USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 13
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The Oliver Tufts house, on Sycamore street, is still in the possession of the Tufts family, and is now owned by Mrs. Fletcher, only child of the late Oliver Tufts. The house has been one hundred and sixty years in the family, and is, by several years, the oldest structure in the city. It is the headquarters of the Somerville Historical Society, and was the headquarters of Major-General Lee when he commanded the left wing of the American army, during the siege of Boston, in 1775 and 1776. Here Washington came in consultation with his generals, and slept in the front chamber over the parlor. The house is not exactly on the site which it form- erly occupied, as Sycamore street was straightened in 1892, and the building was moved back about forty feet. When occupied by General Lee, it was two stories high in front, with a long pitched roof descending to a single story in the rear. (From "Handbook of the Historic Fes- tival in Somerville, Mass.," Nov. 28, 29, 30, Dec. 1, 2, and 3, 1898; written by Charles D. Elliot.)
The Caleb Leland house is on Elm street, and is owned by John Tufts, Jr. The Timothy Tufts house is on a farm at the corner of Elm street and Willow avenue. It is owned by Tim- othy Tufts, a man about eighty-six years of age, and the house was built about 1735. The Abner Blaisdell house, on Somerville avenue, was the headquarters of Brigadier-General (after- wards Major-General) Greene, who commanded the left wing of the Rhode Island troops during the siege of Boston, 1775 and 1776. It is now owned by the heirs of J. A. Merrifield. The Wyman house is a brick structure on Broadway, near the corner of Cross street, and was after- wards owned by the late Edward Cutter. Its date of building is doubtful. It was in existence in 1834, as refugees from the Ursuline Convent fled there in that year.
The Caleb Leland house (?) on Elm street, was built by Joseph Tufts, youngest son of Timothy, Sr. Joseph removed to Kingfield, Maine, and is ancestor of a large family of Tufts i-6h
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MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
in that and neighboring towns. The Rand house, which has been moved from its original site, received a volley from the retreating British. The Samuel Shed house has been raised, and a new story built under it. A British soldier entered the house and began ransacking a bureau, when he was shot, in the act, by a minute-man. This bureau is still in the family of Nathan Tufts. The Miller house on Washington street.
The Odin house is between Broadway and Main street, on the top of Winter Hill, and was built in 1805, according to a date found on one of the corner posts. Colonel John Sweetser was the architect and builder. It was occupied by Hon. Edward Everett from 1826 until 1830, while he was a member of Congress from this district. The ill-fated Dr. Parkman once owned the property.
The Stearns house on Broadway is the only Revolutionary house now standing in East Somerville.
The Perkins house, east of Austin street, was probably built about 1804. The toll house stood near, and the toll-keeper lived in the larger house. At the time of the burning of the con- vent, this house was occupied by a man named Kidder Perkins, the last toll-keeper of the turn- pike, and who died in 1881. It is the only building in Somerville, if not in Medford, that stood originally on the turnpike. It is still owned by the Perkins family.
As Somerville was until a comparatively few years ago, a part of Charlestown, the history of these old houses belongs to that municipality also.
Authorities: "Citizen Souvenir of the Semi-centennial of Somerville", 1892. Elliot, C. D., "Somerville's History", reprint from "Somerville, Past and Present", 1896. Furber, W. H., "Historical Address", 1876. Haley, M. A., "The History of Somerville", 1903. Has- kell, A. L., "Historical Guide-book of Somerville", 1905. Samuels, E. A., "Somerville, Past and Present", 1897. Somerville Historical Society, publications. Somerville Journal Com- pany, "Souvenir of the Semi-centennial", 1892.
ASHLAND
Ashland was incorporated as a town on March 14, 1846, its land being taken from Fram- ingham, Holliston, and Hopkinton. " The village was previously called Unionville, and very few houses in the place were older than the town. This town lost its water-power by the taking of its privileges by the city of Boston for water purposes.
