National Historical Places
Jones Tavern Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ June 13, 1986Exchange Hall Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ June 13, 1986
Hosmer House Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ May 2, 2002
Isaac Davis Trail
Acton in History- Complied for the Middlesex County History
Published by
J.W. Lewis & Co. of Philadelphia
With Maps and Illustrations additional,
By Rev. James Fletcher
Copyright 1890
Pages 255-256
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ April 11, 1972
Captain Davis' Route to the North Bridge
The 19th of April 1775. It was a bright, genial morning. The sun was at a good cheery height of an hour and a half. The birds were chanting the very best songs of the opening spring. The men were drawn up in line. The captain at last gave the word “ march.” Luther Blanchard, the fifer, and Francis Barker, the drummer, struck at once the stirring notes of the “White Cockade.” And forward they moved with a quick brave step. They soon reached the homestead of Parson Swift. They could not stop for the greetings or the partings of the good man, but on they pressed, with their faces for Mother Concord. They moved along over the only road leading from the present site of Deacon W. W. Davis' crossing in a straight line through to the meetinghouse on the “knoll.”
The road struck the other road just below Dr. Cowdry's barn, where now stands Deacon John Fletcher's barn, just relocated by Moses Taylor, Esq. The old road-bed was found when recently digging the cellar for the barn.
They could not stop for the silent benediction of the old church, but prayers and blessings of the pastor they could hear, and march all the faster for the memory. The handkerchiefs waved from the Brooks Tavern doors and windows helped the thrill of the hour. Down the hills they moved by the present site of Mr. McCarthy, up the ascent to the right, over the heights on the road path, now closed, but still a favorite walk down the hill, across the Revolutionary Bridge, west of Horace Hosmer's present site, the road leading by the spot where the elms south of his house now stands.
This bridge stood very near the spot where the railroad bridge now stands. Some of the stone, which formed the abutments of the old bridge, were used in the construction of the railroad bridge. Arthur F. Davis, Acton's young artist, has sketched the bridge, a few rods to the south of the original, and it is a favorite landscape etching on sale in the cities.
Up the hill they hasten and turn to the right, going by Mr. Hammond Taylor's present residence, the old Braybrook homestead, on the south side, which was then the front side, the road on the north being a comparatively new opening; there they left the main road, struck through the woods, taking a bee-line to their destined point. After passing the woods, the march is by the Nathan Brooks place, now owned and occupied by Mr. A.. F. Davis. The passage then was by the nearest way to Barrett's Mills, as then called, not far from the North Bridge.
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Faulkner Homestead
A Provincial Manor House
Built in 1707
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ December 16, 1971
Historical
The house was built for Ephraim Jones (1679-1710), founder in 1702 of an early textile business and other mills that formed the nucleus of the present town of Acton. The largest and most central house of this settlement, it served as the local garrison house for protection from the Indian raids made along the Massachusetts frontier during Queen Anne's War of 1702-1713.
For 202 years (1738-1940) it was the homestead of six generations of the Faulkner family, prominent in many fields of endeavor, which carried on the manufacture of textiles, said to have been one of the earliest attempts in the United States to manufacture woolen cloth on a large scale.
Home of Col. Francis Faulkner (1728-1805) one of Acton's most distinguished citizens, who actively served Massachusetts throughout the Revolution, from the Middlesex Convention and Provincial Congress of 1774, to the framing and adoption of the Commonwealth's Constitution in 1779-1780.
In the front yard of the house, Acton's Provincial Militia mustered on the 19th of April 1775 and from it marched down to the Concord Flight.
Col. Francis' grandson, Winthrop Emerson Faulkner (1805-1880), was a promoter of the railroads and other aspects of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century; and the house was the birthplace and home of his daughter Sophia Elizabeth, Lady Francis Campbell (1849-1933) a pioneer in the education of the blind in both the United States and Great Britain.
It is the first period house exhibiting framing and planning techniques not usually seen in American house of its period, including a summer beam 19 inched wide, said to be the largest recorded in American building history.
Architectural finish from its original construction and from 18th and 19th century alternations give the house an interesting variety of features from several periods, among then an unusual 18th century smoke house in the garret.
Remarkable survivals of early decorative detail- sections of paint finish and wallpaper- remaining situ.
