6 North Main St.

This brick false-front building was built in 1924 by Lee McFarland. C. J. Cheeseman bought the property in the mid 1930s for an ice cream store and restaurant. In 1932 according to an article in the Clarkston News , 5/20 /1932, Cheeseman was opening two stores, one on Clarkston-Orion Rd. and one at 40 (?)S. Main. (There was an ad in a 1934 newspaper for the Polly Inn, a restaurant at this location.) An article of 6/19 /1936 said Cheeseman was remodeling the McFarland restaurant, this building. In 1938 Cheeseman's added baked goods & light lunches. English Bone China & Aladdin Lamps were among the gift items avaiable at Cheeseman's according to a 1949 newspaper advertisement. In later years the building housed an appliance store then an auto parts business. Historically, Arthur Davis owned the property according to tax records by 1846 with an assessed value high enough to indicate a building or buildings on this site by then. A year later Jeremiah Brown owned this property & the lot to the north. The 1859 tax records listed a house & stable on his property. The house was on the site of 14 North Main Street. The 1872 map of the Village shows the footprint of Brown's meat market & to the south the Greek Revivalbuilding which was a duplicate of the one on the northeast corner of N. Main & E. Washington St. This was the cabinet shop of Francis J. Walter in 1869 & 1861. By 1900 it was listed in tax records as the property of Wm. V. B. Vliet's estate. Vliet was listed as an undertaker. By 1914 Frank Leonard had a bakery on this site. The bakery was in the front with the family residence in the back. John Shaughnessy, who learned the trade from Leonard, bought the property in 1920, leaving Clarkston for California by 1923. (Shaughnessy later returned to Clarkston & owned a bakery on the site of 60 S. Main). Louis Terry then ran the business. Articles regarding the building at 20/22 S. Main say that one of the duplicate Greek Revival buildings which stood on this site was moved to join that building. Tax assessment values seem to indicate that this must have been in 1924. A caption for a photo on page 52 in Heritage says the northern of the two buildings was moved in 1916 to the site of 20 N. Main by Floyd Andrews, blacksmith. Tax records seem to indicate the move was probably a year or two later). More information is needed to confirm the dates of these moves.