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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 537 LOWELL STREET
<br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
<br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
<br /> 2244
<br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
<br /> Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state)history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the
<br /> owners/occupants played within the community.
<br /> 537 Lowell Street is located near the important crossroads of Lowell and East streets in East Lexington. Lowell Street appears
<br /> to have followed a Native American trail and was developed as an important transportation corridor in the Colonial period. A
<br /> new regional turnpike system radiating from Boston was established in the early 19th century; Lowell Street formed part of the
<br /> Middlesex Turnpike (ca. 1806), which extended from Cambridge to Tyngsborough and the New Hampshire border. Appearing as
<br /> early as the 17th century, East Street is an important early road, facilitating access to the farmland of East Lexington and
<br /> connecting to the adjacent town of Woburn. This peripheral area of east Lexington remained mostly agricultural and sparsely
<br /> developed through the early 20th century, however, home to commercial dairy and produce farms.
<br /> A building first appears in the location and orientation of today's 537 Lowell Street by the turn of the 20th century, identified as T.
<br /> Walley on the 1898 map and C.J. Molley in 1906. Molley also owned property and a building diagonally across the road. No
<br /> information is presently known about these persons. Assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1861, which
<br /> has not been confirmed. Further research is recommended to establish more conclusively the date of the house, its early
<br /> occupants, and early uses of the property.
<br /> The first occupants of the property at 537 Lowell Street about whom information is known were Stephen Hotz, and his wife
<br /> Paraska, who seem to have resided here at least by 1920. Both Austrian immigrants, the couple had five children together, one
<br /> or more of whom lived in the house through at least 1965. Stephen is described as a machine operator at a pipe fittings
<br /> company(probably the Jefferson Union Co.) in 1920, farmhand in 1922, and gardener at a private estate in 1930 and later. His
<br /> daughter worked as a secretary at a printing company (1940, 1945). The sons' occupations included farm laborers on a truck
<br /> farm (when as young as 11; 1920), gardeners on private estates (1930), radio operator at a radio station (1930, 1940), and
<br /> farmers at a mink ranch (1940). Stephen lived at this address until at least 1955; Paraska until at least 1965. The property was
<br /> identified as a farm for at least part of the time that the Hotz family lived here; agriculture may have been a sideline for the
<br /> family.
<br /> Further research is recommended to establish more conclusively the date of the house and early uses of the property. Local
<br /> historian Sam Doran suggests contacting Guy Doran for additional information on the Hotz family.
<br /> BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
<br /> Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com
<br /> Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records.
<br /> Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).
<br /> Historic maps and atlases: Walling 1853; Beers 1875; Walker 1889; Stadly 1898; Walker 1906; Sanborn 1908, 1918, 1927,
<br /> 1935, 1935/1950.
<br /> Lexington Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period Summaries. http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm
<br /> Accessed Jul 23, 2015.
<br /> Lexington Directories: 1899, 1906, 1908-09, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1936.
<br /> Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965.
<br /> Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980.
<br /> U.S. Census: 1920, 1930, 1940.
<br /> Watertown city directories: 1907.
<br /> Continuation sheet 2
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