On the grounds around the house are remnants of formal landscape plantings made by the Faulkner family between 1817 and 1915.
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The Faulkner House Timeline
Historical Sketch of the Faulkner House
By Robert Harrington Nylander
Published by the Iron Work Farm in Acton, Inc. 1969
1707 Ephraim Jones on part of the Iron Work Farm built the Faulkner house, land near his Fulling Mill.
1715 to 1742 Ephraim Jones heirs rented the house to tenants to run the Mill, including
John Shepard (1729-1737)
1738 Ammi Ruhamah Faulkner rented the house and operated the Mill
1742 Ammi Ruhamah Faulkner purchased house from Ephraim Jones, Jr.
1751 Ammi Ruhamah Faulkner sold west half of the house to his son, Francis Faulkner
1756 Ammi Ruhamah Faulkner died and east half of house went to his son, Ammi, who died in 1786.
1774 Francis Faulkner is Captain in the West Militia Company, his commission
came from King George III.
1774 Francis Faulkner, delegate from Acton to the Middlesex County Convention and the Provincial Congress at Concord.
1775 Francis Faulkner renounced the King's commission and becomes a Colonel in the Middlesex Regiment of Militia.
April 19 1775 West Company Militia assembles on the south lawn of this house and
March down to Concord Bridge. they were fourth in line at the Concord Fight.
1776 Francis Faulkner is at White Plains
1777 Francis Faulkner is at Saratoga when Burgoyne surrendered.
1779 Francis Faulkner is a delegate from Acton to Massachusetts Constitutional
Convention at Cambridge.
1780 to 1805 Francis Faulkner is Acton's leading citizen in civic and church affairs.
1787 Francis Faulkner receives from the estate of Ammi Faulkner east half of the
house.
1805 Francis Faulkner dies and the house is willed to his son
Winthrop Faulkner, who dies in 1813.
1826 Winthrop E. Faulkner inherited the house, land and mills
1831 to 1881 Winthrop E. Faulkner is active in Town, County and Commonwealth
affairs, notably locating the Railroad through Mill Corner which in 1845
became South Acton.
1848 The birthplace of Sophia Elizabeth Faulkner, Lady Campbell, prominent in work for the blind in England and America
1880 Winthrop E. Faulkner died and willed property to his children.
1914 Lady Sophia Elizabeth Faulkner Campbell inherited the property and used it as her summer home until 1933
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Jones Tavern
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ June 13, 1986
Samuel Jones, who brought his bride Sarah Hubbard here in December 1732, built the house in 1732. The farm around the tavern was given to Samuel for his twenty-fifth birthday by his father, Samuel, senior, who (with his brother and a friend) had bought 600 acres of the Iron Work Farm from the Concord Iron Works in 1701. At that time Acton was part of the town of Concord and was called Concord Village.
Samuel and Sarah raised a family of 13 children and made this their home for 70 years of their married life. Both died in 1802.
When first built, the house had only four rooms, two down and two up, with the central chimney between them. The front door faced what is now Railroad Street.
The parlor in the original part has its early beams castings and dado. About 1830, according to Carrie Kimball, the last one of Samuel's descendants to own the house, the large central chimney, which had four fireplaces, caught on fire and destroyed the paneling in this room.
A lean-to was added in 1750 to contain the tavern and the store and placed at the west end instead of across the back.
About 1818 Aaron Jones, the youngest son of Samuel, added the north part of the house and changed the orientation of the front door to Main Street. The Federal period work in both 1732 and 1818 parts is all well proportioned and executed. The finest part of it is in the front hall, called “The Broad Alley” with its scrolled stairs brackets and receded dado cap, along with the northeast parlor with its mantel with paired colonettes and elaborate moldings. The west first-story room in the 1732 portion, originally a kitchen, was altered to a sitting room - dining room with finely proportioned Greek revival woodwork C.1845. Portions of decorative Federal paint schemes remain, early wallpaper fragments survive from some rooms, and the pre-linoleum painted floor cloth remains on the floor of the 1813 kitchen. Though the 1732 chimney was removed and rebuilt c. 1910, part of the 1732 15” wooden lintel and 1818 beehive oven on the kitchen fireplace along with the second story smokehouse complete with meat hooks remain in place behind the later trim.