WINCHESTER
Winchester was incorporated as a town, April 30, 1850. Its name was derived from a person, and not from the celebrated city of England. Colonel William P. Winchester, of Water- town, proffered aid in a financial way to the enterprise, and made a present to the new town of $3000. His death occurred August 6, 1850, at the age of forty-nine years. The town of Win- chester was formed of a large part of Woburn and of parts of Medford and West Cambridge, now Arlington. It dates its era of prosperity from the opening of the Boston and Lowell rail- road through Woburn in 1835. At that time the community had been made up of farms, one of the most prominent of which was called the Abel Richardson farm, and it was on this farm the village of South Woburn was started when railroad facilities became available. After that time the community grew sufficiently large to maintain a separate church, of the so-called Orthodox order, and before the Civil War other churches came into being, either by worshipping in halls, or by other means, until the community became a large and strong residential town, filled to-day with beautiful residences and modern churches, and school buildings not equalled by any community of its size in the part of Middlesex county in which it has its situation.
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HISTORIC HOMES AND PLACES.
It was in this part of Woburn that the first house in that town was built in 1640, and on the strength of this event the town of Winchester celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary in 1890, referring not so much to its age as a town but as a community. Winchester territory was also the largest section of the surveyed lands of Charlestown which bore the ap- propriate name of Waterfield, as early as 1638. In Winchester also was the home of. the family of Edward Converse, with several distinguished members prominently connected with the early history of the town and of New England. In Winchester also was built the first bridge within the limits of the town of Woburn. In Winchester also were two large farms granted to Rev. Zachariah Symmes, an early minister of Charlestown, and the Hon. Increase Nowell, a magis- trate,-men deeply interested in founding the town of Woburn. It was the Rev. Zachariah Symmes who preached the first sermon in Woburn, when the town was a wilderness. Win- chester was also the scene of the murder of some members of the Richardson family in the time of King Philip's War, an event described under the history of Woburn.
Beginning with the period of 1835, South Woburn, or Winchester, started as a character- istic village of mechanics of American birth, and the mahogany mills of Stephen and Henry Cutter and Harrison Parker, and the blacksmith establishments of Francis Johnson and the Symmes family, were prominent features. There were also some productive farms, such as those of the Lockes and others at the West Side, and those of the numerous Richardsons and others on the East Side. Begininng with 1850 many business men of Boston built here their residences, the steam railroad facilities of that time being relatively of greater importance than now, though greatly added to by electric roads.
Winchester contains several ponds, now enlarged by name into lakes, and many hilly crests, on which houses have been recently built. The policy of its local government has always been based on modern ideas, and it has good roads and every feature which it can afford. It conr tains a part of the Metropolitan Park System within its borders, in which is situated its wate- system. The ancient is not now much in evidence here. Old houses are not so numerous as formerly. The old stock is largely supplanted by new-comers-some of them transient, others permanent,-but a more cosmopolitan community of settlers than those who bore the brunt a half century or more ago.
Authorities: Bolles, J. A., "Oration", 1860. Richardson, Nathaniel A., and Thompson, Abijah, numerous articles in the local press on the "Winchester of the Past", and "Woburn and Winchester Town History". Winchester, "250th Anniversary of the First White Set- tlement within the Territory of Winchester", 1890. "Winchester Record", 1885-1887.
Among the ancient houses in Winchester which have been in existence in this modern town since 1850 were the following, the greater part of the number having now passed away. The most notable of them to residents and to travellers was a public house known as the Black Horse Tavern, erected, it is said, in 1724, and famous for a long period as a resort for stage- coach travellers before and after the time of the Revolution. Its name was applied to the straggling village in its vicinity, which was called "Black Horse Village," before it was named South Woburn. In later times the original building in an altered form was used as a residence. Its site is now covered by a modern dwelling-house.
The old house owned in the eighteenth century by Deacon Jeduthun Richardson, and in the nineteenth by Deacon Luther Richardson, his great-grandson, was a landmark of distin- guished importance in its part of the town (Washington street) from its association with the past, and as being one of the more modern of several early homesteads in the near vicinity where the thousands of descendants of the three brothers Richardson had their American origin.
Thomas Richardson one of the three brothers who settled in Woburn in 1640, would ap- pear to have occupied the late John S. Richardson estate on Richardson's Row, or Washington street. This estate in 1798 was occupied by an old two-story house and a barn, the latter so
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"old and poor, with a lean-to almost fallen down," that writers have supposed both to have belonged to the original Thomas Richardson.
