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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 271 MARRETT ROAD
<br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
<br />220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
<br />Continuation sheet 4
<br /> LEX.586
<br />The opening of the garage bay originally had diagonally cut upper corners; the opening was later turned into an elliptical arch
<br />and fitted with a pair of swinging doors.
<br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
<br />Researched and written by Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson An analysis of the construction history of the main house at 271 Marrett Road has determined it was built at the end of the 1700s, likely by Jonas Bridge (1757-1837) and his wife Susannah Reed, the third generation to occupy the land. A two-story kitchen ell is reputed to date to the 17th century; this can be verified only by dendrochronology. Some local historians have asserted that the original part of 271 Marrett Road was built between 1661 and 1663 by Matthew Bridge (1615-1700) on land that his father, the immigrant John Bridge, had acquired between 1639 and 1645.16 Most of these sources cite as evidence Matthew Bridge’s request to cut wood for building and for roofing material (1661) and to repair his house “at the Farms,” meaning Cambridge Farms, now Lexington (1668), and formed at least part of the grounds on which local historian Edwin B. Worthen asserted that the 271 Marrett Road house was built just before 1668, “although a positive date cannot be established.”17 However, local historians Harry W. Davis and Michael J. Canavan stated that Matthew Bridge Jr. (1650-1738) built four houses for his sons Matthew, John, Joseph, and Samuel. In 1887 Davis stated that Matthew Jr. inherited about 600 acres “south-westerly of Vine Brook” and that, “upon the marriage of his four sons, he built each of them a substantial farm-house, and presented each with one hundred acres of land.” Indeed, Matthew Bridge’s May 1735 will stated that he had “already putt all my Sons into Possession & Title of Diverse Lands & Tenements” and so bequeathed “the whole of the remaining of Hunting Swamp so called which is yet undisposed of to them.” In 1739 the brothers formally agreed to a division of the Hunting Swamp.18 Canavan had identified the brothers’ houses as the Estabrook and Blodgett farm, Grasslands, Valley Field, and Patty Bridge (this last in Waltham), though he was unable to determine which son owned which property. Davis, however, stated that Matthew’s house was in Waltham, John’s the Estabrook and Blodgett farm, Joseph’s the Nehemiah Wellington farm, which was Grasslands, and Samuel’s “the house owned by Mr. Tompkins,” or what is now 271 Marrett Road and known as Valley Field. The chain of title for 271 Marrett Road establishes that it belonged to Matthew’s son Samuel (1705-91) and suggests that a house was built there about 1730-32.19 Like his father, Samuel Bridge served the town as a selectman (1758-60). As his father had served the town in both King Philip’s War and the 1690 Quebec expedition, Samuel was a Revolutionary War soldier, serving in New Jersey, Bennington, and Cambridge in 1777. In early April 1731 he married Susanna Page (1711-35), with whom he had one child, Samuel, and three years after her death married Martha Bowman (1718-93), with whom he had twelve children. Of the eleven sons, three left Lexington to settle elsewhere and five died in childhood or early adulthood. The 1790 census shows Samuel Bridge with three in his household; his son Jonas (1759-1837) had married Susannah Reed of Lexington in 1783, was also listed in this census, but not near his father. In October 1793, two years after Samuel Bridge died, his heirs sold his livestock, crops, and real estate judged to be worth 30 pounds to settle his estate debt of 100 pounds; son Jonas satisfied the rest of the debt, and Samuel’s other heirs released their interest in the property to him. Jonas and his wife, Susannah Reed, built the existing house at 217 Marrett Road sometime after; the fate of his father’s house is unknown. The 16 As cited on existing 1984 MHC Building Form. 17 Tracing the Past in Lexington, Massachusetts (NY: Vantage Press, 1998). 18 Agreement, 26 Nov. 1739, MSD 40:309; Michael J. Canavan, untitled & undated manuscript, M.J. Canavan Papers, Lexington Historical Society; Harry W. Davis “Matthew Bridge,” Lexington Historical Society: Papers Relating to the History of the Town Read by Some of Its
<br />Members 1 (1889): 56, 58. 19 Matthew Bridge to S. (probably Samuel) Bridge, 10 December 1730, MSD 30: 500 & 501 and 9 September 1732, MSD 33:352, both listed in the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds index on Family Search. The 1730 deeds are not currently viewable on the website, and the 1732 deed appears to be cited incorrectly in the index. Matthew Bridge granted his son Matthew 50 acres in Lexington with a house and barn standing on it in June 1717 (MSD 28:30), to be accounted as 150 pounds toward his portion of his father’s estate. He deeded property to sons John in 1731 (MSD 32:207 and 208) and Joseph in 1732 (MSD 32:544), none of which are viewable on the registry website. On the Bridge family see Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from Its First Settlement to 1868 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 2:53-60.
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