfield does not extend to include Sherman Avenue. The wood-frame building rises 1-1/2 stories high with a full-width front porch. The building has square-butt wood shingles, overhanging eaves with knee brackets, and paired and triple replacement windows. The single-leaf entry is located in the center bay, covered by the porch. This porch has a shallow pitched roof supported by square posts and a solid balustrade covered in wood shingles. Fenestration remains as shown in the advertisement. A gabled dormer projects from the south side elevation. Exposed rafter ends provide ornamentation to the building’s front gabled roof, which is covered in standing seam metal.
Detailed History
Alonzo and Martha Cole, originally from Georgia and Virginia, respectively, lived in Worcester, Massachusetts, before moving to Northfield, Vermont, ca. 1917. The African American couple and their two children, James and Irene, lived in rented homes until Alonzo built a house of their own in 1926. The couple had three more children after moving to Vermont: Robert, Albert, and Alberta, the latter of whom were twins. Alonzo Cole, a World War I veteran born in 1874, was a granite worker, cutting and polishing stone for Phillips and Slack Co. He also participated in Works Progress Administration projects in the early 1930s. Tragically, Alonzo fell from a railroad bridge and drowned in the Dog River in 1936. It does not appear that Martha remarried, so when she began advertising her home in the Green Book in 1941, she was presumably running the business herself. The business appeared under several names, suggesting some confusion in the business's actual name. In the publication's early years, it appeared as Mrs. A.J. Cole and Mrs. A.J. Brown. In later years, it was listed as the Cole Tourist Home in the general guide and as Cole's Brown Bungalow in the vacation section. The first printed ad read, “Open Year-Round/Winter Sports/A Splendid Place to Spend Your Summer Vacation/Excellent Food/Quiet & Restful/For Information Write Mrs. A.J. Cole 7 Sherman Ave. Northfield, Vt./Phone Northfield 51-3.” Martha also advertised dining services in the local newspapers. One ad promoted her fried chicken and “Southern” meals for dine-in or takeout. Cole’s Brown Bungalow stopped appearing in the Green Book after 1961 when Martha sold many of her possessions at auction, sold the house to Ugo Baroffio, and moved to Washington, D.C., where she lived with her youngest son, Albert. Her departure was noted in local newspapers. Unlike the other Green Book sites in Vermont, Cole’s Brown Bungalow was the only entry beyond western Vermont and Route 7A. Access to central Vermont would have been challenging as Interstate 89 (1967) was completed after the property was sold by Martha Cole; it required travel by single-lane routes, some unpaved. One explanation for the existence of a tourist home in this part of Vermont was Norwich University, a private senior military college established in 1819. The university is the oldest of six senior military colleges and recognized as the birthplace of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Harold “Doc” Martin was the first Black student in university history to matriculate; he was in the class of 1916. Cole’s Brown Bungalow would have offered prospective students and their visiting parents a place to stay.
