City of Monterey - Historic Monterey Tour #2 in Two Hours

Historic Monterey Tour
The First Brick House & The Whaling Station

THE FIRST BRICK HOUSE
In the Heritage Harbor
The First Brick House built in 1847, by Gallant Duncan Dickinson who came to California with his family with Donner party. Although Dickinson never lived in it, it was originally a private home. Over the years the First Brick House has had many uses, including the home of John Pope Davenport, a New England whaler who came to Monterey to establish a "shore whaling" company. In latter years it was a very poplar Spanish restaurant.

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The bricks were made by Dickenson's
son-in-law, Amos Lawrey. The house became the home of whaler Captain John Davenport in the 1850s. The family standing in front of the house in this 1890s photo may be the family of another whaler,
Manuel Trinidad.
J. K. Oliver photo

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The Monterey Whaling Company
building, ca. 1893.
J. K. Oliver, photo

THE WHALING STATION
Right next to the First Brick House in the Heritage Harbor

The Whaling Station, was built by David Wight in 1847.He modeled the house after his family’s ancestral cottage in Scotland. Catching gold fever in 1849, Wight left Monterey to try his luck in the gold fields. Before he left he sold the house where it was converted into a boarding house. In 1855 the house was leased to 17 Portuguese whalers who had already tried their luck in the gold mines and failed. It became the headquarters for their newly formed shore whaling company, "The Old Company". This is the only place in Monterey where you can still see a whalebone sidewalk

Historic photos courtesy of the Monterey Public Library, California History Room.

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Rev 09/05/08 - L. Huelga - http://www.monterey.org/museum/historytour/heritage.html