Cyrus French House

The house that stood at 20 French Street until 2006 sat on land the deeds call first "the Cyrus French Place" and later "the Hannaford place". French Street itself was for most of the nineteenth century only "the road leading to Nuttings pond", then "the road leading to Geo. A. Kimball's"; a 1937 mortgage describes the lot as on the road "now supposed to be called French Street".

In 1812 Isaac French of Billerica sold his son Cyrus French twelve acres "lying northeasterly from my dwelling house", beginning "at the road leading to Nuttings pond at the northeast corner of the said Cyrus' barn", together with a 26-acre pasture. Cyrus French died in the 1830s, and in July 1836 Thomas L. French and Isaac French, masons of Watertown, sold "the estate of the late Cyrus French deceased", about 45 acres in three tracts, to William Hanaford (Hannaford) of Billerica, yeoman, for $1,000. The first tract was about twelve acres "with a dwelling house and Barn on the same lying northerly of Nuttings Pond". Hannaford mortgaged the whole back to Thomas L. French for $635.

William Hannaford died within three years, leaving a widow, Mehitable (who soon married Samuel A. Lovejoy), and minor children. In February 1839 French entered on the farm, "now being improved by Mr Samuel Lovejoy", to foreclose, and a month later assigned the mortgage to John Baldwin of Billerica for $658.27. The estate's inventory valued "The Homestead Farm ... about 12 acres" at $384, and the administrator, Marshall Preston, sold Hannaford's equity of redemption in "the Cyrus French Place" with its house and barn at auction in May 1840 for just $12. From then until 1869 the place was John Baldwin's, which is why the house appears as "J. Baldwin" on the 1853 map of Billerica.

The French farmhouse did not survive Baldwin's ownership. When Baldwin, "being unmarried", sold the nine-acre "Hannaford place" to Charles M. Hannaford, a mason and bricklayer, in November 1869 for $1,000, the deed mentions only "the Barn thereon"; a $300 mortgage of 1872 names no buildings at all. By January 1891 Hannaford's mortgage to William P. Fowler covers the land "with the buildings thereon", so the house that later stood here was built by Hannaford between about 1872 and 1891, not in 1852. In 1898 Hannaford leased the seven back acres to Edward F. Dickinson for fifty years, keeping the "homestead lot" on the road.

After Hannaford's death his administrator, Herbert A. King, sold the place at auction on November 24, 1900 to Sears J. Cook for $570, and Cook resold it a few weeks later to Mary Ann Parris, wife of Alexander Parris. The Parrises took mortgages from Hannah Morrill (1905-1924) and the Lowell Co-operative Bank (1937), and in 1936 the Dickinson lease was surrendered to them. Mary Ann Parris died by 1938; her family, later the Finnagans, kept the place for another six decades.

In 2000 the land was divided for the heirs on a plan prepared for the Town of Billerica (Plan Book 204, Plan 32), which shows the house and a wood barn on Lot A (0.92 acre) beside French Street and the old leased land as Lot B (7.13 acres). Lot A was sold at a court-ordered partition auction in 2001 and passed through private owners. The house burned on July 6, 2004; the lot was sold to a builder's trust in 2006, divided again (Plan 221-113), and the present Colonial was built in 2007.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 20 French St, parcel 69-60-4: old house demolished after fire 7/6/04; Plan 204-32 Lot A, Plan 221-113 Lot 2

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.