Samuel Richardson, another of the above three brothers who settled in Woburn in 1640, located on Richardson's Row on an estate which a hundred years ago was known by the name of the Job .Miller estate. Miller's wife was a descendant (Samuel 1, Samuel 2, Jonathan 3, Jon- athan 4, Richardson) niece of the last named Jonathan Richardson, who died in 1798. The house she occupied was old more than a hundred years ago. Here three persons were killed by roving Indians on April 10, 1676. The Miller place was known latterly as the Smith place. The estate of the first Samuel was traversed by Prince street, and extended from the Boston and Maine railroad (the Lowell railroad part) to the Stoneham line. The J. F. Stone estate is its modern equivalent. The original house of the first Samuel disappeared before 1800, and was in a little valley on the opposite side of the street from the Job Miller house.
Ezekiel Richardson, the third of the first three brothers, lived on the spot occupied by the Wetherby house. He died early after the settlement of Woburn, or in 1647. His property descended to his son Theophilus (died 1674), then to John Richardson (died 1749), to Deacon Nathan Richardson (died 1775), to Nathan, son of Nathan (died 1817, aged ninety-two years), Abel, who died 1824, and to Richard Richardson, who died 1848, killed by the fall of a tree in the woods on this estate. The only ancient building on this estate in 1798 was a "very old barn," evidently a relic of the early Richardson period.
The house evidently very ancient, occupied in its later years by the late Thaddeus Parker, on Cambridge street, was an object to attract the attention of passers by. Thaddeus Parker occupied this house after his own was burned in 1840.
The Parker and Collins house on Church street, whose history is traced back through the Converse family to an early generation, was owned and occupied by Benjamin Converse in 1798, when a census was taken for the United States direct tax of 1800. It was owned by James Converse, the last survivor of the thirty-two signers of the Town Orders of 1640, who died in 1715, aged ninety-five. The descent of the property is then traced to his grandson Robert, to Ebenezer, son of Robert, and to Benjamin Converse, above, son of Ebenezer. Ben- jamin died in 1824, aged ninety-three. In 1798 the house was so old as to be "not tenantable." .
The Le Bosquet house, at Symmes Corner, originally on a part of the old Symmes estate, was built by a member of the Brooks family between 1715 and 1721. General John Brooks, of the Revolutionary Army, and Governor of Massachusetts, was born in this house. Captain John Le Bosquet married a daughter of one of the owners by the name of Brooks, and the prop- erty was theirs from 1781 to 1847.
The Samuel Thompson house was situated on the former line between Medford and Wo- burn, and is remembered as a large structure possessing the appearance of great antiquity. A local writer once made it the subject of a fantastic story which was published in the local press.
Others: The Zachariah Symmes house. The old homestead of Edmund Symmes, senior. The house of John Swan, now standing on Cambridge street, was purchased by Swan in 1818. It was formerly the Edward Gardner place. The Caleb Richardson house, now standing, and occupied by the family of Josiah Stratton, is justly regarded as one of the oldest houses in pres- ent Winchester. It was called a one story house in the census of 1798. Its owner at that time was Joseph Richardson, the father of Caleb. Philemon Wright's house, which certainly existed in 1798, is known latterly as the Josiah Locke house, on the Hills, adjoining Arlington and Lexington town lines. Wright left shortly after the Locke occupation and founded the town of Ottawa, Canada, about 1800. The old Jonathan Locke house in the same neighbor- hood was also a very ancient house, standing within a recent period.
HISTORIC HOMES AND PLACES.
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MELROSE
Melrose was originally, when the country was first settled, a part of Charlestown, and a little later the north part of Malden. It was incorporated as a town on May 3, 1850. Most of its territory had previously been known as North Malden, and a small portion of Melrose was set off from the town of Stoneham in 1853. The name of Melrose was suggested by a native of Scotland, one William Bogle, who had been a resident before the railroad was opened in 1845. It is seven miles north of Boston, and from the first has been largely occupied with fine residences. When incorporated the town had a population of 1260. March 18, 1899, it be- came a city, and its population in 1905 was 14,125.
Authority: Goss, E. H., "The History of Melrose", 1902.
