Samuel G. Tucker House

The Samuel G. Tucker House at 13 Andover Road stands on the old "Wetherbee Place," a house lot on the south side of the road east of the Common that was known by the names of its owners for two centuries: first the Wetherbee Place, then the Francis Baldwin Homestead, and in Billerica memory the house of the Howe School principal Samuel Tucker.

The lot was first sold as bare land. On March 26, 1814, Lucy Foster, a widow, sold John Wetherbee, a labourer, "one quarter of an acre of land near Billerica Meetinghouse," four rods on the road "leading from said Meetinghouse to Salem" and ten rods deep, bounded on the east by the wall of Josiah Bowers, and he gave her a mortgage back for the $55 price. Wetherbee built his house within four years: when William Richardson sold him another eighth of an acre on the south in October 1818, the deed described it as "adjoining the lot of land on which the said Wetherby's dwelling house now stands." In March 1820 John Wetherbee sold the half acre "with the buildings thereon standing" to his son Elijah T. Wetherbee of Boston for $600; the road in front is called "Sheldon's lane" in that deed and "the Salem road" in the later ones.

Elijah Wetherbee borrowed on the house from the brothers John Baldwin and Henry Baldwin of Billerica in 1820 and 1824, and on March 23, 1825 he sold it to them outright for $525: "a parcel of land ... about fifty rods east of the Meeting House on Salem road ... with all the buildings thereon." In November 1836 Henry released his half to his brother, and from then on Colonel John Baldwin, who lived across the road at 14-16 Andover Road, owned "the Weatherbee Place" alone. Neighbours' deeds of the 1840s describe their land as bounded by "land of Col. John Baldwin called his Wetherbee place." Baldwin's son Francis Baldwin, a trader, lived in the house, probably from his marriage in 1839.

Colonel Baldwin died on June 25, 1875, and on September 14, 1876 his heirs divided his land. By the partition deed Francis received "the Weatherbee Place so called with the buildings thereon standing," bounded north by the Salem road, west by William S. Gleason and south by Paul Hill, along with several outlying lots. Francis died in 1878. His daughter Annie Gilbert Baldwin had married Samuel Tucker, principal of the Howe School, in 1875, and in July 1885 Francis's three children divided his estate: their sister Catharine G. Parker released to Annie G. Tucker and her brother Henry Baldwin her third of "the Francis Baldwin Homestead with the buildings thereon," the name the house kept in every deed for the next 130 years. The present house, with its paired windows, took its shape in these years: the town map of 1889 shows its outline, which the map of 1875 does not.

Samuel Tucker died suddenly in July 1895. Two years later Henry Baldwin deeded his share to his widowed sister, then living in Nashua, and on November 2, 1916 Annie G. Tucker, by then of Springfield, sold the homestead to Charles F. and Etta Y. Pillsbury of Billerica. The house passed to Lucy L. Symmes in 1921, to Helen M. Houghton in 1926 and to Philip A. and Muriel M. Poehler in 1948, each deed repeating the old bounds: 64.5 feet on Andover Street, "formerly called the Salem Road," 228 feet along the Gleason land, 66 feet on the Hill land and 234 feet along the land of Dr. A. C. Lane. In 1965 the Poehlers sold to private owners, who kept the house, a two-family dwelling by the 1970s, for more than fifty years. After a foreclosure in 2018 the house was sold that year to its present private owners. The assessor gives the lot as 0.346 acre.

Samuel Tucker himself never held title: the homestead came to the Tuckers through Annie's inheritance from her father.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.37
2. Billerica assessor, parcel 51-80-0 (13 Andover Rd): 0.346 acres, two-family, sales history 1978-2018

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.