Thomas Rogers House

The Thomas Rogers House stood at the corner of High Street and Mt. Pleasant Street in North Billerica, where "the road leading from Billerica to Wamassett" (the Lowell road, now High Street) met the road from North Billerica to Tewksbury. For about a century and a half it was the farmhouse of a small Rogers homestead running from the corner west toward the Concord River. The house was razed in the early 1930s and replaced by the present house at 52 Mt. Pleasant Street.

Thomas Rogers (born 1714) was a son of John Rogers, who died intestate in 1736. His father's estate did not give him this land: the 1738 division left Thomas only a right in the new township of Nechewage, while the old Rogers homestead of 85 acres, which lay north of the Kidder farm, went to his brothers Zebediah and Samuel (probate 19464). How Thomas came by the corner farm south of the Kidders is not on record, but by 1781 it was "Thomas Rogers's land" when William Kidder gave his son Isaac the 63 acres to the north, running "westwardly by Thomas Rogers's land to Concord River." Isaac Kidder was also given his father's "new Barn to be moved off" onto his own land.

On January 26, 1784, Thomas Rogers and his wife Martha sold Isaac Kidder the corner itself: eight acres and 76 rods running 54 rods "upon the road leading from Billerica to Wamassett" and 20 rods on the road at its south corner, "with the Buildings." This is the earliest record of a house on the lot. Five weeks later Rogers made his will. He left his wife Martha the use of "all my Lands Buildings & Estate" for life, declared that "my Negro boy Cato shall be a free man," and gave "my homestead farm" after Martha's death to Timothy Crosby, Abigail the wife of Shemuel Griffin, and Cato in equal shares. He died that spring; the inventory valued "the Homestead and building thereon" at 272 pounds. Cato, about nineteen, chose Edward Pollard as his guardian, and in 1787, signing as "Cato Rogers," he gave a receipt for 40 pounds "in full of what my master Thomas Roger ... gave me in his last will."

In December 1789 Isaac Kidder sold John Rogers 71 acres, his father's 63 acres and the Rogers corner together, "with all the buildings thereon standing," from the Tewksbury road by Ebenezer French's orchard west past "the lower garden" to the river. John Rogers lived on the farm for almost forty years. On May 12, 1827 he gave his son Hermon Rogers the whole of it in two deeds of the same day, each for "one undivided half of all my real estate," in return for a bond to support himself and his wife and to pay Hermon's brother Cyrus $1,000; Hermon was not to take possession of the second half until his father's death. Hazen says Hermon (1792-1878) "lived in the east part of North Billerica, at the corner of the Lowell road," and the 1853 map shows "H. Rogers" here. In 1859 Hermon sold the farm land west of the house to Anthony Jones, reserving the corner "west of said Rogers present dwelling house," and on November 1, 1864, by then living in Amesbury, he sold "my former Homestead," about twenty acres "with the buildings thereon," to Frank D. Rogers of Belvidere, Illinois, for $2,500.

Frank D. Rogers sold the twenty acres in April 1866 to George P. Elliott, who had represented the district in the legislature in 1860-61; the 1875 map shows "Hon. G. P. Elliott." Elliott left the place by will to his widow, Ann D. Elliott, who in April 1887 sold "the George P. Elliott Homestead, containing twenty acres, more or less, with the buildings thereon" to Allan Bottomley for $6,000. Bottomley sold a strip on the west side to the Talbot Mills in 1889, and in September 1911 had O. M. Snell lay out five house lots along High Street north of the house (Plan Book 28, Plan 84). He sold Lot 1, "with the buildings thereon," to John E. Rowell in October 1911; this was the lot with the old barn. After Allan's death his widow Jane held the place, and in September 1921 her executors, Lillie and Frederick Bottomley, sold the house lot and Lots 2 to 4 to Forrest W. Todd for $5,000.

Todd mortgaged the property to Solomon S. A. Newton of Henniker, New Hampshire, and sold the very corner, 60 by 100 feet, to Maude D. Burnham. While Todd owned it the old house was taken down and replaced (accounts give 1925, 1930 and 1932). In 1936 Todd gave the property, still "with the buildings thereon," to Newton, his mortgagee, and in 1937 Newton sold it to Edward W. and Ruth S. Cousins. The Cousinses bought the Burnham corner at a tax sale in 1940 and settled the title with Mrs. Burnham (by then Maude D. Bangs) in 1950. In July 1952 they had E. P. Simpson survey the land (Plan Book 82, Plan 27A), which shows a "Dwelling & Gar." on the corner, and sold it in two lots to private owners: the corner lot with the house, now 52 Mt. Pleasant Street, and a 40,262 square foot lot to the west. The corner lot has since passed through private owners.

The 1736 Rogers estate gave Thomas no Billerica land, Isaac Kidder's 1781 land lay north of Thomas Rogers, and the house returned to the Rogers family in 1789 as part of a 71-acre farm bought by John Rogers, Hermon's father. The 1921 sale was made by the executors of Jane Bottomley, and Forrest Todd's 1936 deed was a surrender to his mortgagee rather than an ordinary sale.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register, Rogers 19 (Hermon), "at the corner of the Lowell road"

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.