The second event in the Acton 250 series “Still Here: Houses of Our Patriots” will be a presentation about the Nathaniel Edwards House, 328 Pope Road, on Monday, June 10 at 7 p.m. at the Acton Memorial Library. The speaker will be the house’s co-owner, David Hardt, who has done extensive research on this mid-18th-century, center-chimney building. Please register here to attend in person or via Zoom.
The second event in the Acton 250 series “Still Here: Houses of Our Patriots” will be a presentation about the Nathaniel Edwards House, 328 Pope Road, on Monday, June 10 at 7 p.m. at the Acton Memorial Library. The speaker will be the house’s co-owner, David Hardt, who has done extensive research on this mid-18th-century, center-chimney building. Please register here to attend in person or via Zoom.
The three-part series features four pre-Revolutionary Acton houses owned by local Acton leaders during the Revolutionary War. The others were the homes of Colonel Francis Faulkner, Jonathan Hosmer, and tavern-keeper Samuel Jones. Together, the group represents several different house types of the time, displaying a variety of distinct colonial features. The interior of the Edwards House, a center-chimney “saltbox,” displays some of the most stylish 18th-century Georgian elements in Acton.
The stories of the houses’ ownership are different, too. Several generations of the Edwards family lived at what is now Spring Hill Farm for over more than 70 years, farming, building houses, and making tall clocks, with time off to fight in the Revolutionary War. Original owner Nathaniel Edwards, a housewright, served on important town committees, and his eldest son,Ebenezer, marched to Concord with the Acton Minutemen in April, 1775. Another son, Nathaniel Edwards, Jr., born in 1770, became widely known as a clockmaker, presumably using the ell at the east end of the house for his shop.
In later years there were multiple owners, often reflecting regional immigration patterns – first English, then Irish, then Norwegian, until the 1960s. All were farmers, who cultivated the land and raised livestock at the border between Acton and Concord.
The farm also played a significant role in the creation of conservation lands in Acton, when the farm was up for development and neighbors acted to start the Spring Hill Conservation area. Most recently, it returned to farm use, this time for the keeping of horses.
Anne Forbes is a member of the Acton 250 Committee.
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