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(Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)
These neighboring houses apply high-style Connecticut Valley tastes to what are essentially vernacular one-and-a-half-story houses with connected outbuildings. While their entrances are on their eaves sides, their pedimented gable fronts have inset porches carried on columns and piers, and massive entablatures on paneled corner pilasters wrap the buildings. These are Classic Cottages become small temples. The quality and careful use of their detailing suggest a builder with a full understanding of Greek Revival and demonstrate that a house need not be large to be sophisticated. Stylistically, these houses are precocious for their traditional dates of 1824 and 1826. They fit more comfortably with the biographies of their namesakes, Dr. Shedd, who was prominent in the village through the 1830s and 1840s, and Dr. Cobb, who practiced in Peacham between 1841 and his death in 1847.