The next addition to the house was a two-story structure of the 1830's moved their C. 1845 to form, along with the 1750 lean-to, the west ell.
The most recent part of the tavern is the ell at the north end of the Aaron Jones' new part, which was apparently built C.1878 from the old tavern sheds.
After remaining a one and two family house, in 1959 the building was divided into four apartments. In 1964 the house was sold for salvage and though some finish was lifted it was not removed from the premises and has been reinstalled. In 1967 a fire cause by lighting severely damaged the tavern room, including its original bar and account desk, the Greek revival room and the chamber above that. Also smoke damage the early wallpaper in the third floor rooms of the 1818 portion.
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Exchange Hall
A Symbol of Glorious Work and Play
By Doris Fardy
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ June 13, 1986
South Acton of the 1850's was a thriving, booming little town. Actonians had much to boost about during that decade since the expansion of material resources and manufactured goods increased miraculously. The small town played its own part in a growing America, an America whose population (between 1850-1860) increased by more than eight million to a total of 31.5 million. American value of manufactured goods rose from slightly over a billion dollars to $1,885,000,000 while the value of farm products rose from $900 million to $ 1,910,000,000. American manufacturing establishments jumped from 123,000 to more than 140,000 and the number of farms from one and a half million to two million. Most sensational of all, the total railroad mileage more than tripled from 9,000 to 30,000.
Americans burst forth at the same time in science, journalism, oratory and literature. The greatest authors ever to emerge from New England school - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Homes and Henry David Thoreau were all producing great works. More than 3,000 newspapers were being read by large numbers of people and because of the Associated Press (1848) these many people read the same news at the same time.
Leisure had become an end in itself and the country was caught up in a binge of pleasure seeking. People fitted amusement parks, theaters and variety halls, learned the latest dances, took part in newfangled sports like baseball and organized elaborate outing. The need for recreation and culture first was cultivated in the big cities, where money was easier to earn and more freely than in rural areas. Steady attendance helped to usher in a golden age for the American theater and brought wealth to showman such as Phineas T. Barnum. But country folk, such as the Actonians, soon sought amusement as well with county fairs, square dancing, and circus wagons. .
A few years previous to the busy 1850's there lived in South Acton a young man “just out of his teens” who was destined to become a big business man in the area.
According to Phalen's “History of the Town of Acton”: James Tuttle put in a couple of years at Mill Corners as a trader, followed by three years at the Centre. Being aware of the possibilities offered by the completion of the railroad, he then twenty-five went into partnership with his brother Varnum, then twenty-one, under the name of J & V Tuttle.”
Further, the history accounts states. “Between the present post office and the station, which stood about on the location of the northern abutments of the bridge of today, they built their first store. It was a one-story affair, which was subsequently remodeled and made higher so that it housed several shops, one or more dwelling units, and at the turn of the century the dental offices and apartment of Dr. Ernest Hosmer.
“In 1850 they moved to a new store on the site of the present grocery adjacent to the fire house. In 1852 they took into the business, Elnathan Jones, who had married their sister Eliza. In 1867 another partner, J.F.W. Wetherbee, having married another sister, was added and the partnership became the firm of Tuttle, Jones and Wetherbee. It was the closest knit and one of the most successful enterprises in the town's history, grossing over a quarter of a million dollars in some of the later years.”
In the year 1860, when President James Buchanan was president, Tuttle, Jones and Wetherbee built the Exchange Hall. In 1861 the South Society of the church moved into Exchange Hall where they conducted meeting for seventeen years.
When the Tuttle, Jones and Wetherbee store was severely damaged by fire in 1866, the firm decided to spread out and move their business into the Exchange Hall building. According to Phalen's history, “For about three decades this venture was an unqualified success but the old guard vanished from the scene, newer and less astute mangers fared less well. In addition, these later merchandisers were confronted with the grin fact that industrial Maynard has arisen as a competing shopping center and that the automobile made transportation thereto a matter of minutes.”
Will Tolman delights in telling his listeners that these old pioneers practically ran the town. “Their business in Exchange Hall was on the same basis as Jordan Marsh store today. Downstairs they stocked rubber goods, bicycles, etc. On the first floor they were dry goods, wearing apparel etc. The second floor carried furniture, bedding and what not. As many was fourteen wagons of goods went out of the building a day.”
