John Sheldon House

The John Sheldon House is a center-chimney colonial on the north side of Andover Road, a short walk east of the Common, facing south with its gable to the street. The Historical Society dates it to 1698, and its framing bears that out: there is no ridge pole, oak gunstock posts support the second story, huge pine beams frame the ceilings, and the feather-edge paneling is made of extremely wide boards. Most of the original hinges and door latches are still in place. More formal raised-block paneling, with matching paneled interior shutters, was added to some rooms about 1750.

John Sheldon was in Billerica by 1658. He and his brother William quarreled with the town over a mill grant, and John lived for a time in Woburn, but in 1674 the town, "considering the unquietness of his spirit, and being willing he should again returne," granted him forty acres by his lot, and in 1691, the year after his death, laid out to "John Sheldon" six more acres "next to the east side of his own home lott," along "the highway unto Sergt. Jacob French's house." He had died on May 24, 1690. His son, Deacon John Sheldon (1660-1724), married Deborah Hill, and the house is traditionally his. In 1718 the deacon gave his son Samuel Sheldon seven and a half acres bounded north "by my own Land," east by William French, south by Nathaniel Patten and west by "the Land that was granted to Dr. Samuel Frost," and in 1720 he bought a small slip beside his home lot from Joshua Abbott. His will, proved in 1724, left his widow "the West lower Room" and provided that "my son Samuel Sheldon shall have and Possess my homestead," entailed to Samuel's male heirs.

Samuel Sheldon had only daughters. In 1771 he broke the entail by a common recovery in which the innholder Solomon Pollard was the nominal plaintiff, so that "one Peice or Tract of Land containing about Sixty acres with the Buildings thereon called the Homestead" would pass to his heirs. He died intestate on May 14, 1777, and early in 1778 the homestead was inventoried at about 83 acres "with all the buildings." His five daughters divided the estate among themselves that spring by deeds rather than through the court, and the homestead fell to Sarah Center, a widow living in Woburn, and her son John Sheldon Center. In March 1781 they sold "the Homestead of Sarah Center & John Shelden Center," about 36 acres in two pieces on either side of the highway "with all the Buildings," and half of the pew "formerly the property of Samuel Sheldon," to Josiah Bowers Jr., who was a selectman in 1786.

Captain Bowers lived on the place for more than forty years. In old age he fell into debt, and in 1822 a nephew had him declared "non compos mentis" and placed under the guardianship of his brother Andrew Bowers of Salisbury, New Hampshire. After Josiah died in November 1824, Andrew, as administrator, auctioned the house lot on the premises in November 1825: seven acres "with a dwelling house barn and cyder mill house and other out buildings," bounded on the Salem road (the old name of this stretch of Andover Road), with the line running "by said house and wall to the said Salem road." The buyer, Zaccheus Shed, conveyed it back to Andrew in 1830, after Andrew had bought out the other heirs. When Andrew died, his own heirs sold the farm in 1834 to Jonathan Gates of Lowell, describing it as "the homestead of Capt. Josiah Bowers deceased with the buildings thereon lying on the northerly side of the Salem road or Sheldon's lane so called containing about eleven acres," its corner at the lane and the land of Theophilus Manning (see Sabbath Day House), with thirty acres across the road and a wood lot on Fox Hill. Gates resold it the same year for $2,500 to Ichabod G. Kimball.

Kimball, a Carlisle native, lived here for more than forty years. In 1875, when he and his wife Joanna were in their seventies, he settled "my homestead farm ... with the buildings thereon in which I now live" on George W. Searles in return for his and his wife's support, Searles taking "the Westerly part of the house" at once; the deed was recorded in March 1880, days after Kimball died. Searles sold house lots off the farm's Andover Street frontage in the 1890s. His will, proved in January 1911, left the rest to his widow Lucinda W. Searles, who sold another lot to Everett W. Livingston that spring. Her will, proved in January 1915, left the house to Herbert A. King, and that July King sold "a certain tract or parcel of land with the buildings thereon situated on the northerly side of Andover road in Billerica Centre," bounded in part "through the centre of a large ash tree," to A. Warren Stearns, the physician and local historian whose notes on Billerica's old houses were later used by the Historical Commission. Stearns sold it in 1924 to Ralph L. Dodge, who kept it until 1965.

Hazen, writing in 1883, identified the Kimball place with the house lot that Ralph Hill Jr. sold to John Poulter in 1658, and put John Sheldon's own house a little farther along the road; he also noted that John Marshall, who lived farther south-east on land that was Samuel Frost's by 1696, had a way across Sheldon's land to the road. The recorded deeds carry this house lot back only to the Sheldon heirs: the Centers' 1781 homestead, the Bowers house of 1825 and the Kimball house are the same ground, beside the lane that still bore the Sheldon name in 1834. The owners who bought the house in 1965 restored it and prepared its survey for the Historical Commission in 1973, when it was described as needing restoration; by the time of the Local Historic District survey its condition was excellent. The house has been in the Billerica Local Historic District since 1990 and has changed hands privately several times since.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.32
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): the Sheldon family and John Sheldon's grants

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.