text and photo by Gregory A. Tisher, fall 2004
A contributing structure within the South Union Street Historic District, 409 South Union Street is an east facing, two-and-a-half story, front-facing tee plan residential structure just north and opposite of Bay View Street's dead-end intersection into South Union.
Both the South Union Street Historic District's National Register of Historic Places nomination [209] and Vermont Historic Sites & Structures Survey [210] indicate 409 South Union Street was constructed in 1880 for Dr. Benton Haynes of Grand Island, Vermont. Apparently Haynes kept Grand Island as his primary residence as he is not listed in any of the Burlington city directories through the 1880s and up through 1896. Dr. B. Haynes is, however, listed as owner of the structure on the 1890 Hopkins map of Burlington. [211]
The 1890 Burlington city directory lists Benjamin Cronyn, of the Cronyn & McKillip insurance agency on Church Street, as residing at 409 South Union Street. [212] It also lists Miss Eliza Flynn, an employee (apparently a hired hand) of B. Cronyn, residing at this address. [213] As the 1888-89 directory does not list Cronyn at all, it is possible that Haynes kept 409 South Union Street as an up market rental property --- e.g., for professionals (like insurance agent Cronyn) newly moving in and establishing themselves --- or that he sold the property to Cronyn shortly after the information was gathered for the Hopkins map but before the directory.
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