Stephen Miller House

The Stephen Miller House stood on the east side of Canterbury Street at Nuttings Lake, a short way west of the Middlesex Turnpike and north of Nutting's Pond. It was the farmhouse of a small farm on the north shore of the pond, and it outlasted the farm by eighty years: when the land was cut into cottage lots in 1915, the old house was kept on a lot of its own.

Stephen Miller, who married Abigail Russell in 1818, bought the land from Seth Crosby on January 15, 1846. The deed was never recorded, but Miller's mortgage back to Crosby that day describes the farm: "a certain tract of land ... on the north side of Nutting's pond containing ten acres", bounded by the pond, a stone wall along the land of Charles Stearns and Ira Hannaford, and a ditch by the widow Adams, with an adjoining 24 acres "known by the name of the pond pasture" running back to the pond. No buildings were mentioned. Crosby assigned the mortgage to Benjamin L. Judkins in 1847, and Judkins entered on the land to foreclose in February 1849. In April 1853 he quitclaimed it for $300 to Abigail Miller, Stephen's wife, who had bought the farm back. H. F. Walling's town map of 1853 shows the house as "S. Miller", just south of the Stearns house on the turnpike.

Abigail Miller, by then a widow, sold the farm for $1,000 on September 26, 1859 to William Stewart of Billerica: the ten acres "with the buildings thereon" and the Pond Pasture. This is the first record that names the house. Stewart borrowed $500 of the price from William Manning of Chelmsford. The 1875 county atlas marks the house "W. Stewart", and the lane past it, running west from the turnpike, became known as Stewart's road. Stewart's mortgage stayed open for decades: Manning made an entry to foreclose it in August 1904, and in 1913 Manning's executor discharged it while his heir, Charlotte A. Bartlett, released any claim to Stewart's children, William J. Stewart of Boston, Annie M. Sweet of Foxborough and Isabella J. Benson of Billerica.

The Stewart children sold a lot on the pond to Alfred G. Davis in November 1913, "part of the premises known as the William Stewart place", and in May 1915 sold the rest, "two certain parcels of land adjoining one another, with the buildings thereon", to the Suburban Land Company of Boston. A month later the company had the land surveyed by H. A. Millhouse as Plan F of Nuttings Lake Park, laying out Canterbury, Baldwin, Deerfield, Fairview and other streets in 25-foot lots. The old house is the only building drawn inside the plan, on Lot 16, a 75-foot lot on Canterbury Street backing on the Dolan land. Lot 16 also held the well: when the company sold it, it kept for itself and every buyer of "land or cottages on Plan 'F'" the right "to use and draw water from the well located on these premises", and it barred the lot from use for clubs, "summer outing associations" or any business.

The company kept the house until October 1928, when it sold Lot 16 "together with the buildings thereon" to Levina Blundell of Billerica. After her death and that of Myles Blundell, it passed under Myles's will to Nellie E. Frye of Boston, who sold it in 1937 to Edward W. and Olive F. Saul of Everett. The Sauls sold it in January 1945 to Edward F. Phelan, who sold it that September to Stella Marrano of Cambridge, and she sold it in June 1946 to Gerard A. Bruno of Revere. From 1954 it was owned by private owners. The house was taken down about 1994; the vacant lot was sold in February 1995, and the present house at 20 Canterbury Street was built on it that year.

References

1. Billerica assessor, parcel 78-154-0 (20 Canterbury St): 0.223 acres, Nuttings Lake Park Plan F lot 16, Colonial built about 1995, sales history.
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 98, MILLER 3: Stephen Miller married Abigail Russell in 1818.

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.