Ebenezer Beard House

The Ebenezer Beard House was a farmhouse on the northeast side of Boston Road (Route 3A) in Pinehurst, on the lot now numbered 880 Boston Road, on the old county road from Billerica to Burlington. It was standing by 1776, when it was the home of Ebenezer Beard, a Billerica housewright, and it lasted nearly two hundred years, as the Beard, Carter and Carr farmhouse, until it was taken down about 1971 to make room for the 880 Plaza. The 1856 Walling map of Middlesex County marks it "F. Carter", for its longest owner, Francis Carter.

The Beards had held land on the east side of the Shawsheen here since the early 1700s. In 1776 Ebenezer Beard, "Housewright", sold to "my Son Isaac Beard of Wilmington", for 220 pounds, "the Northeasterly part of my Homestead Containing about one hundred and ten acres ... lying on the Road leading to Shawshin Bridge with all the buildings thereon standing", bounded by John Tatman's field, Thomas Ditson's pasture, the Walnut Pasture, Nathaniel Davidson's wood lot and Samuel Richardson's pasture, "always reserving for myself and Wife during Life the West end of my Dwelling House and the West end of my Barn" (Billerica town book 8, page 447). Isaac Beard farmed there until his death before the end of 1805. His son Isaac Beard, who had married Polly (Mary) in 1791, added six acres of meadow on the Shawsheen next to Edward Farmer Jr. in 1799, and on Christmas Day 1805 paid the widow Martha Beard $75 for "all my right of thirds or dower" in "the real estate of my late husband Isaac Beard" (town book 10, pages 121 and 368).

The younger Isaac Beard died intestate at the end of 1810, leaving his widow Mary and minor children. To pay his debts his administrator, Benjamin Beard, sold the farm in February 1812 "at a public vendue held at the late dwelling house of said deceased" to Joshua Wyman of Medford for $4,040: the 29 acres west of the road "with the buildings thereon", running back to the Shawsheen River and Ditson's Brook, and the 200 acres on the easterly side, bounded by Ruel Goodwin, the heirs of Edward Farmer Jr., the Burlington line, James Bennett and Sears Cook, "with all the buildings thereon" (town book 11, page 178). Wyman borrowed the whole price from the Boston merchant Peter Chardon Brooks, and in 1816 gave the farm up to him. On April 1, 1817 Brooks sold both tracts for $3,000 to Ruel Carter and John Parker of Wilmington, taking back a $2,000 mortgage that was not discharged until 1845.

Francis Carter, a Wilmington yeoman, bought Parker's half in 1818 and in 1824 paid Ruel Carter $1,600 for "all my right title and interest in and to the farm on which the said Ruel now lives", 230 acres "with the buildings thereon standing", the farm "the said Ruel and Francis owned together" (town book 13, pages 302 and 318). Francis Carter farmed there for more than forty years, until his death on May 7, 1867. His inventory valued "Two hundred acres of Land with the Buildings thereon situated on the Easterly side of the Street" at $6,950 and the Barn lot across the street at $1,000, and listed two horses, five cows, wagons, a mill house and wood lots of oak, pine, maple and birch (probate 28894). His widow Harriet and their daughters, Harriet E. Alley, Martha Higgins and Fanny M. Marion, kept the farm together until 1889, when they sold the 230 acres to Henry Sheldon of Wilmington, James T. Eames of North Reading and Kimball M. McLaughlin of Salem, New Hampshire.

Sheldon and Eames had the farm surveyed in October 1893 (Plan Book 10, Plan 27) and sold "one hundred (100) acres of land and the dwelling house thereon, taken from the westerly part" of the farm, with 2,602 feet on the road, to Clara N. Wonson of Gloucester. As a widow she sold the 100 acres "together with the buildings thereon" in September 1910 to Frank W. Coughlin of Brookline, who laid them out as the house lots of Pinehurst Manor (Plan Book 27, Plan 95), part of the new Pinehurst neighborhood. Lot 1, 123,277 square feet on the road "with the buildings thereon", went in April 1911 to Joseph F. Carr and his wife Florence of East Boston.

The Carr family lived in the old house for more than half a century; the 1916 county plan of Boston Road marks it "Joseph F. Carr". Two parcels at the back of the lot were sold to John Leahy, and their son Joseph F. Carr Jr. died in 1943 at the age of 36. After the deaths of Joseph and Florence Carr, the heirs released Lot 1, "the land and buildings thereon", in 1967, and in April 1968 the 80,336 square feet on the road were sold to Content Homes, Inc., the building company of William F. Kindred. Content Homes divided the frontage into Lots A and B in 1970, the house was taken down about 1971, and in 1972 Lot B was sold to Kindred, Snyder & Co., which built the 880 Plaza on the old house lot that year.

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.