John Baldwin House (Baldwin Road)

The John Baldwin House was the farmhouse of the Baldwin homestead farm in East Billerica, a farm of about one hundred acres lying on both sides of Baldwin Road south of the Salem Road and running down to the Shawsheen River. The 1853 Walling map labels it "J. Baldwin". The house stood on the west side of Baldwin Road, on the lot that is now 186 Baldwin Road; it burned in 1915, and the present house on the lot dates from the late 1920s.

The house is first recorded in 1792, when John Baldwin (born 1731) deeded his son Joel Baldwin "one half of my homestead farm ... containing about one hundred acres", "with the west end of the dwelling house thereon excepting the chamber over the fore room, with one half of the barn". In 1800 John gave Joel the other half "with all the remaining part of my buildings". John Baldwin died in December 1800. How John himself came by the farm is not on record: his deed refers only to "the deed I have of the said lands", and no recorded deed or will has been found.

The elder Joel Baldwin died in December 1829. Hazen's genealogy says he died unmarried, but his will and the deeds show a widow, Mary. He left her a third of his estate and gave "all my real estate in Billerica, Wilmington & Tewksbury" to his kinsman Joel Baldwin, a son of his brother Timothy of Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, who had moved to Billerica in 1825. In February 1830 the widow released her third to the younger Joel. The same day he mortgaged "The Homestead farm of Joel Baldwin late of said Billerica deceased" back to her, the mortgage to be void if he would "maintain & support the said Mary during her natural life", with "suitable food and clothing, nursing and medical aid". Ebenezer Page and Theophilus Manning, the neighbors on the north and east, stood surety on the executor's bond. Hazen places this Joel "west of the Shawshin river, at the first place south of the Wilmington road".

In 1849 Joel deeded an undivided half of the farm to his son Joel Baldwin Jr. He died on April 19, 1850, and his inventory lists "one undivided half of the homestead" of about 130 acres, carpenter's tools "in the shop", a chaise, and the furniture of the garret, the east and northwest chambers, the east and west rooms, the sink room and the wood house chamber. In October 1851 the other heirs (John F. Baldwin and Mary Ann Manning) released "what was formerly the homestead farm of Joel Baldwin" to Joel Jr. The guardian of the youngest son, William H. Baldwin, sold his share at auction on the premises to Joel Jr. for $1,600. Neither deed was recorded until much later: one in 1866 and the guardian's deed only in 1913. The "J. Baldwin" of the 1853 map is this younger Joel.

Joel Baldwin Jr. died before 1891, leaving his widow Elizabeth W. Baldwin and two children, Annah M. Jaquith and Joel W. Baldwin of Tewksbury. Annah sold her share to her brother in 1891 and confirmed it in 1913. In May 1913 Joel W. Baldwin passed the farm, "with buildings thereon", through Helen F. Walker of Lawrence to the trustees of the newly formed Billerica Realty Trust Company. He held 51 of its 100 shares; Henry E. Underhill and William A. Hayre of Lawrence held the rest. In October 1913 R. W. Seamans of Providence laid the farm out as Billerica Highlands, a grid of small house lots (Plan Book 31, Plan 67). The plan shows the Baldwin house and barn on a large corner lot, Lot A, of 46,188 square feet between Baldwin Street, Highland Road and Spaulding Road.

In March 1915 the trust mortgaged the unsold land to Joel W. Baldwin for $7,000. Three weeks later, on March 24, 1915, a grass fire burned the "House and barn and 75 acres of woodland on the Joel Baldwin place", with damage of $3,900. Few Highlands lots sold. In January 1921 Baldwin foreclosed and took back the remainder. In 1923 he sold the ninety acres east of Baldwin Street to John and Katerine Pichowicz. In October 1927 he sold them the old house lot as well, by then numbered "4" in the deeds, with no buildings named. By November 1929 the Pichowiczes had built a house: they mortgaged lot 4 "together with the buildings thereon", with its furnace, range, electric fixtures and "electric pump and piping". The assessor dates the house to about 1925.

In 1934 the Pichowiczes sold the house lot and the east farm to Mike and Agnes Raskauskas, who resold them that August to John and Agota Auglis of Cambridge. The Auglis family kept the house for fifty years. After Agota Auglis died in 1968 and Alphonse Auglis in 1983, the house lot was sold to a private owner in 1984. It was sold again in 2003.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register, Baldwin 17, 23 and 26: John Baldwin (b. 1731), the elder Joel (d. 1829), Joel from Lyndeborough (d. 1850) and his son Joel (b. 1824)

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.