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ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE (Describe important architectural features and <br /> evaluate in terms of other buildings within the community.) <br /> This imposing Federal farmhouse is one of the surviving Federal houses <br /> along what was the Cambridge-Concord Turnpike and, like the houses at 272 <br /> Concord Avenue and 503 Concord Avenue, has brick ends and end chimneys. Unlike <br /> the others, however, this house is really two houses built back-to-back; thus, <br /> although it is the usual five bays wide, it is four bays deep and has four <br /> chimnevs instead of the customary two. Aside from a frieze board -across the <br /> facade, the house has lost most of its original exterior finishes: clapboards <br /> (see Continuation Sheet) <br /> HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE (Explain the role owners played in local or state <br /> history and how the building relates to the development of the community.) <br /> According to an antiquarian account, this house was built in 1802 by <br /> Benjamin Wellington (1743-1812) for his sons Benjamin O. (1778-1853) and Peter <br /> (1781-1869) (Smith 1891:120) . Although 1804 may be a more likely date of <br /> construction since the Cambridge-Concord Turnpike was not built until that year <br /> and the house is set facing the road, it is clear the Benjamin O. and Teter <br /> Wellington married sisters, in 1811 and 1813 respectively, and that both lived <br /> in the house with their families. The elder Benjamin Wellington was reportedly <br /> one of the first in Lexington to transport milk into Boston for sale, and this <br /> business was continued by his son Benjamin O. The latter became one of the <br /> prominent figures in Lexington's nineteenth century dairy industry at a time <br /> when the milk business consisted of delivering milk to a regular "route" of <br /> city customers and, later, of buying milk from other farmers and selling it in <br /> the city. Benjamin O. Wellington was also prominent in town affairs, serving <br /> as a selectman four times between 1814 and 1831, on the school committee front <br /> 1832 to 1836, and as an assessor twice. His brother Peter was less active in <br /> the town but, as a member of the building committ `or h Fi t o hall in <br /> T8-r2-l� Fnd fP 9- <br /> 1845, advocated a building with two stories (see/Vine Street form an , in a <br /> similar role for the original Franklin School in 1851, raised the money to <br /> finance the inclusion of a second story (see 376 Lincoln Street form) (Smith <br /> 1891:107, 122) . After Benjamin O. Wellington's death, the milk business was <br /> carried on by his son Winslow, and in the late nineteenth century the farm was <br /> (see Continuation Sheet) <br /> BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (name of publication, author, date and publisher) <br /> Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington II, pp. 730-732. Boston: <br /> Houghton-l:ifflin, 1913. <br /> Lexington Historical Society Archives, Burr Church Collection <br /> Smith, A. Bradford. "Kite End" (1891) . Proceedings of the Lexington Historical <br /> Societv 11(1900) :120-122. <br /> Smith, George O. "The *Milk Business and Milk Men of Earlier Days" (1897) . <br /> Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society 12(1900) :187-196. <br /> Worthen, Edwin B. A Calendar History of Lexington, Massachusetts, 1620-1946, <br /> p. 123. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Savings Bank, 1946. <br /> 1906 map <br /> 1887 Directory <br /> MOM - 7/82 <br />