Falmouth Field Guide
1 Trelawny Street
Stephanie Langton with Brian Cofrancesco
The house at 1 Trelawny Street may have been built by Isaac Love, a mulatto mason, sometime after he bought this lot – Barrett lot 38 – in 1781 from Edward and Judith Barrett. Together with this property, Love purchased lot 126, located further south at the corner of Duke Street and Crooked Street, from the Barretts and paid a total of 100 pounds for the two properties.1 The documentary record shows that Isaac Love was actively involved in Falmouth real estate. Before he bought the two lots discussed above, Love purchased lot 121, located on the southwestern corner of George Street and Market Street, in 1775.2 Deeds show that Love was active in real estate into the nineteenth century; Isaac, his brother Thomas, sisters Elizabeth and Johanna, and six other free people of color (who might be related to the Loves through marriage) sold another lot on Duke Street between King and Queen Streets, in 1804 to another artisan—a carpenter. The deeds give valuable information about the Loves and their associates, listing their occupations in skilled trades like masonry and chair making and recording kinship ties between people in Trelawny and St. Ann Parishes.3 The Loves’ participation in the Falmouth real estate market suggests property speculation. During the Falmouth boom decades of the 1790s and 1800s, investment in real estate appears to have been a solid investment opportunity for a family of skilled free black artisans.
This house, located right on the street, is a two-story brick house. The main entrance is centered on the symmetrical façade and is fronted by a much later lattice-screen exterior vestibule capped by a classical pediment form. Two six-over-six double sash flank the entrance. Above the front door is a tripartite window composed of a triple sash window flanked by louvers, a common arrangement signaling the “best room” seen across Falmouth. An iron balcony—moved from another house—now sits in front of the window. The two-story structure boasts a substantial hipped roof.
1 Edward and Judith Barrett to Isaac Love, 29 June 1781, Deeds, Island Record Office, volume 333, folio 162
2 Edward and Judith Barrett to Isaac Love, 29 June 1781, Deeds, Island Record Office, volume 333, folio 162
3 Isaac Love, Thomas Love, et. al. to Walter Henry Birmingham, 12 January 1804, Deeds, Island Record Office, volume 560, folio 114