Jonathan Hill House
Ralph Hill Sr.'s second son, Nathaniel, inherited the "two half-lots" on the Dudley Farm, including this site in 1663, without buildings. The first clear references to the adjacent mill-site are about 1680. Nathaniel married in 1667 and may have started the house and presumably the mills. After the death of his first wife in 1685, he moved to Chelmsford and his son Ralph occupied the site, dying a bachelor in 1742.
Next, it was occupied by Ralph's nephew Jonathan, for whom the house is now named. Brick-lined partitions, low facing, and other features mark it as a 17th century house, which Jonathan took over and likely enlarged. He was very prosperous, but his son Jonathan (m. 1798) apparently added the final embellishments, recorded by date on an interior wall. Other sons settled nearby.
The last Jonathan died in 1815, and his widow signed off her rights in the mill and machinery to her nephew Jonathan. William Whitford bought the great house. After his death, it was bought by Thomas Lyons, warmly remembered by summer boarders who enjoyed the Lyons' hospitality.
It was sensitively restored and maintained by A. A. Knights and Edward Davis, and then acquired by the Honeywell Corporation as part of a new industrial site. It is being preserved as a rental property.
Its long association with "Hill's Mills" not only brought prosperity to the house and its owners, but further adds to the significance of a house of great style in its own right.