Valentine O. Martin
Valentine O. Martin (about 1863 to 1936) was a farmer who owned the old Bowman tavern farm at the corner of Lexington Road and the Middlesex Turnpike, in the south part of Billerica near the Bedford line, for the last twenty-eight years of his life. On June 26, 1908, while living in Boston, he bought from Fred H. Goss of Melrose about eighty acres "with the buildings thereon" between the Lexington road, the Arlington road (now Wyman Road) and the Turnpike, and four acres at the junction of the Lexington road and the Turnpike (Middlesex North Book 421, Page 332). It was the farm known as the "Old Bowman Tavern Stand" (see Bowman's Tavern), and the directories from 1912 on list him as a farmer on Lexington Road near the Bedford line. He carried it on mortgages: $3,400 to the executor of John Fisk in 1909, $3,000 to the Central Savings Bank of Lowell in 1913, and $4,000 to the same bank in 1916.
He and his wife, Isabella M. Martin, had one child, Joseph W. Martin. In 1924 Martin sued a neighbor, Mary E. Andrews, for $5,000 for slander, after she said that he kept a public barroom and sold liquor at his farmhouse; the sheriff attached her real estate, and the suit was still pending when she died in 1928. In 1925 he was one of the landowners who gave the town land along the old Turnpike for its Town Forest and a future 120-foot highway; his gift was a strip sixty feet wide on each side of the center of the old road. In 1929 town meeting voted to repay him $62.25, half the cost of a cement sidewalk in front of his property on Boston Road. In 1932 the County Commissioners took more of his land when they relocated the Turnpike at a width of sixty-six feet, rounding the corner at his premises.
In October 1935 the Merrimack River Savings Bank sold the Martins, at a foreclosure auction, the old Fisk farm across the Turnpike, with the Seth Crosby House, for $4,100 (Book 874, Page 165). Martin died at Billerica on January 27, 1936, at the age of 72, without a will. His widow and his son were his only heirs, and in 1937 Joseph quitclaimed his share of the tavern farm to his mother. Isabella M. Martin kept the land for the rest of her life. The family revived the old house as a tavern about the time of the Second World War, and in 1949 she was treasurer of Martin's Old Tavern Farm, Inc. The Martin heirs sold the tavern corner in 1979.
References
- Billerica Town Report 1936 (in the 1935 volume), deaths: Jan. 27, Voluntine O. Martin, 72 years 11 months
- Billerica Town Report 1925, Town Forest Committee: B. T. F. 21, V. O. Martin to Town of Billerica, a strip 60 feet wide on each side of the old Turnpike
- Billerica Town Report 1929 (in the 1925 volume), Article 40: voted $62.25 to reimburse V. O. Martin for half of a cement sidewalk on Boston Road
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Property | Recorded |
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| July 14, 1908 | Warranty Deed | Fred H. Goss of Melrose (Isabelle K. Goss releasing dower) | Valentine O. Martin of Boston | Details | Bowman's Tavern | 421/332 |
For $1 and other consideration, "a certain tract of land with the buildings thereon situated in Billerica": the eighty-acre tract between the Bedford (Lexington) road, "the Arlington road", a curving stone wall and "the Turnpike road", and the four acres at the junction of the Bedford and Turnpike roads, "Being the same premises conveyed to me by George D. Cox by deed dated April 28th 1908, ... Book 417 Page 566", subject to a $3,400 mortgage. Dated June 26, 1908. The Martin family held the tavern for the next seventy-one years; the 1979 sale cites this deed and the estate of Annie Martin as its title.
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| May 25, 1909 | Mortgage | Valentine O. Martin of Billerica | Merton L. Fisk, executor of the will of John Fisk, of Billerica | Details | Bowman's Tavern | 434/257 |
$3,400 at five per cent for one year on "a certain tract of land with the buildings thereon", the eighty acres on the Bedford Road, the Arlington Road and the Turnpike Road and the four acres at their junction, "Being the same premises conveyed to George D. Cox by Arthur W. Merriam and Charles E. Moore ... and by said Cox to Fred H. Goss ... and by said Goss to me". Buildings to be insured for $3,400. Discharged April 28, 1913 (N.504/179).
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| April 29, 1913 | Mortgage | Valentine O. Martin of Billerica (Izabela M. Martin releasing dower) | The Central Savings Bank, Lowell | Details | Bowman's Tavern | 504/180 |
$3,000 on "a certain tract of land with the buildings thereon situated in said Billerica, known as the 'Old Bowman Tavern Stand'", from the stone wall on the Lexington road at Jeremiah Crosby "opposite the Manning road" to "the Arlington road, now called the Wyman road", by the Wyman road 544 feet and the curving wall to the Old Middlesex Turnpike, eighty acres, with the four acres at the junction of the Lexington road and the Turnpike. "Being all and the same premises to me conveyed by Fred H. Goss by deed dated June 26, 1908". Discharged 1916 (N.564/217).
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| November 7, 1916 | Mortgage | Valentine O. Martin of Billerica | The Central Savings Bank, Lowell | Details | Bowman's Tavern | 564/218 |
$4,000 at five per cent on the same "Old Bowman Tavern Stand", eighty acres between the Lexington Road, the Wyman Road and the Old Middlesex Turnpike and four acres at the junction, "Being all and the same premises to me conveyed by Fred H. Goss ... Book 421, Page 332". The last Martin mortgage on the farm found in the indexes to 1925.
