Francis H. Bowers House

The Francis H. Bowers House was the farmhouse that stood in the fork of the Boston Road and the Lexington Road, about a mile south of the town common, at the foot of Bare Hill. The 1853 Walling map labels it "F. H. Bowers". The deeds describe the house lot the same way for sixty years: about fourteen acres "beginning at the crotch of the Boston and Lexington roads", running thirty rods along the Boston road to the land of Harvey Crosby, then back to the Lexington road "in a curve line by a stone wall".

This was old Crosby and Bowers land. In 1737 James Crosby sold Capt. Jonathan Bowers and William Bowers ten acres "formerly the Southerly Part of the Homestead of Simon Crosby", bounded by the County Road and "a Way leading to Lexington" (see Simon Crosby House). By 1820 the land in the fork was the "Parker place" of Benjamin Bowers, who that year quitclaimed his 180 acres "with all the buildings thereon" to James Bennett and Joseph Bowers, and in 1824 released the same lands to his son Dr. Josiah Bowers. On February 17, 1825 Joseph Bowers sold Harvey Crosby "the hill farm", thirty-three acres beginning "at the crotch of the roads", "with the buildings thereon", for $800.

In April 1839 Harvey Crosby sold the fourteen acres at the fork, "with the Dwelling House & adjoining buildings", to Joseph Farmer, yeoman, for $1,400, keeping the right to water his pasture from the spring. Farmer was a butcher: when William H. Odiorne released his interest in the place to Anthony Jones in December 1851, the lot had "a dwelling house, barn & slaughter house standing thereon" and was "now occupied by Joseph Farmer". On September 18, 1852 Jones sold the farm to Francis H. Bowers of Lowell for $2,700, subject to Farmer's lease to stay on as a tenant, taking back a mortgage for $1,800.

Francis H. Bowers farmed here until his death on February 5, 1864, leaving his widow Martha A. Bowers and five children. The inventory taken that April valued his "Homestead 15 acres" at $2,400 and lists a house with kitchen and back room, sitting room, parlor, front entry, east and south chambers, a parlor chamber and an attic, with two horses, a cow, wagons, sleds and farm tools. In 1865 the administrator, William S. Gleason, sold the farm at auction to John Clifton of Bedford for $3,770, the house lot "containing about fourteen acres and having buildings thereon". Clifton sold it in 1867 to G. Horace Williams, a Boston post office clerk, "with the buildings thereon", taking a $3,000 mortgage that later passed to Frederick Howard of Brockton. Howard took possession under it and in 1876 sold the place to George Leonard of Randolph for $3,100.

The Leonard family kept it into the twentieth century. In 1898 George Leonard's widow Sarah A. Leonard and Sarah R. Hawes, both widows, mortgaged the lot "with the buildings thereon". In March 1912 Sarah R. Hawes deeded the northern four and a half acres at the point of the fork to Charles W. Hawes. That deed names no buildings and bounds the lot by "the driveway leading to the residence of Sarah R. Hawes", so the old farmhouse stayed with her, on the part of the farm south of the new lot. By May 6, 1912, when Charles W. Hawes mortgaged the fork lot to the Central Savings Bank for $3,000, it carried "the buildings thereon": the house that stands at 8 Lexington Road today, which the assessor dates to about 1912.

Charles W. Hawes also obtained the release of the thirteen acre Bowers lot across the Lexington road in 1933. He kept the house until 1955, when he sold it with about two and a half acres. The lot's deed of 1974 still describes it by "the driveway leading to the residence formerly of Sarah R. Hawes". The house passed to private owners in 1995 and again in 2024.

The map date of 1852 for this house is too late: a house stood at the fork by 1825 and the deeds name the dwelling house in 1839. The deeds also do not support a demolition in 1911; the 1912 division left the Bowers farmhouse standing as the Hawes residence beside the new house, and when it was finally taken down is not recorded in this chain. The dwelling may be the same site as the homestead of Simon Crosby, whose land reached the fork in the seventeenth century, but that is not proven.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 8 Lexington Rd (parcel 70-63-0): 2.25 acres, house built about 1912

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.