Tom Dinsmore House 1903

Tom Dinsmore House 1903

Tom Dinsmore house at the corner of Pearl and Church (23) Streets in 1903 Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Dinsmore (son of Bounds C. Dinsmore) lived in this house from 1885 to about 1935. They were well-known in town through their ownership of the Dinsmore Shoe Store. In 1940, the house on Church Street was vacant and being remodeled to hold about ten apartments, when it burned on the Fourth of July. It was built around 1825 by the Lowney family, which owned it until 1885. The land is still vacant, at the corner of Church and Pearl, just up from the Jeweled Turret Inn. DINSMORE B. C. Dinsmore & sons, retailers and jobbers in all kinds of footwear was established in 1850 by Bounds C. Dinsmore, who died in 1890. It was located in the lower store in the Marshall Block on Main Street. There the business was conducted after the manor of the period when the cobbler's bench was the mainstay. Here long-legged boots in heavy calf for general use and the fine French calf for the dandies of that day were made and the foundation of the present establishment was constructed. Mr. Dinsmore was a cobbler by trade and had a practical knowledge of leather and the parts that extend into boots and shoes. He soon got a reputation for reliability and square-dealing and the business prospered. About 1880 a jobbing department was added and his son Tom, fresh from college and to the manor born for the shoe business was given partnership and devoted his energies to the latter branch. Tom took to the business like a duck to water and soon had men on the road showing Dinsmore footwear. The jobbing department became of such magnitude that there were serious thoughts of dropping the retail business entirely, owing to lack of room. About this time, 1888, the Odd Fellows block was erected and learning that A. A. Howes & Co. were to move from their old place into the new block. Messrs. Dinsmore secured the building where they are now located, one of the most prominent situations for business in the city. It was about this time the youngest son, Irving T., came into the business and taking naturally to the up-to-date wants of the retail trade, has made a great success of that department, as has Tom in the jobbing line. Several times the building has been renovated to make room for increasing business and now occupies three full stories and the basement. Employed in the store besides the proprietors are two retail clerks, one man in the wholesale and a cashier. Then there are three men traveling over the greater part of the state representing the wholesale department and selling as clean and stylish a line of footwear as is sent out by any house. Tom Dinsmore is considered in Boston and New York as one of the best buyers "coming to market." So, it seems a far cry from this extensive, modernly conducted business of neatly custom footwear, exhibited through plate glass fronts and electric illuminations, to the days of the cobbler's bench, tallow candles or oil lamps dimly displayed boots, shoes and rubbers in bulk - a great change from the cowhides and copper toes of this store's primitive days to its present display of cultured and modish effects. LOWNEY NATHANIEL M. LOWNEY was born m Monmouth, in this, State, in 1798. His father, William Lowney, was a native of Ireland, and a student in Dublin University. He removed to this place in 1804, and pursued his avocation of a school-master. At a later period of life than that at which the acquisition of a profession is usually commenced, and after teaching school here for several years, the son entered the office of the late Judge Johnson as a law student. Having been admitted to the Bar in 1827, he practiced for a few months at Frankfort, and then came to Belfast. As a lawyer, he was less distinguished as an advocate than by his keen intelligence, which grasped the whole bearing of a case, and detected those subterfuges which are too often resorted to in courts. As a politician, he was widely known throughout the State; and his success may be inferred from the following brief enumeration of the public positions which he occupied: from 1827 to 1837 he was Register of Probate, and during a portion of 1838 was Clerk of the Courts; for nine years Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, and in 1848 Representative to the Legislature ; under the administration of President Van Buren, from 1837 to 1841, he was Collector of the District of Belfast, and reappointed in 1845 by President Polk. Mr. Lowney died of pulmonary consumption, May 10, 1855, aged fifty-seven years. NOTE: On the right is a glimpse of the turret of the James S. Harriman house on Pearl Street which he built in 1898. James Sumner Harriman was in business with his father until the death of the latter in 1878, when he formed a legal partnership with his brother, George Frank, which was terminated by the removal of the latter to New York. He was City Clerk from 1878 to 1886 and City Solicitor in 1893-94. He held the position of Deputy Collector of the Customs, from 1890 to 1893, and in 1897 was appointed Collector by President McKinley. He married Ella, daughter of the late William H. Dutton. It was a private home for many years. It wasn't until the 1940-50's it became the Kooman House, and later the Curtis House (tourist homes in those days). Then it was turned into an apartment building for 25 years. In 1986-87 Alaskans Carl & Cathy Heffentrager purchased and completely restored and decorated the mansion in period Victorian style, giving it the name of The Jeweled Turret Inn.