Thomas Kidder Farmhouse

The Thomas Kidder Farmhouse stands at the end of Farmers Lane, a few feet from the lane and facing southwest rather than south, on land east of Boston Road near the Center. It is the only house of its period in Billerica with a gambrel roof. The Historical Commission's surveyor found it "stylistically unique for Billerica" in 1973: there is no facing between the sills, the window frames and sills are heavy, the central chimney has been removed, and the central corridor is paneled with wide boards laid horizontally. Its asymmetry suggests it was enlarged, and it has never been closely dated. The deeds, read in an unbroken chain from 1714 to 1944, show that a house has stood on this lot the whole time.

The land was the homestead of John Trull, who had a grant of sixteen acres "on the northeast angle of the Township" in 1658. In 1704 Trull divided his homestead with his son: the north half went to John Trull Jr., and the south half, "on which ye old house now standeth," Trull gave to his son-in-law James Frost Jr. in return for care in his old age. By 1714 the "Dwelling house orchard" and twenty acres, "formerly John Trull's Senr his House lot," belonged to Zachariah Shed, a weaver, who sold them on May 1, 1714 to Isaac Barron; the same day Barron sold them to John Ballard of Andover. Both deeds also convey a nine-acre lot whose southeast corner was "a little black oak" and in which "there is allowance of a bridle or a private highway."

On Dec. 14, 1726 Ballard's son Jonathan, a tailor, sold forty acres between the County Road and the range line, with the same black oak and bridle way, "with a Dwelling house and barn," to his brother-in-law Thomas Kidder for 340 pounds. Kidder, styled Esquire by 1777, kept the farm for half a century. In 1747 he sold the three acres at the County Road end, with his "Mansion House," to David Osgood (the lot next north of the Ensign Jonathan Danforth Jr. House), and on Apr. 15, 1777 he sold "my Homestead Farm," sixty acres "together with all the Buildings thereon standing," to John Wood of Woburn, who resold it three weeks later to Capt. Solomon Pollard with Kidder's pew in the meeting house. Pollard mortgaged "a House and Barn and eight Acres ... known by the Name of the Kidder Farm" to the Wyer sisters in 1786, and in 1796 deeded the north part of the farm to his sons Isaac and Francis.

Pollard's daughter Alice married Samuel Bridge in 1780 and lived in this house. Pollard's will of 1802 refers to what "my son, Isaac, has become obligated to do for my daughter, Alice Bridge," and when Isaac Pollard sold the house and two acres, "part of the Kidder farm," to Josiah Richardson in 1807, he reserved "the south end of the dwelling house for the use of my sister Bridge with a convenient door yard for wood and the little garden north of the kitchen," the wells and "liberty to set a necessary" for her life. The house passed with that reservation to John Bridge of Boston in 1811, to Dr. Thomas Whitcomb of Lexington later that year, and in 1813 to Henry Bridge of Boscawen, New Hampshire. When Henry Bridge died in 1826 his inventory listed "House & land subject to a ... life lease of part of the house, garden & barn," and his mother Alice joined the other heirs in releasing his estate to his widow Dorcas. Tradition later said the house had been the home of Gen. Ebenezer Bridge, who lived in Billerica before the Revolution, but no record connects him with it; the tradition probably grew from Alice Bridge and her family.

Dorcas Bridge sold "the Alice Bridge place," three acres with the buildings by "the lane" and "the Barn on the premises," to Daniel Holden of Lowell in 1835. It passed to Isaac Holden in 1850 and to Lewis W. Lawrence (the "Lawrence" of the 1853 map) in 1853. Lawrence lost it to his mortgagee, which sold it at auction in 1858 to Andrew J. Meserve of Lowell; his mortgagees, James C. and Frederick Ayer of Lowell, entered to foreclose in 1862 and sold it back to Isaac Holden in 1864. Holden sold it to Stephen Caldwell in 1867, and on Apr. 18, 1876 Caldwell sold the house lot and four acres across "a lane leading to the house" to Jane L. Farmer, a widow, for $900. The Farmers gave the lane its name. Mrs. Farmer sold a few house lots along it, and the place passed to Mary E. Farmer, who in 1944 conveyed the three acres "with the buildings thereon" on "a Lane known as Farmers Lane," keeping a life estate; she died in 1952. The buyer was Rachel F. Rosatto, and in the late 1940s the place was worked as the Mason Brothers Farm, which advertised in the 1946 Howe High School yearbook with the motto "Watch Us Grow" and the telephone number 945, Mrs. Rosatto's. The 1949 directory lists John D. Mason, farmer, and Warren Mason, farmer, on Farmer's Lane; by 1951 John D. Mason was dealing in antiques there. The house has been privately owned since and was sold in 1973 and 1989. It is in the Billerica Center local historic district.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.159

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.