39 Leonard Street

1889 In 1889, the Lawrence heirs (Ann I. Lawrence, Ellen S. Sherman, and Leonard F. Lawrence) sold Lots No. 1 through 8 of the Lawrence Estates to Samuel Patch (MLR 1976/494 and 1943/534). These were all the lots along the east side of Leonard Street. Samuel Patch was the Waltham Building Superintendent at the time. From a slightly later deed in 1892 (MLR 2113/63), it appears that Ann I. Lawrence died around 1890, that Etta Lawrence was one of her heirs, that Etta Lawrence was a trustee for a Leonard Lawrence (who may or may not have been the same person as Leonard F. Lawrence), and that Samuel Patch was also one of Ann I. Lawrence's heirs.

1890 In 1890, Samuel Patch sold the northern part of Lot No. 8 to Michael Kean (MLR 1979/248). Nothing was mentioned about buildings in the deed. Lot No. 8 was at the northern end of Leonard Street, which was the northern boundary of the Lawrence Estates. This boundary line followed the original southern most boundary line of the Great Dividend colonial land grants of 1636, and ran at an angle other than 90º to Leonard Street, so that Lot No. 8 was irregularly shaped. It appears that Patch redrew the lot lines along the east side of Leonard Street to make the lots more regular. He also sold the rest of Lot No. 8 and the northern part of Lot No. 7 to Francis T. Cox. Both Francis Cox and Michael Keane worked for the marble company of Cox and Keane on Main Street, and it appears they had just bought house lots next to each other on Leonard Street (and the two houses, at 37 and 39 Leonard Street, look very similar). Both their names appeared in the 1891 annual listing of voters under Plympton Street, with no house numbers listed, and with notations they were not living there the previous year. Since Leonard Street did not, itself, appear in the 1891 annual listing, it appears that they were living on Leonard Street that year. Also, Michael Keane took out a mortgage with the Waltham Cooperative Bank for $1,600 in 1890 based on his part of Lot No. 8, and the deed said "with buildings" (MLR 2001/47). Therefore it is probable that the house at 39 Leonard Street was built for Michael Keane in 1890-1891.

In 1893, Michael Keane bought a small slice of land just north of his from Catherine LaBeuf et al., the executors of the will of Oel Farnsworth, which extended his lot a bit north and made its northern boundary more perpendicular to Leonard Street (MLR 2212/177). The following year, he sold a thin triangular strip of land on the south side of his lot to Edward Montsie, who owned No. 37 Leonard Street at the time, to regularize the boundary line between their two lots (MLR 2281/274).

The Keane family continued to own and occupy 39 Leonard Street into the 1950s.