Amos Needham House

The Amos Needham House stood on the north side of Salem Road in East Billerica, between the D. Sherman House and the Middlesex Canal land, on ground that is now 128 Salem Road. The map of 1852 marks the house with the name A. Needham. Amos Needham was the son of Asa Needham and Mary (Easte) Needham, born November 7, 1796; he never married, and he died November 1, 1876.

On March 12, 1822 Thomas Richardson, gentleman, sold "a certain farm with the buildings thereon" of 47 acres and 84 poles to Amos Needham, then a labourer, for $1,000. It ran "easterly by the road leading from the great Bridge so called to Salem and the folly road" for about 223 rods to land of the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal, with Isaac Whiting, the widow Olive Barrett, Benjamin Davis Jr., Joseph L. Low, Joseph Davis and Benjamin Davis on its other sides, and Amos gave Richardson a mortgage of $400 for part of the price. In 1824 he sold an undivided half "with the buildings thereon" to his brother Samuel Needham of Andover for $500, and in January 1828 their sister Polly Needham, just before her marriage to Jedidiah Burtt Jr., sold "my brother Samuel Needham" the other half "with half of the buildings thereon" for another $500. By 1842 the place was known as the Kidder Farm.

On August 18, 1842 Samuel Needham, then of Boston, quitclaimed back to Amos, now called a yeoman, seven acres of "the Kidder Farm so called" for $200, bounded southerly by the Salem Road, westerly by land of Asenath Sherman, northerly by land of Isaac Whiting and land formerly of Benjamin Davis, and easterly by land Samuel had sold to John Richardson 2d. This is the land where the 1852 map shows the house. The rest of the farm along the Folly Road, now Richards Street, was later called "the Needham Lot."

Amos Needham kept the Salem Road land for more than thirty years. In 1864 he also took a share of a back meadow off Salem Road, from which he sold an acre to Ebenezer Baker that year and the rest to Josiah Wright in 1872. On December 30, 1873 Amos, "being unmarried," sold Josiah Wright the Salem Road land, "a part of the Kidder Farm, so called, and containing nine acres," bounded south by the Salem Road, west by land formerly of Asenath Sherman, north by land formerly of Isaac Whiting, then of Abby Kittredge, and east by land formerly of John Richardson 2d, for $275. Neither the 1842 deed nor the 1873 deed mentions a building on this land.

Josiah Wright, who had the homestead of his father Jonathan Wright nearby and bought the Kittredge farm next door in 1889, held the Needham land until 1912. In April 1912 O. M. Snell surveyed his land, and on April 22 Wright sold Helen W. Walker of Brookline the whole parcel "at the junction of Pond street and Salem road," with 450.75 feet and then 926.37 feet on Salem Road around a lot that was not included. Three days later she passed it to Joseph McCabe of Boston. On October 23, 1913 McCabe, by then of Providence, conveyed it together with the Needham Lot and the Lewis Field Lot on Pond Street to James E. Burke of Lexington, who mortgaged the land for $17,000 and had John N. McClintock and Robert B. Bellamy lay it out as Central Park, recorded April 27, 1914 (Plan Book 31, Plan 49). The Needham house site became lots 144 to 149 and 154 to 157, between the paper streets Arch Street and Race Street, next to the lettered lots marked "Formerly Kittredge."

Like most of Central Park, the lots stayed empty for decades. The County Commissioners relocated Salem Road along the front of them on a petition of 1951, with the taking recorded in 1953. In February 1958 Murray Hills, Incorporated of Burlington released all its interest in the Central Park land to private owners, and the ten lots changed hands again in 1960 and in June 1961, when they were sold simply as "the land," with no buildings. The Needham house was therefore gone by then; when it was taken down has not been found.

A new house was built on the lots in 1961, and by October 1961 they were sold "with the buildings thereon." The assessors date the present one-story ranch at 128 Salem Road, on 0.586 acres, to 1962. It has had several private owners since.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register, NEEDHAM 6: Asa Needham and his children, among them Amos, b. 1796, Nov. 7; d. 1876, Nov. 1, and Samuel of Andover
2. Billerica assessor, 128 Salem Rd, parcel 33-194-0: Central Park lots 144-149 and 154-157 (Plan 31-49), 0.586 acres, ranch built about 1962

Deed References Expand all

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