Will has deep respect for these early Actonians. It is rather interesting to note that James Tuttle was selectman, assessor, and overseer of the poor, chairman of the committee to build a South Acton schoolhouse, and also on committees to erect other public buildings. Varnum Tuttle was one of the main backers of the chapel enterprise. Mr. Wetherbee was for fifteen years a postmaster of Acton, selectman for seven years, town treasurer for thirty-one years and trustee and executor for many private estates.
There are still those people who well remember the happy “hey days” in Exchange Hall history when the “Honey” Fitzgerald's of which family Rose Kennedy was a daughter, regularly attended dances held on the spring floor of the grand old building. With his flamboyant flair for musical dramatics, “Honey” sung many a sweet ballad from the hall platform.
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Acton Centre and Historic District
Acton's 250th Anniversary 1735-1985
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ March 10, 1983
The Common has always been the government center of Acton, as opposed to the economic center, which was thoroughly established at South Acton before the town was incorporated and remained there for 200 years. The residents of the Common were largely farmers, the mainstay of a rural community, and a few families in small trade and learned professions.
The original Common was the present east end, at the junction of main Street and Nagog Hill Road, tow acres given to the town by Anne Cummings in 1737. The first Meeting House, built in 1736, before the deed of the land was executed, stood near the Centre of the parcel, on the rise of ground called “the Knoll”. An animal pound stood in the southeast corner of the lot until 1851, when it was sold to become part of the lot for 517 Main Street. The flat space between the Meeting House and pound is said to have been occasionally used as the training field for the Acton Minute Men and other early militia companies.
Through the 18th century there were only three or four dwellings in the vicinity, belonging to the farms that abutted the Common, and only one of these, 84 Nagog Hill Road, is now standing. The road, a continuation of Minuteman Road, but now discontinued, running behind the Town hall and Library and houses at 498 to 508 Main Street, formerly entered the Common where the barn of 74 Nagog Hill Road now is, and was part of the line of march followed by Captain Isaac Davis' Acton Minute Company to the Concord Fight on April 19, 1775.
The Acton Common, as it now exists, is a characteristic 19th century town center, with origins in the 18th century. The common land owned by the town is a long irregularly oblong piece of about six acres around the Town Hall and Library, divided by roads into six separate parcels.
Its present plan and layout were essentially established in 1806, though changes have been made in the later 19th and 20th centuries. A significant modification of the early plan has been the relocation of Main Street (Rt. 27) as a two lane road running across the northern side of the Common instead of dividing, as formerly, into two narrow carriage ways, one on the north and one on the south side of a long green strip.
The greatest changes in configuration have occurred in the south west corner, where there formerly stood a hotel and a store, later used as a shoe and boot factory, both built in 1806 and destroyed in a fire that devastated the corner of the Common in 1862. Both buildings were rebuilt in 1863, but the factory was burned again in 1892 and the hotel, gutted by fire in 1913, was demolished in 1916, and neither was rebuilt. Part of the hotel lot was appropriated in 1925 for the location of the Centre Fire Station and the remainder was given to the town in 1940 to be added to the Common. Concord Road has been relocated across this later piece, to join Main Street opposite Newtown Road instead of forming an axis with the monument, as it formerly had done.
The prevailing impression of the Common is that of a pleasant tree lined park whose focal point is the revolutionary Monument built at the joint expense of the town and Commonwealth to honor Captain Isaac Davis of Acton, the first officer to fall in the Revolution, at the Concord fight and his two privates, Abner Hosmer, killed in the same fight, and James Hayward, mortally wounded at Lexington during the British retreat. Constructed of quarry faced granite in 1851 from designs by Charles E. parker of Boston, the monument is in the form of a obelisk on an arched Romanesque pedestal; a vault in its base contains the remains of the three soldiers and set into the sides of the earth mounds on which it stands are the slate gravestones originally placed over their graves (that to Captain Davis cut by Park of Groton) and the stepping stone from the causeway of the North Bridge in Concord on which Davis is said to have fallen when shot through the heart by the British volley.
Around the monument are decommissioned cannon and memorials to participants in later wars, and east of it are a granite-watering trough on a mortared pebble base, built in 1913.
