The “Ten-Footer” Shop Shop was a part of a truly cottage industry. In David Johnson’s “Sketches of Lynn” (1880), he describes the “Ten-Footer” as one measuring ten feet in length by ten feet in length with the maximum size fourteen by fourteen. In all likelihood the average size was probably closer to twelve by twelve. The attic was left unfinished and used mostly for storage.
In the age before the Industrial Revolution many Middlesex County residents had home shops in the yards where family and neighbors could earn extra part-time money by doing piece work on shoes. Women sewed the uppers and men pounded wooden pegs into the soles. These cottage industry shoe workers were paid for each pair of shoes delivered to the local distributor.
Help add to this list of ten-footers by Middlesex County city or town! If you know of ten-footers in Middlesex County, please let us know. Feel free to use the list of questions to the right as a guide.
FYI – 34A West Central Street, Natick is a white house located in what was originally the back yard of the 34 W. Central house built in the early 1840’s by Henry Wilson (later US Vice President). (The 34 W. Central house is different from the 33 W. Central St house that Wilson actually lived in for many years.) 34A started as a freestanding one story Ten Footer (appx 11 x 17). The original structure probably looked much like the existing historic Henry Wilson Ten Footer located at W. Central and Mill streets, but with somewhat lower walls and a small chimney located at the west end of the ridge-line rather than in the middle. Shortly thereafter a 16 x 20 two-story structure was built at a right angle off one corner of the Ten Footer, probably as housing for shoe workers. Then in the mid 1850’s a third structure, (appx 12 x 16), possibly a shoe peg mill previously located on a neighboring property, was moved to connect the first two structures, creating an L shaped residence that probably housed local shoe factory and other low income domestic workers.