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| September 19, 1924 | Quitclaim | Mary E. Andrews, wife of Charles F. Andrews, in her own right, of Billerica (Charles F. Andrews releasing curtesy and homestead) | Dennis F. Rourke of Boston | conveyance made before his slander suit attached the grantor's land | Calvin B. Hill House | 709/593 |
Dated September 9, 1924 (also recorded Middlesex South Book 4766 Page 422, September 16, 1924). For consideration paid ($1.00 stamp), "a certain parcel of land or farm with the buildings thereon situated in the Southerly part of Billerica containing twenty (20) acres more or less" (John Fisk 46 rods to the old Middlesex Turnpike, the turnpike to the Billerica and Lexington Road, the road to John J. Gorham, Gorham to Fisk) and the nine acres; "Being the same premises conveyed to me by deed of John D. Donovan and Michael F. Donovan dated August 26, 1922 ... Book 667 page 325"; subject to a mortgage to the Lexington Co-operative Bank. A conveyance to a nominee eight days before Valentine O. Martin attached all her real estate in a $5,000 slander suit (writ of September 17, 1924, recorded Book 772 Page 510).
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| January 12, 1929 | Attachment | Mary E. Andrews of Billerica (defendant) | Valentine O. Martin of Billerica (plaintiff) | plaintiff in the attachment | Calvin B. Hill House | 772/510 |
Pages 510-513, recorded January 12, 1929. Certified copies of the writ of September 17, 1924 in Valentine O. Martin v. Mary E. Andrews, an action of tort for slander (she had said that Martin "maintains a public barroom" and sold liquor at his farmhouse), damages $5,000, on which the deputy sheriff attached all her real estate in Middlesex North that day; the declaration (November 2, 1924); a suggestion of death filed December 17, 1928; and her death record: Mary E. Andrews, 52, born Newton, maiden name Boylan, wife of Charles F. Andrews, died at Billerica June 5, 1928, buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery, West Roxbury. Recorded with the Rourke deed and the Andrews mortgage of the same day to clear the title.
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| 1932 | Taking | County Commissioners of Middlesex County | Public (relocated Middlesex Turnpike); land taken from Valentine O. Martin and others | land taken from him for the relocated Turnpike | Bowman's Tavern Calvin B. Hill House |
815/365 |
Relocation of the Middlesex Turnpike through Billerica at a uniform width of 66 feet, dated July 13, 1932 (recorded at N.815/365; Plan Book M, Plan 181, Aug. 9, 1932). The new line crosses the Lexington Road and, "beginning again at a point on the easterly side of said Lexington Road at premises of one Martin", rounds the corner "with a curve of 111.60 feet radius 91.42 feet to a stone bound", the same 91.42-foot curve that bounds the tavern lot on the 1979 plan. Land of "indefinite quantity" was taken from Valentine O. Martin on both sides of the road. This gave the tavern corner its present shape.
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| October 30, 1935 | Mortgagee's Deed | Merrimack River Savings Bank, Lowell, mortgagee of James I. and Victoria McLeod | Valentine O. Martin and Isabella M. Martin, husband and wife, of Billerica, tenants by the entirety | Details | Seth Crosby House | 874/165 |
Foreclosure under the McLeods' mortgage of Sept. 9, 1920 (N.633/52): after notice in The Billerica News the bank auctioned the premises on Oct. 25, 1935 and sold them for $4,100 to the Martins, owners of the old Bowman tavern farm across the Turnpike. The first tract is the Fisk farm, from "a point in the road leading to Bedford" (Manning Road) along the walls of Jeremiah Crosby and of Kimball and Bowman, across the road, by Burrows, Gorham and Calvin Hill, then "South 88 East across the Turnpike two hundred fifty-three (253) feet" and north 730 feet along Hannah F. Bowman's wall back to the road, "Being the same premises conveyed to John Fisk by Cyril French and others by their deed dated March 27, 1855" (S.703/480); the second is about an acre by the Turnpike that Leander Crosby sold John Fisk in 1883 (N.162/334). The Seth Crosby house stood on this farm at the corner of Manning Road and the Turnpike.
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| July 2, 1937 | Quitclaim | Joseph W. Martin of Billerica (Annie M. Martin, his wife, releasing dower) | His mother Isabella M. Martin of Billerica | decedent; title of his son and heir | Bowman's Tavern | 900/313 |
For less than $100, six Martin parcels, among them two undivided thirds of "a certain tract of land with the buildings thereon", the eighty acres on the Bedford (Lexington) Road, the Arlington Road and the Middlesex Turnpike, and of the four acres at the junction, "the same premises conveyed by Fred H. Goss to Valentine O. Martin by deed dated June 26, 1908", subject to the 1916 Central Savings Bank mortgage and to the County Commissioners' 1932 relocation of the Turnpike (N.815/365, Plan Book M Plan 181). "My title to said premises is derived as the only child and one of the heirs-at-law of said Valentine O. Martin, who deceased intestate, at said Billerica on January 27, 1936" (Middlesex probate case 208950), "the grantee herein being my mother and the only other heir-at-law". Dated June 19, 1937. With this deed Isabella M. Martin owned the whole tavern farm.
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Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.