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BUILDING FORM <br /> ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ❑ see continuation sheet <br /> Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. <br /> 79 North St. is one of three side-gabled Greek Revival cottages in Lexington with wall dormers (the other two are at 241 Grove <br /> St. [MHC#7481 and 185 Burlington St. [MHC#745]), although in this case the dormers appear to have been added above the <br /> eyebrow windows instead of being integral wall dormers. The original house is rectangular, 1'/Z stories,three-by-one bays, and <br /> side-gabled with a center rear chimney. It is set on a fieldstone foundation, clad with wood clapboards, and roofed with asphalt <br /> shingles. At the east end is a side-gabled addition with a ridge chimney and at the rear a long front-gabled addition. A breezeway <br /> connects the side addition and the two-car garage. The center entrance in the main block has an elaborate surround with a molded <br /> cornice,half-length sidelights, and side pilasters with a Greek fret design similar to that at 241 Grove St. (MHC#748), on a <br /> number of houses on Massachusetts Ave. in East Lexington, and in Pl. 28 of Asher Benjamin's Practical House Carpenter. Most <br /> windows are 2/2 double hung sash. <br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ❑ see continuation sheet <br /> Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the <br /> role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. <br /> This house was built by William Locke(1805-1890), a grandson of Amos Locke(1742-1828), whose house had stood on <br /> approximately the same site. Although tradition holds that this was Amos Locke's house, Lexington assessors' records indicate <br /> that William Locke,who inherited the Amos Locke property, was assessed more in 1833 for a"new house,"strongly suggesting <br /> that this house was built the preceding year. This date is confirmed by the fact that"Oct. 20, 1832"is carved on a large <br /> supporting beam in the basement of this house and that an 1889 paper by a Locke descendant says that the old Locke house was <br /> taken down about 1830 and this one built in its place. The Lockes had come to Lexington from what is now Burlington in the 17th <br /> century and by the 19th century owned about 200 acres in vicinity of North, Adams, and Lowell streets. William's brother <br /> Nichols, for example, had a farm that included most of the land now Willards Woods and would soon build the house now at 66 <br /> North St. (MHC#724)and his brother Stephen would later have a house and farm at what is now 130 Burlington St. (MHC <br /> #744). William's father Stephen,who had apparently lived with his parents in the old house on this site, had run what was known <br /> as the Locke mill—a planing mill that produced interior moldings—on the site of the house now at 74 North St. After William's <br /> death this house was occupied by his unmarried children, Austin William(b. 1852)and Emily(b. 1841). It is said that Emily, a <br /> tidy housekeeper, objected to the mess Austin made when taking a bath in the kitchen so Austin created an outdoor bathtub in the <br /> brook under the mill. In 1954, after repeated vandalism,the Locke mill was taken down. <br /> BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ®see continuation sheet <br /> Benjamin, Asher. The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter(1830). New York: Dover Publications, 1988. <br /> Joan Goldmann, personal communication 1998. <br /> Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society. <br /> Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. 2: 369, 372, 375. <br /> Kelley, Beverly Allison. Lexington:A Century of Photographs. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Historical Society, 1980. 18-19. <br /> Lexington Valuation Lists. 1831-36, 1841, 1845. <br /> Locke, Herbert G. "Amos Locke." Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society 1 (1889): 67-72. <br /> ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National <br /> Register Criteria Statement form. <br />