Dale Avenue in Gloucester was laid out in the 1860s. One of the first houses to be erected on the new street was 19 Dale Avenue, built between 1869 and 1872. The Italianate residence was originally the home of Aaron W. Bray, an agent for the New England Fish Company at Dodd’s Wharf on Duncan’s Point. Bray had died by 1890 and the house was then occupied through at least 1900 by Albert S. Maddocks, an apothecary with a shop on Main Street.