Lawrence Estates Area

Background to the Development of the Lawrence Estates Area

Morton S. Isaacson

February 8, 2021

(Maps at end of section)

That part of the Lawrence Estates subdivision in the Waltham Highlands, which had actually been laid out by 1886 and developed by around 1900, consisted of about 90 individual house lots on Lawrence Street, Leonard Street, Hammond Street north of Plympton Street, Plympton Street between Hammond and Hawthorne Streets, Summit Street east of Irving Street, and Irving Street north of Plympton Street. This early planned, suburban subdivision was developed by the heirs of Fredrick Lawrence.

In 1855, the heirs of Leonard Smith (Nancy Smith, Leonard P. Smith, Horace and Elvira Hammond, and Edward L. Bond) deeded a 40-acre lot called "the Prospect Road Lot" to Frederick Lawrence to pay off Smith's debts to Lawrence (MLR b. 699, p. 507). It was probably called the "Prospect Road Lot" because Prospect Hill Road was the closest access for this area, having been first laid out in 1731. The lower portion of the road is much as it exists, today; however, the upper portion continued into what is today's Prospect Hill Park, through the southern gate and along most of what is today's paved park road (now called Glen Road). Part of the Prospect Road Lot later became the Lawrence Estates of interest here. It should be pointed out that less than half the area of the Prospect Road Lot was developed prior to 1900 by the heirs of Frederick Lawrence. It was the part that had not been developed by 1900 that was later developed by others and marketed as the "Lawrence Estates". However, for the purposes of this survey, the part subdivided and sold off directly by the Lawrence heirs will be referred to as the "Lawrence Estates" (see map below).

Leonard Smith was the son of David Smith, who was an early inn holder in Waltham at the time of the Revolutionary War. General Gage's spies passed by David Smith's house, which stood at the intersection of Weston Street and Stow Street, on their way to Concord in 1775 (Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer, 1994). At the time, Weston Street was part of the old Boston Post Road. This house was later moved across Weston Street and is still standing at 244 Weston Street. Since Leonard Smith was born in 1783, it is probable that he was born in the house General Gage's spies passed by on the lead up to the Battle of Lexington and Concord, though somewhat later. Leonard used the bricks from his father's tavern in building the chimneys of his own tavern, which was built in 1839 (Nelson and Sanderson). It originally faced on Main Street just east of the future Hammond Street, and later became known as the Prospect House. It was the last of the great stage-coach inns built in Waltham before the advent of the rail road in 1843, which drastically reduced long distance stage coach traffic on the old Boston Post Road. Still later, between 1909 and 1915, the inn was repositioned around the corner to face on Hammond Street by the MIT trained architect, and nationally known suffragist, Florence Luscomb (voters lists 1905-1915 and Waltham News Tribune 4/29/1909 from MACRIS). It is still there as No. 11 Hammond Street.

Horace Hammond was Leonard Smith's son-in-law, having married his daughter, Elvira, in 1837. In 1855, their house was just west of the Prospect House (later probably moved to become 87 Plympton Street). Horace Hammond was born in Swanzey, N.H. in 1813 (death record), but came to Waltham early on and started working in the baggage business. Hammond's ancestors first came to Watertown in 1632, and then moved to Swanzey, in the mid-1700s (History of Swanzey by Benjamin Read, 1892). According to the Waltham Sentinel of September 26, 1873, Hammond became a partner of J.C. Gipson in 1840 in an express company, which did so well that by 1858 it owned 28 omnibuses and manufactured carts, sleighs, and other vehicles. In the 1860 census Hammond is listed as the owner of a horse railroad company.

The 1855 deed from the other heirs of Leonard Smith to Horace Hammond for the house just west of the Prospect House (MLR b. 759, p. 13) mentioned an exception to the lot's land, which was a strip of land going north along the eastern side of the lot, the boundary with the Prospect House. This strip of land later became Hammond Street. The reason given was that this allowed access to Frederick Lawrence's "wood lot", which implies that the land that later became the Lawrence Estates was wooded at this time and not agricultural land – confirmed by the 1883 birdseye view of Waltham. The October 23, 1874 Sentinel noted that Hammond had completed Hammond Street and that it should be named after him. This was probably only as far as Plympton Street.

In the same deed in which Frederick Lawrence received the "Prospect Road Lot", he also received a lot on Main Street at what is now the west corner of Common Street. He later built a commercial building there, known as the Lawrence Block. In 1900, the land was sold and the new owner replaced the Lawrence Block with the one that is still there today, known as the Lawrence Building. Frederick Lawrence was a wealthy farmer living in the northeast part of Waltham, where his family had resided since the 1600s. In later years, after he retired from farming, Lawrence moved to a house nearer the center of town on Lexington Street. That house is still standing as 79-81 Lexington Street.

In 1856, Frederick Lawrence and Ebenezer Plympton formulated a legal agreement for Plympton Street to be built through Plympton's land and then continue onto Lawrence's land (MLR b. 742, p. 232). Ebenezer Plympton, was the son of Thomas R. Plympton, who came from a Sudbury family going back to the 1600s. In the 1900s, the ancient family home in Sudbury was moved by Henry Ford to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, to be part of his colonial reconstruction there. Thomas R. Plympton was a major land owner and developer of Waltham in the first half of the 1800s, and one of the ten richest men in the town at the time. Ebenezer, who was a house painter, had recently bought a 10 acre lot between Lawrence's wood lot and Bacon Street. Plympton's original lot included those of Whitcomb, Gault, and Caughey, along with the smaller lots between these and Bacon Street, on the 1875 map. The house Ebenezer Plympton built on the lot, dating from about 1851, still exists as 128 Bacon Street. This portion of Bacon Street is one of the oldest streets in Waltham, going back at least to the 1730s, and originally known as "the way to the school house". It's original alignment made a jog to the west just north of Plympton's land (along today's Farnsworth and Hazel Streets) to keep the road on solid ground and out of the neighboring wet meadow land – and also followed a colonial land grant lot boundary from the 1630s.

As it stood in the 1880s, after Frederick Lawrence's death, the Prospect Road Lot was partly bounded by lands of Oel Farnsworth on the north, and Ebenezer Plympton on the east (see map below). According to the 1886 map, the northern boundary line paralleled today's Summit Street, going east from Tomlin Street, along the backs of the lots on the north side of Summit Street, then crossed today's Hammond Street on the south side of Lord's Castle (211 Hammond Street), paralleled Lord Street along the backs of the lots on its south side, crossed Leonard Street, and ended at the backs of the lots along the east side of Leonard Street. The northern boundary of the original Lawrence Estates continued west from Tomlin Street, along the same alignment roughly parallel to and just north of Summit Street, all the way to today’s Prospect Hill Road along the base of Prospect Hill Park. This northern boundary line dated back to 1636, when it was the southernmost Squadron Line of the "Great Dividends" land grants, given by the 120 original freeman settlers of the Town of Watertown to themselves. Waltham was originally part of colonial Watertown and did not become an independent town until 1738. This particular stretch of the Squadron Line marked the southern boundary of the 70-acre lot originally granted to Brian Pendelton, Lot 19 in the First Squadron. It was also the northern boundary of the "In Lieu of Township" land grants of 1638 (see map at end of the introduction to the entire Highlands survey). According to a map drawn by Edmund L. Sanderson early in the 1900s, and a topographical map from the late 1800s, there was still a stone wall denoting this boundary line at those times. It is possible that the large stones along the back line of the lot of today's 35 Summit Street (running west from Galen Street) may be a remnant of this historic, colonial stone wall.