Shedd Family Homestead
Shedd Family Homestead
This house is on the lot of Daniel Shed (1658), and portions of the original house may have stood until its demolition in 2019. The "original" house faced south and by the time of its eventual enlargement was given a gambrel roof - not too common in Billerica and possibly still within the 17th century. Much of its interior had been gutted by repeated remodelling. The front portion of the house is a full-sized addition facing the street, probably from the second half of the 18th century with a pilastered doorway.
By 1750, William Shed (youngest son of Nathan, who was the youngest son of Daniel) sold the house to Josiah Brown.
In 1853, William Pitt Putnam Pollard (son of Isaac Pollard and Agibail Richardson) was the owner. He married Emma Jane Bartlett (b. 1815) in 1854 and they had no children. It's possible they moved shortly after their marriage. William died in 1866 in Boston.
From as early as 1875 to the 1920s, Samuel Sage and his wife Martha Hill Sage owned the house. After Martha's death, Ellis and Gertrude Colgate owned it until the 1950s, and then Dr. George Boynton until the 1970s.
In 2019, the ancient house was demolished.