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INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Town Property Address Lexington 21 Hastings Rd. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD 685 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE (continued) After Daniel Chandler's death in 1847 the house was acquired by John C. Blasdel,who was a state representative in 1867 and reportedly made the grounds of this house the"showplace"of Lexington. Blasdel died in 1873 and in 1884 the property was acquired by Charles E. Morey,who in 1889 divided the deep lot on which this house once stood so that the house now at 2139 Massachusetts Ave. (MHC#686)could be built on the western half. In 1896 Morey sold this house to the Boston Female Asylum, a Boston institution for orphaned and destitute girls. According to a Lexington resident whose mother had been placed in the home at age six because her widowed mother could not support her,this Lexington house was used as a summer residence. The Lexington resident said her mother came here with about 14 other girls and that a barn had been converted to a dormitory. When the girls were old enough, the home placed them in domestic service; the Lexington resident's mother left the home in 1900, when she was about 14, to go into service in Whately, Mass. In 1907 the house, whose address before Hastings Rd. was laid out was 2117 Massachusetts Ave.,was purchased by Catherine A. Kimball, the second wife of Franklin R. Kimball,who came from a wealthy Salem family. The Kimballs' oldest daughter Margaret"Peggy"(1906-1975)had the room at the top of the tower and was apparently very adventurous. In 1930 she became interested in flying and earned a pilot's license in February 1931. She flew in many air meets, acquired a transport license in 1933, knew many women aviators including Amelia Earhart, whom she idolized, and in 1937 was the second woman after Earhart to gain a non-scheduled instrument rating. In Lexington, Peggy performed in dramatic productions at the Old Belfry Club and was instrumental in the founding of the Arts &Crafts Society. The Kimball family owned the house until the 1950s. After they sold it, the land behind it was developed;Hastings Rd. was laid out in 1954, and in 1955 real estate developer Harvey Nugent, who then lived in this house, drastically renovated it, destroying its original Italianate appearance. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (continued) Tuttle, David Ainsworth. List of buildings erected in Lexington. Presented to the Lexington Historical Society, April 4, 1904. On file at Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, MA. Whipple, S. Lawrence. Notes on Boston Female Asylum and Kimball House. In possession of S. Lawrence Whipple, Lexington, MA. "Aviatrix Was Just a Step Behind Earhart." Lexington Minute-man, 26 March 1992.