Jonathan Bowers Tavern

The Jonathan Bowers Tavern was the homestead and "Tavern stand" of Jonathan Bowers, Esq., on the east side of Boston Road south of Billerica Center, where the Convenient Plaza now stands at 498-506 Boston Road. Three generations of the Bowers family held the place from 1723 until Jonathan's death in 1829. Soon after his heirs sold it in 1831, the old house was replaced by the Artemas Young House, built on the same part of the lot.

On May 18, 1723 Joseph Stevens of Billerica sold Capt. Jonathan Bowers for 270 pounds "one certain messuage or house lott" of about twenty acres "of Orchard, Pasture, plow land and meadow", bounded west by the Country Road, north by Joshua Abbott and by meadow of the estate of Mr. Samuel Whiting, and east and south by Mr. Thompson, Simon Crosby and John Blanchard, "with all the Buildings, Fences and trees thereon standing". Capt. Bowers, born in Chelmsford in 1674, made this his home in Billerica. On March 28, 1741 he gave his son Capt. William Bowers "my Homestead or house lott" of twenty-three acres, bounded west on the County road, south on John Blanchard, then along Blanchard and Josiah Crosby to "the lane that goeth to Benjamin Tompson's Esq." (later Tufts Lane), around Tompson's land and north on Samuel Whiting, but he kept "my dwelling house to me and my heirs", with half the land, half the great barn and half the horse stable for his own and his wife Hannah's lives. He died intestate in February 1745, and William administered his estate.

William's son Jonathan, born in 1751, was already living here in 1776: the town's tax list of that year places him, in Hazen's notes, "near Mr. Proudfoot's", the house William Proudfoot owned from 1872 to 1888. On May 23, 1788 Capt. William Bowers gave Jonathan "my homestead containing about twenty two acres", bounded west on the Country road, south on William Bradford (the walled lot of the David Parker House), on the road leading to William Tompson's, on Tompson and David Abbot, and north on "my own land", "with all the buildings thereon", keeping the use of half the homestead and half the buildings for life. The same day he gave the place next north, where Samuel Bowers already lived, to his son Samuel (see Bowers Homestead).

Jonathan Bowers was one of the leading men of the town: a selectman from 1789 to 1795, the town's representative in several years, and from October 7, 1797 Billerica's first postmaster, an office he held until 1824. He kept a tavern on his homestead on the road to Boston, then a busy stage and teaming road. Hazen says his brother Samuel kept a tavern at the place next north, but the deeds that settled Jonathan's estate describe Jonathan's own farm as "the Homestead and Tavern stand of Jona. Bowers, Esq." In 1822 he was placed under the guardianship of Jeremiah Crosby. He died in the spring of 1829, aged 78, "leaving no widow nor children", and Joshua Simonds of Lexington was appointed administrator in April 1829.

His heirs were the children of his brother Samuel and his nephew William Bowers. In 1830 Martha Bowers put her share in trust with her brother-in-law Dr. Abraham R. Thompson of Charlestown, and in June 1831 William Bowers released his interest to Thompson and the other heirs. On August 2, 1831 Thompson, acting for the heirs, sold Artemas Young of Lowell, merchant, for $1,350, "a part of the Homestead and Tavern stand of Jona. Bowers, Esq. deceased, with the dwelling house and new barn thereon standing": from the corner "near the barn" at the land formerly of Samuel Bowers, about 31 rods 17 links south along "the great Boston road", then east "to a stake about one foot south of the south gate post back side of the door yard", north by the gate and wall, and on to the cross wall, the lower barn, the "three acre pasture", Barnard Tufts and Blaney Abbott. Jonathan Simonds sold Young the nine rods next south, by John Eames, "reserving the buildings now upon said premises, with the privilege of taking them off within one year". Young mortgaged the tavern stand to Asa Perrin of Lowell the same day.

The bounds place the tavern house at the south end of the Thompson lot, just north of the line nine rods from the Eames land, with its door yard behind it. That is the part of the farm that Josiah Rogers kept as his house lot when he sold the rest to Harlow Colby in 1858, and it is where the Artemas Young House stood until 1971. On the Hales map of 1831, made just before the sale, a single house stands on the east side of the road between Samuel Bowers's house and the David Parker house; allowing for the map's drift along this stretch, it falls on the same spot.

Young did not keep the old house. On November 24, 1832 he mortgaged "one certain farm on which I now dwell ... containing nineteen acres and ten rods with a new dwelling house and other buildings thereon", and in 1834 he sold the farm for $7,000, about five times what the land and tavern had cost him. Whether he took the tavern house down or built parts of it into the new one is not recorded. By the 1853 Walling map there was only one house on the place, the "J. Rogers" house, which was Young's.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 271: 1776 tax list, Jonathan Bowers "near Mr. Proudfoot's"; pp. 349-350, first postmaster 1797; Genealogical Register, Bowers 1, 2, 5, 6

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.