Old Providence House

The Old Providence House, also called the Dr. William Bowers House, stands at 1 Concord Road on the west side of Billerica Common, at the corner of River Street. Built about 1804 for the town physician Dr. William Bowers, it is a three-story Federal house with brick north and south ends, quoins, a modillion cornice, a hipped roof with a monitor and paired end chimneys, and a front doorway with a leaded fanlight and sidelights that was published in A. G. Robinson's Old New England Doorways (1919). The 1973 National Register nomination for the Town Common district called it "the finest house in the district".

The deeds begin with a small lot "near the West end of the Meeting House", about three quarters of an acre, bounded west and north by land of William White and east on the highway, with a well at its southeast corner. It was probably the homestead of Abel Fox, a saddler, whose 1757 inventory lists "a Dwelling House & about Two acres of Land"; in June 1783 his son-in-law Ephraim Hayward of Fitchburg took out administration on the old Fox estate, and a month later Hayward and his wife Edith (Fox) sold the lot "with the Buildings thereon" to Jonathan Kidder Jr., a mariner. Kidder sold half to Benjamin Hill, another mariner, and in February 1784 the two sold the whole, "with the Buildings thereon and a Well of Water", to Capt. William Bowers for 78 pounds 6 shillings. Captain Bowers deeded it to his son, "William Bowers Junr ... Physician", by a deed signed in 1786 and recorded in 1792. In 1797 Reuben Duren, who had just bought the White land, sold the doctor another half acre behind the lot, starting "near to said Bowers Barn"; the same day Duren sold the town the half acre to the south for the new meeting-house that is now the Billerica First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church.

Dr. Bowers (1744-1820), a Harvard graduate of 1769, practised medicine "long and successfully" in Billerica (Hazen). Tradition, recorded on the MACRIS form, names the housewright Reuben Duren as the probable builder of the house. The doctor died intestate on November 17, 1820, and the inventory of his estate begins with "The homestead containing 25 acres with all the buildings thereon", valued at $3,500, along with his "medicine drawers", books and phials. The homestead was never divided. His widow Priscilla (Goodrich) lived until 1841 and his son William until 1851, and the three unmarried daughters, Priscilla, Mary and Fanny Bowers, kept the house for the rest of their lives. On December 9, 1862 Priscilla and Mary made wills on the same day: Priscilla left her share to the Baptist church to support preaching, and Mary left hers, as Fanny later did, to the Town of Billerica "for the benefit of the poor". The last of them, Fanny, died in 1871, and the gifts became the town's Bowers fund for the worthy poor.

In 1871 the First Baptist Church and the town sold their shares of the "Bowers Homestead", one and three quarter acres "with a house and barn thereon", to William H. Osborn of New York, the Illinois Central Railroad president, whose country home was at Garrison, New York. In 1880 Osborn gave the front corner on Main Street to the Bennett Public Library Association, on condition that the land revert if a public library were not kept on it, and the library was built there that year. In 1884 he sold the rest of the homestead to Fred H. Parker of Lowell for $4,500. In 1896 Parker kept the back land and sold the house on its corner lot, 175 feet on River Street and 107 feet on Main Street, to the Unitarian minister Rev. Minot J. Savage.

Savage sold the house in 1909 to Harold W. Estey, and in 1920 Estey's widow Elsie sold it to Rev. Dr. George Morgan Ward, a former president of Wells College and of Rollins College. After Ward's death his widow Emma sold the house in 1953 subject to her own right to live in it for life; the Boston preacher Rev. Dr. Harold J. Ockenga owned it from 1955 to 1957, when he sold it back to her. After Emma Ward's death her executor sold it in 1959 to the family of the physician who, like Dr. Bowers, practised medicine in his home town and kept his office in the house; that family still held it when it was placed in a family trust in 2023. The house is a contributing building of the Billerica Town Common District (National Register, 1973) and the local historic district (1990).

The MACRIS form says that William Bowers bought three acres in 1784 and "sold it to son in 1791"; the deeds show three quarters of an acre with existing buildings, bought in 1784 and deeded to the son by a deed signed in 1786 and acknowledged in 1791. The "Mrs. Osborne" named as the 1880 owner was William H. Osborn, owner from 1871 to 1884.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.1
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 15 (Bowers 4): Dr. William Bowers, H.C. 1769, "lived on the south corner of West street"; the sisters gifts to the Baptist church and the town.

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.