The houses and buildings surrounding the Common are mostly 19th and 20th century in date and contribute largely to its character. None individually is perhaps outstanding in itself, but in the aggregate all share similar scale and proportions and all but four are of frame construction, finished with clapboard.
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The Hosmer House of Acton from 1760-1861
100 years plus one - A house, its families and it town
Listed on National Register of Historical Places~ May 2, 2002
The back of the Hosmer House and entrance to the keeping room
showing the Salt box design of the house.
1760 - The First portion (east side) is built by Jonathan Hosmer, a brick mason and farmer, is 26 years old and newly married to Submit Hunt.
1760-1775 - Six children are born and living in the house. The girls were probably taught at home, but there were 6 school districts as of 1759, even though the total population of Acton was less than 600. The nearest school, each supported by 2 pounds annually would have been at their Grandfather's house on Prospect Street or at the Meeting House in the Center.
1775 - Jonathan's brother Abner is killed at the North Bridge in Concord on April 19,1775. The Revolutionary War had begun and the family had lost a member in the very first volley. Since Abner lived with his family on what is now Prospect St, both he and Submit's cousin once removed, Simon Hunt, Jr., would have passed this home on their way to join Capt, Isaac Davis' troop that day. Simon survived. Abner's remains were re-entombed at the monument in Acton center, when the obelisk was built in 1851. Submit's 3rd cousin, Simon Hunt was acting Captain for Faulkner troop that day and was also at the North Bridge.
1777- Jonathan Hosmer, Jr., age 17, is killed at the battle of Bennington in Vermont on Oct. 1, having served one moth and a day in Capt. George Minot's Co. of Samuel Bullard's regiment of Massachusetts Bay.
1778- Lucy the last child of Jonathan and Submit is born.
1796- Simon Hosmer marries Sarah Whitcomb, called Sally of Bolton.
1796 - The west half of the Hosmer House is added for Simon and Sarah. As their family grows, and Jonathan's and Submit's shrinks, Jonathan and Submit probably move to the newer, smaller quarters. The interior door between the two living spaces has kept the three generations close. So have separate kitchens! The population of Acton is about 900. Sarah and Simon have 8 children, 7 of whom live to grow up. Jonathan and Submit had raised 7 children here also.
1797- Simon is voted one of five to lead the singing at church in Acton center at the Meeting House on Meetinghouse Hill. It was also voted to use a bass violin. Both of Simon's grandfathers, Simon Hunt, Sr. and Jonathan Hosmer, Sr., were Deacons of the Church. Both men had also held schools in their homes.
1807- a new Meeting House is erected at the site of the present Town Hall. A crew of sailors was brought in from Boston to handle the massive beams; the bell is from Paul Revere's foundry. Simon Hosmer holds a body pew. Simon and four others authorized to spend $40 to set up singing school in the middle district schoolhouse.
1812- Submit Hunt Hosmer died at the age of 15.
1822- Jonathan Hosmer dies at the age of 87.
1829- Simon Hosmer is a selectman and Justice of the Peace.
1839- the house is sold to Rufus Holden. The Population of Acton is over 1100.
1840- Simon Hosmer dies at the age of 64.
1840- Rufus Holden is part of the committee to set out trees on the Common. Rock maple, Buttonwood, Elm and White Oak are to be set out on April 19th, but as this was a Sunday it is done on April 20th. The director of the project like Rufus worked at the Center Store and would be the next owner of the house.
1844- The Fitchburg Railroad comes to South and West Acton and life is forever changed. Goods and people can reach the market in Boston in little over an hour; business springs up near the stations. The Center remains the government center and to some extent the religious center, The Puritan church in the center has split into Trinitarian and Unitarian branches in 1830's, causing much dissension and ill feeling. The churches in the Center, the Unitarian at the Town Hall and the Trinitarian at the new chapel (now Women's Club) and later on Concord Rd. are still the only churches in Acton. The Hosmers stayed with the first parish; Rufus Holden was a Trinitarian or Evangelical.
1846- the House was sold to Francis Tuttle, most of the land had been previously sold off by the Holden's. Francis Tuttle had long been active in town and church affairs. He was a selectman and/or Town Clerk from 1822-1835. He was a merchant at the Center Store established by his brother in 1830. He and his wife had raised 12 children, but only the 4 youngest daughters accompany them to this house where the daughters eventually married. One of his daughters had already married the Rev. Isaac Brown, who from 1839 to 1850 was the minister of the Unitarian Church in the center.