Melrose, though a modern city of active growth, has still a few old structures left of a long past period. The Ensign Thomas Lynde homestead, which stands on the corner of Main street and Goodyear avenue, was the first house built on Melrose territory. Six generations of Lyndes have lived here. It is a good example of colonial architecture and is in a good state of preser- vation. Joseph Lynde homestead. Warren Lynde homestead, built 1820. The John Lynde homestead was built about 1700 by Captain Lynde, and, about the same time, the latter, also, built a house for his son Thomas, situated about one hundred rods west of the previous one. It has been remodeled and modernized. The Sprague house was built in 1812 by Captain Phineas Sprague, who was born in 1777, and died in 1869, aged ninety-two. The house is now owned by Samuel H. Nowell. The Jonathan Green house near the line between Melrose and Malden was built early in the eighteenth century, and has been occupied by five generations of Jonathan Greens. The house known as the "Mountain House" was built after 1742. It was owned by Captain Jonathan Barrett in 1806, and was one of the largest and finest houses in the north part of Malden. It has been removed from its present site and has become a tene- ment house. The old Amos Upham house is a fine example of early architecture, with a large square chimney in the centre. The walls are filled with brick and clay, and some of the oak beams of the frame are eighteen inches thick. The Jesse Upham house is probably one hundred and fifty years old, and is in good condition. It is the only old homestead in Melrose which has a well sweep. Other old houses are the old homestead built by Nathan Upham in 1816. Brick house on "Parker Place" built by Joshua Upham, 1810. The Dolly Upham house is a small one story house built in 1818. The Pratt homestead, built in 1806, now belongs to Mel-
rose. The Ezra Vinton homestead was erected soon after 1790 and is strongly built with a huge chimney. The house is plain but large and comfortable. The Ezra Waite house is prob- ably two hundred years old, and has brick lined walls and wooden cross-beams in the ceilings. Hemenway house. The Abijah Boardman house is just over the line in Saugus, but its history is closely connected with Melrose. "It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest house now standing on New England soil." It was built in 1635-'06, by Samuel Bennett, and is one of the best specimens of overhanging upper-story architecture. It has old-fashioned huge chimneys, fireplaces and ovens of the early colonial days, with beams across the ceilings and hand wrought nails. The cellar stairs are hewn logs and the walls are lined with brick from top to bottom. The upper story projects eighteen inches.
Authority: Elbridge, Henry Goss.
NORTH READING
North Reading was the north part of the old town of Reading, to which its territory was added by a grant in 1651. Till that year the northern boundary of Reading had extended to the Ipswich river, and, more room being wanted, the court granted this additional territory.
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MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
Later it became the Second or North Parish of old Reading, and in recent times (March 22, 1853) the town of North Reading.
This tract was formally laid out in 1666. Its history has been included in that of Reading until the date of its incorporation as a separate town in 1853. Because of the distance its peo- ple had to travel to attend public worship, it became a parish by itself, after several attempts to that end, in the year 1713. Six families were located in the precinct before 1680, and many others were added before the close of that century. The number of members of the church in 1720 was thirty-nine. The current of events was not always even, for in 1721 there was an alarming epidemic of the small-pox, and on October 29, 1727, an earthquake which, according to the parish record, "lasted at times three months, and at the end of three months very hard." The first settled minister died in 1759, and the second was ordained in 1761. The number of voters in 1771 was sixty-six. The somewhat scattered population was devoted to agriculture, with boot and shoe-making as an accessory. In this manner the precinct was carried down to the period when it eventually became a town. The population in 1855 was 1050. In 1860 it was 1193. The town still possesses much the same character that it had when incorporated.
The Congregational Church was the original church of the parish, and its first meeting- house was erected in 1717. In 1752 the second church edifice took its place. The third build- ing was erected in 1829 and was occupied until 1836, when a division occurred in the parish, resulting in certain members, holding Universalist views, retaining the old building, and the others erected in that year the church which is still in use (H. C. Wadlin, Hurd's "Hist. Midd. County", ii. 810).
