Anna Mears Wood's "Red House"

The house at 18-20 Old Elm Street in North Billerica stands on the lot of the "Red House", a small dwelling on the old homestead of Nathan Mears beside the Mears Tavern at the Canal Mills. Mears had bought his land from the Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal between 1802 and 1819, and when he died in June 1828 he left five minor children. In 1831 their guardians were licensed to sell the homestead, and on March 3, 1832 S. Livingston surveyed it into lots. Lot 2, a narrow strip of about eighteen and three quarters square rods between the tavern lot and Isaiah Bussey's house lot, held "a Small Dwelling House thereon standing called the Red House". The house was already standing in 1832, so it was built by Mears or before him, not in the 1830s as earlier accounts suggest.

At the guardians' auction on March 20, 1832, the widow Anna Mears Wood (written "Anna Woods" in the deeds) bought the whole lot: two fifths from Nathaniel Stearns and three fifths from John Baldwin, $356 each time. Her mortgage to Baldwin for the price, given the same day, also pledged her share of the dower land "set off to my mother, Lydia Mears", which shows that she was a daughter of Thomas and Lydia Mears and Nathan's sister. Her daughter Almira married Isaiah Bussey next door in 1830. Baldwin assigned the mortgage to Artemas Jaquith in 1836, and Jaquith assigned it to Dr. Amariah Preston in 1844. The building at the back of Bussey's lot was described in 1837 as "the said Anna's building formerly a shoemaker's shop".

On April 13, 1838 Anna Wood sold the Red House to Thomas R. Barrett, a trader, for $100, subject to the mortgage. By 1845 Barrett had built a store on the lot "near the Northeast corner", and on March 12 of that year he sold the land "with the buildings thereon" to Lott Easty, a blacksmith, for $1,225. That deed was not recorded until 1857, and the 1853 Walling map shows the place as Easty's. In December 1857 Easty and Daniel Wilson exchanged properties: Wilson took the store lot and Easty took the old Bussey house next door. In 1858 Wilson deeded the store lot for $3,000 to his son Israel N. Wilson.

The Wilsons moved the title back and forth to suit their borrowing. In 1861 Israel deeded it through Thomas H. Adams of Boston to his wife Alma A. Wilson as her separate property. In 1866 Alma deeded it back to him through William H. Anderson of Lowell so that he could mortgage it for $3,000. Israel N. Wilson died on September 29, 1868, leaving Alma, two small daughters and debts of $4,230. As administratrix, Alma sold the land and buildings at auction on November 28, 1868. The buyer was the mill owner Thomas Talbot, who paid $1,800 and resold the place to her the next day, taking her $800 mortgage. She paid it off in 1873, and the 1875 atlas marks the house "Mrs. A. Wilson". In 1881 she sold a 185-square-foot corner to [[C. P. Talbot & Company]].

On September 6, 1884 Alma A. Wilson sold the place for $2,800 to Marietta C. Hutchins, wife of Henry M. Hutchins, an expressman. He is the "H. Hutchins" of the 1889 map. In 1903 the Hutchinses, Carrie A. Wilson and the Talbot Mills settled their uncertain lot lines by agreement on H. W. Sheldon's survey (Plan Book 20, Plan 2). The plan shows "Residence of H. M. Hutchins No. 18" and "Tenement No. 20" under one roof with a piazza across the front, on a lot of 71.70 feet on Elm Street. The store block (Nos. 14 and 16) at the Wilson Street corner and the tenements behind it were the common property of Carrie A. Wilson and Henry M. Hutchins, and the "Easty House" stood to the west. That 1903 lot is the present parcel. The two-family house on it was therefore standing by 1903. It may be the old Red House enlarged or a replacement, and the Talbots never owned this lot, although MACRIS suggested they did.

Marietta C. Hutchins left the house by will to her daughter Mary L. Hutchins, later Mary L. Stowers of Falmouth. In 1935, during the Depression, Mrs. Stowers deeded it to the Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank, which held her mortgage. The bank sold it in 1941 to Jean C. Morin, and in 1947 Morin sold it to Henry F. and Mary V. Collins. After a 1962 sale to private owners, the bank foreclosed again and sold the house at auction on the premises in 1975. It then passed through several private owners, was foreclosed once more in 2008 by LaSalle National Bank as trustee, and was sold that year to its present owners. The Billerica assessor lists it as a three-family house on 0.138 acres.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.93
2. Billerica assessor: 18-20 Old Elm St, parcel 9-121-0, 0.138 acres, three-family, sales history 1988-2008

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.