1850- Francis Tuttle is part of the committee to plan the 75th anniversary of the Concord fight. The Davis guards were formed for the occasion.
1850- Fugitive Save Law is passed
1851- Francis Tuttles's daughter Elizabeth marries Elnathan Jones in the parlor. The Davis Guard ceased to be a ceremonial unit and is organized as Company “E” of the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts.
1852- Daughter Marthetta marries Zoeth Taylor.
1857 - Daughter Sarah Jane marries Jonathan K.W.Wetherbee.
1860- Acton's population had grown to 1726 and of that number, many are Irish Immigrants working on the railroads. What we now call the exchange hall is built in South Acton for the firm of Tuttle, Jones and Wetherbee. Francis's son James has taken his brother Varnum into the business with him. As well as his brother-in-laws Elnathan Jones, Jr. and J.K.W. Wetherbee. The precursor of the department store will be a large success.
1861- On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln calls 75,00 volunteers. Acton's Davis Guards, led by Francis Tuttle's son Captain Daniel Tuttle, go off to war. Daniel never lived in this house; nor had he voted Lincoln, being one of the three Breckinridge Democrats in Acton. He was 47 years old, had a wife and many children, postmaster in the Center and had a large farm. His sword and the telegram ordering him to report are in the parlor. The next year Sophia Taylor Tuttle marries Henry Haynes in the “Wedding Parlor”.
In the 18th century, with the tragic losses of Abner Hosmer and young Jonathan Hosmer, the family in this house played a role in the creation of this nation. With Daniel Tuttle leading his troop through Baltimore on April 19, 1861, a family in this house was involved in the preserving that nation. Acton was a small town. The first owners of this house were farmers and small businessmen. The House is not a mansion or architectural wonder. But the combined histories of the house, the town and the families provide a picture of the early years of the United States.
The Hosmer House
By Paul Wasserboehr
For 15 years, the resplendent Jonathan Hosmer home stood silently atop a gentle slope above the road to Harvard that early, fateful morning of April 19, 1775.
Just hours before, in the midst of the eerie stillness and bone-chilling cold of that spring night, Acton citizens and militiamen, including 40-year old Jonathan Hosmer, heard the news spread by Concord's Dr. Samuel Prescott that the British Regulars had set out on a `double-quick' march from Boston. Their intention was to destroy a cache of patriot war material and weaponry thought to be hidden in Concord. By then, the redcoats were fast approaching the outskirts of Lexington.
The spirit of revolution ran rampant in the air. Jonathan could hear Luther Blanchard's lone fife and Francis Barker's beating drum faintly break the silence of the morning as they played “The White Cockade”-the Acton Company's signature tune-and a spirited musical composition rife with anti-crown sentiment they knew annoyed and angered the British.
Abner Hosmer, 43, Jonathan's older brother, along with a troupe of thirty-six Acton Minutemen, led by Captain Isaac Davis, arrived at the Hosmer House where Jonathan met them to begin their ten mile trek to Concord to confront the British and meet their fate near at the North Bridge.
A few hours later, the “shot heard round the world” rang out in nearby Lexington as the two armies there clashed savagely. Time stood still. The world would never be the same again. And fifty yards from the North Bridge, Abner Hosmer was struck and killed, shot in the head--a victim like Acton commander Isaac Davis, of the initial British volley that ripped into the Patriot ranks. He was the first Acton citizen to die fighting for his country's independence.
The Hosmer House, recently named to the National Register of Historic Places, stands in quiet testimony to that most raucous period in early American history. Indeed, the house and the land surrounding her are forever linked to our country's heritage-actual witnesses to the origin of the cradle of liberty. Nearly a quarter-century of history dwells within her walls.
Located on Rte. 27 between Rtes. 111 and 2, the Hosmer House is the fourth building in Acton to be named to the register, joining the Faulkner Homestead, Jones Tavern, and Exchange Hall. Acton's other National Register properties are the Isaac Davis Trail (the trail the Acton Minutemen took to fight at the Concord Bridge), and the Acton Centre National Register District (49 properties on Main Street, Nagog Hill Road, Newtown Road, Concord Road, Wood Lane, and Woodbury Lane).