BELMONT
Belmont owes its existence as a town directly to railroad enterprise. Because of the growth of the ice trade a railroad was built from Charlestown to Fresh Pond for carrying ice to tide-water. An extension of this road was made in 1843 to Waltham, and later to Fitch- burg. At this time the region was sparsely populated. It formed the outskirts of two old towns-Watertown, and West Cambridge, now called Arlington-and because of its remote- ness it was occupied only by farmers. A still older name for the place was Floh, or Flop End. One of the inhabitants named Deacon Frost wore an old Continental three-cornered hat of such a slipshod character that one of the sides for want of proper fastening would hang down, and when he walked would flop, hence the name of flop for the district, construed later into the name of Flob End.
Improved facilities for communication led to an increase of population. There was no place of public worship nearer than Arlington Centre or Watertown-no store, no post-office, or public-hall-practically nothing of public interest except the railroad station. Still the inhabitants were not without ambition, and an unsuccessful attempt was made in 1854 for an act of incorporation as a town. In 1855 the attempt was renewed, and again in 1856. In 1857 and 1858 unsuccessful attempts were again made, but in 1859 success attended the efforts of the petitioners, and the act was approved March 18, 1859. The new town was made up of parts of Waltham, West Cambridge (Arlington) and Watertown. Its town hall is six and a half miles from the State House in Boston. The population in 1859 was 1175.
While Belmont has been pre-eminently an agricultural community, it has been from the beauty of its situation largely residential. Houses are taking possession of the hillsides, and confining the husbandmen, who have always had narrow acreage, to still narrower limits. The name of the town was derived from that given to his own estate by the proprietor of the well- known Cushing estate, who called his house and lands Belmont. The mansion house on his lands was built about 1830, and after the death of Mr. Cushing, in 1862, it became the property of Samuel R. Payson, and is remembered by many as the Payson estate. £ It was
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estimated after Mr. Payson's ownership had ceased that up to that time more than half a milion dollars had been expended upon it.
The Nathaniel Bright house, which was the oldest house in Watertown before the incor- poration of Belmont, stood in the present limits of Belmont until after 1876, when it was torn down. To within the past twenty-five years the land has been in the possession of the family. . Aside from this house there were in 1820 only four houses in that part of Watertown which now comprises that part of Belmont known as the village of Waverley, all of which had disappeared before the town of Belmont was formed. The grounds of the Massachusetts General Hospital are in this part, also the three hundred acres which were included in the plan of the Waverley Company, which was incorporated in 1855. The village of Waverley was the outgrowth of this enterprise. In 1875 the company disposed of one hundred acres upon the Waverley High- lands to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Here also the former McLean Asylum from Somerville was removed.
This modern residential town has still a few old houses of note in its present limits. On the corner of Pleasant street and Concord avenue in Belmont is the old Eleazer Homer home- stead. The house is a combination of brick and wood. The Wellington homestead recalls the name of Jeduthun Wellington, a leading citizen of his day. He was sergeant and lieutenant in the Revolutionary army; colonel of the militia; selectman; and representative to the Gen- eral Court for nine years. The homestead of the Livermore family on School street was built in the early part of the eighteenth century. Colonel Thomas Livermore, a descendant in the sixth generation from John, the first representative of the family, was a man of considerable note and filled many important offices. The house of George Prentiss, 1775, was later included in the estate of Mansur W. Marsh, now located on Prospect street, Belmont. House of Oliver Russell, Pleasant street, Belmont. House of Josiah Locke Frost, Pleasant street, Belmont.
HUDSON
Hudson is a town made up out of parts of the older town of Marlborough, and named for a native, the Hon. Charles Hudson. The early owners of the tract believed in farms rather than in towns, but the introduction of small but good manufacturing industries gave the place a healthy beginning, and from that time its growth was slow but steady, until in 1866 its inhab- itants numbered about 1800, and were desirous of separate corporate existence. The usual story of distance from the place of town meeting also influenced the desire for separation on the part of the active and increasing inhabitants of a manufacturing village remote from the centre of the older town. The village had already received the name of Feltonville in 1828, after one Felton, a postmaster. Financial offers seemed to influence the choice of a name for the new town, and a vote of the citizens was taken to settle the matter. The names of Felton and Hudson received the greater part of the votes, and Hudson received the larger number. The act of incorporation was dated March 19, 1866. In 1868 and addition of territory was made by the setting off of a portion of Bolton and adding it to the town of Hudson.
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