Fiske Tavern Stand

The Fiske Tavern Stand stood on the southwest side of Boston Road opposite the end of Webb Brook Road, near Mason's Corner, where a gas station now stands at 581 Boston Road. It was a low, early house with a feature found nowhere else in Billerica: two separate chimneys set "fore-and-aft" instead of one great central chimney, perhaps because a rear chimney was added when an older, smaller house was enlarged. The second floor of the ell had a ballroom with a "sprung" floor. The Billerica Historic Commission surveyor who recorded it in 1974 thought its setting and its placement "low to ground" suggested the 17th century.

The land was the homestead of the Kittredge family. John Kittredge, the first settler of the name, had his house lot "on ye south-east of bare hill, on ye west side of the country road," about a mile southeast of the village, and when his son Dr. John Kittredge died in 1714 the inventory began with "The homestead about fifty acres of land and medow with the buildings upon it." No deed of the next sale was recorded, but by 1738 the homestead belonged to Lt. John Wilson, son of the builder of the corn mill on Vine Brook. On May 10, 1738 he and his wife Elizabeth (Foster) sold their son Jacob Wilson, a carpenter, the southerly half "of our homestead which was formerly John Kittredges," "with the building thereon," bounded easterly on the County Road. In 1765 Jacob Wilson sold about 38 acres "with all the Buildings Edifices Fences Trees" to Oliver Crosby and Josiah Crosby, and on Feb. 22, 1768 Josiah released to Oliver "Twenty acres and ninety five poles with all the buildings thereon," "the house lot yt was Jacob Willsons."

Oliver Crosby, later a deacon, kept the place until his death in 1822 and left it by will to his son Josiah Crosby Esq., a town leader and trustee of the Billerica Academy, who died in 1829 and left everything to his wife Betsy. When Betsy Crosby's estate was appraised on June 1, 1832, the first item was "The Homestead farm with all the buildings, including the Tavern stand & 8 acres of land," with hay stored "in the tavern barn": the house was already a tavern stand under the Crosbys. Dr. Zadok Howe, guardian of the Crosbys' young son Josiah, advertised "The large, handsome, and commodious mansion House, with numerous and convenient out houses, and Barns, with 21 acres of Land of the first quality adjoining, lately owned and occupied by Josiah Crosby, Esq. deceased, situate about a mile from Billerica Meeting-house, on the road to Boston," and on April 9, 1833 sold it at auction to John Baldwin and Henry Baldwin, who deeded it to Howe himself the same day. On Oct. 22, 1833 Howe sold the homestead for $2,769.79 to Sereno Fiske of Weston.

Fiske kept the tavern for about ten years and then moved west. In January 1844, living in Southport in the Wisconsin Territory, he sold "the said Fisk's Tavern stand, so called," nine acres 70 rods "with the buildings thereon," to Moses P. Greenwood for $3,200, and in 1848 Greenwood sold it to Lowell F. Jennison as the place "formerly called the Crosby Tavern Stand." From then on every deed bounded the lot the same way: from the Boston Road at Hervey Crosby's land westerly to "the first cross wall running south," then south along that wall 34 rods 18 links, and back east to the road. Jennison sold to Haslet Mackay by a deed of May 18, 1856 that was never recorded; it is known from Mackay's own later deed, and in 1857 the mortgage Jennison had given was discharged to Mackay. Mackay is the "H. McKay" of the 1875 map. In 1884 he deeded "my Homestead ... with the buildings thereon" to his stepson Edward B. Haskell, the "A. Haskell" of the 1889 map, who sold it in 1907 to Arthur W. Merriam and Charles E. Moore.

John E. Farmer bought the place from Merriam and Moore in 1913, and in 1929 the Land Court registered it to him as land running about 620 feet along Boston Road, his address given as "Boston Rd., opp Webb Brook Rd." A strip along the front was taken in the early 1930s for the widening of Boston Road (Lot A of the 1932 plan), leaving Lot B, which Farmer and his wife Bertha took as tenants by the entirety in 1943. In 1965 Lot B was divided: the rear Lot 2 went to the Cerretani Realty Trust, and the house, its ell and a barn stayed on Lot 1, drawn on the 1965 survey with 271.5 feet on Boston Road. Mary R. Farmer held Lot 1 from 1969, and in 1974 her heirs owned the house, then a two-family residence. The lot was sold in 1975 to Sousa Oil Company and in 1986 to Leemilt's Petroleum, Inc.; by 1987 the house had been demolished and replaced with a gas station. In 2016 the lot was sold to East Coast Commercial Real Estate, LLC, and in 2018 it passed to the 581 Boston Road Realty Trust.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.198
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): John Kittredge's house lot SE of Bare Hill on the country road; the Wilson and Crosby families in the Genealogical Register

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.