The National Register is the nation's official list of buildings, districts, sites, structures, and objects important in American history, culture, architecture, or archaeology. It is administered through the Massachusetts Historical Commission on behalf of the National Park Service.
The Hosmer House officially qualified for the list after the Acton Historical Society completed an application last year. Certification is based on a site's association with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; association with the lives of persons significant in our past. Benefits of being listed on the National Register include limited protection from adverse effects of federally assisted projects and state actions.
“We were delighted to learn that the Hosmer House was named to the National Register,” said Acton Historical Society president, David Cochrane. “It's important because it gives official recognition to the importance of the Hosmer House to Acton's and our nation's history, and it provides limited protection for the house-thereby helping to assure that it will be preserved for future generations.”
The Hosmer House is a restored, two floor, saltbox farmhouse, is one of the oldest houses Acton. The first part of the house was constructed in 1760-25 years after Acton, then called Concord Village, split off as part of Concord and became a separate town. Twenty-six year-old Jonathan Hosmer, a prominent brick mason and farmer built the first half of the house (the East Side). Married to Submit Hunt, Jonathan advertised his trade by plastering the front and sides of the house with stucco, painted to look like brick. At the time, bricks were very expensive.
In 1797, an addition was built on the west side of the home for their son Simon and his bride, Sarah Whitcomb, of Bolton in 1797 when Jonathan gave the home, 160 acres and the barn across the street to them on the provision that he and Submit could live their until their deaths. Submit died in 1812, Jonathan in 1822.
The Hosmer House's architecture designates the house as a salt box house. In Colonial times and throughout the 19th century, salt boxes were hung in the kitchen. They had a sloped, hinged cover from which the salt in the box could be scooped. The original house consisted of a center chimney, two front parlors, a keeping room, and two bedrooms upstairs.
In 1974, a 2.7-acre portion of the property was turned over to the Acton Historical Society (AHS), where today a converted auto repair garage, located behind the house, now called the Jenks Library, serves as the society's historical library and museum. It contains historical records, town reports, photographs, and ephemera relating to Acton families and businesses.
The library is open to the public Monday and Wednesday mornings from 9:30 a.m. to noon. The Hosmer House is open to the public one Sunday a month, when visitors are welcome to tour the house and the library. This month, there is an Open House on Sunday, November 24th from 2-4 p.m., which will include a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. to celebrate the placement of the house on the historic register. A book signing by society authors-William Klauer and Madeline Kaduboski will also be held as well, and people will be given an opportunity to purchase society gifts for the holidays.
Paul Wasserboehr is a member of the Acton Historical Society
and a free-lance writer.
Twin Chestnut Farm
Meet your Neighbor
By Nancy Gerhardt
Assabet Valley Beacon, Thursday March 19, 1970
The Former “ Twin Chestnut Farm
Built in the early 1600's this old house was once the home of illustrious Acton families. The Hosmer and Tuttles were owners of what is now referred to as the Todd House.
Tax records of 1872 show that ownership of the saltbox had passed to an Edward O'Neil and in 1890 it is listed as part of his estate. The next record is dated
July 31, 1918 at which time George S. Todd purchased the home from Fred W. Dixon of Acton and William Mehegan of Concord
George Todd worked as a composer for the Boston Globe and his sister Ethel who became a co-owner was an artist for the same paper. According to their niece, Miss Julia Todd, the house was in about the same condition it is now when Mr.
Todd purchased it. He modernized the place bringing in water and electricity.
However, the house has had no structural changes or additions. It is as it was originally built. Even the windows have old glass.
Miss Ethel Todd, who recently passed away at the age of 85, named the place Twin
Chestnut Farm. Until the hurricane of 1938 there were two large chestnut trees in the front yard.
An animal lover, Miss Todd provided care for hurt or sick animals. Her brother brought animals from Boston that had" been sentenced to extermination by the courts. There were at times over 100 animals residing at Twin Chestnut Farm.
With the passing of George S. Todd in 1951 and Miss Todd in the last year, the house has become part of an estate left to the seven children of their two brothers.
Isaac Davis Trail - Why We March