Plympton-Bacon Street Area

Background to the Development of the Plympton/Bacon Street Area

Morton S. Isaacson

2/4/2021

The land that was later to encompass the eastern end of Plympton Street was probably part of the 40 acre estate taxed to William Fiske in the 1798 tax roll. According to Nelson, p. 88 & 139, the Fiske house was on Main Street, just west of Bacon Street (known earlier as "the way to the school house", and dating back to, at least, the early 1700s). The Fiske House on Main Street, considered the oldest in the town in the mid-1800s, had previously belonged to Isaac and Benjamin Hagar, having been in the Hager family since 1701. It was inherited by William Fiske's daughter, Caroline, who tried to give it to the town upon her death in 1877, but it was not accepted by the town and so was replaced by the Victorian era housing development along what became Fiske Street. As late as 1831, there were no houses on Bacon Street between School Street and Piety Corner.

In 1851, Caroline Fiske sold a 10 acre lot on the west side of Bacon Street to Ebenezer Plympton (MLR b. 617, p. 35). Nothing was mentioned about buildings on the lot in this deed, and the mortgage deed, which Plympton then took out with Caroline Fiske, also mentioned nothing about buildings (MLR b. 617, p. 36). According to the boundaries mentioned in the deed, the lot stretched from the diagonal part of Farnsworth Street (in front of the Plympton School, which is referred to in the deed as an "old lane", but was part of the original layout of Bacon Street along a boundary of the 1630s land grants) south to the lots along what would become Guinan Street, and west from Bacon Street to what would become Hammond Street, on the south side of Plympton Street, and to what would become the back yards along Leonard Street, on the north side of Plympton Street.

Ebenezer Plympton was the son of Thomas R. Plympton. Thomas Plympton played a large role in the town's development during the first half of the 1800s, becoming one of the ten richest men in Waltham by 1851 through real estate investments (Waltham Rediscovered). He was also a director of the Waltham Bank, and the pond that used to be just north of Pond Street (filled in around 1970) was named Plympton's Pond. His house was located at the corner of Main and Exchange Streets on the 1841 map. He moved to Waltham from Sudbury some time between 1820 and 1830, and his brother, Nathanial, also moved to Waltham about the same time and had a fulling mill on Beaver Brook by the present day Duck Pond in Beaver Brook Reservation. The Plympton family had a long history in Sudbury going back to the 1630s. Thomas' father, Ebenezer's grandfather, also named Ebenezer, fought in the Revolutionary War, being present at the Battle of Lexington and Concord; and the ancestral Plympton house, which used to be in Sudbury, was moved to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, by Henry Ford, to be part of his colonial reconstruction there.

Ebenezer Plympton and his wife, Olive, moved to a house on the lot, they must have had built, sometime between 1851 and 1854. It appears that that house is still there, now numbered 128 Bacon Street. It also appears that he had a private way, later named Plympton Street, laid out around this time. Ebenezer was a house painter, and the Plymptons lived in the house until around 1866, at which time they moved to Boston. Ebenezer Plympton did not subdivide his land into small house lots, himself. Instead, some of it he sold off as large lots, but much of it went as large lots to others from defaults on mortgages and taxes.

In 1854, Ebenezer Plympton sold John and William Caughey a large lot of land on the north side of Plympton Street; and in 1862, he sold just William Caughey a second large lot of land on the north side of Plympton Street east of and adjacent to the earlier lot. The two Caughey lots, together, stretched from today's Farnsworth Avenue west to the back yards along Leonard Street, and from Plympton Street north to today's Farnsworth Street. The Caugheys laid out today's Caughey Street through the middle of their combined lot. They then sold off some house lots on the west side of Caughey Street, especially to their relatives by marriage, the Furbushes. Later, in the early 1900s, the Caughey land on the east of Caughey Street was sold to the Robinson real estate firm, which then subdivided it and sold it off for house lots.

In 1856, Ebenezer Plympton sold a large lot at the far western end of his property, south of Plympton Street, to Horace G. Whitcomb. The lot included today's Nos. 82 and 88 Plympton Street and stretched south to the back yards on today's Guinan Street. The Whitcomb family developed the lot and lived there for many years.

Also in 1856, Ebenezer Plympton deeded the part of his lot north of what became Plympton Street (land enclosed by present day Farnsworth Avenue, Farnsworth street – running in front of the Plympton School, Bacon Street, and Plympton Street) to Daniel Carey as part of a mortgage (MLR b. 752, p. 158). It appears that the mortgage was foreclosed in 1857, and Carey took possession of the lot. Through a number of transactions, William A. Pratt acquired this lot in 1870, and began subdividing it into individual house lots.

In 1866, John Larkin acquired a small lot at the southwest corner of Bacon and Plympton Streets. Larkin acquired part of it from Francis Buttrick, who had acquired it from a tax taking by the town. Larkin obtained the other part of it from George W. Plympton, who had acquired it from a foreclosure on a mortgage Plympton had taken out with Josiah Beard in 1855. Larkin soon built a house on the lot, but it has since been removed. According to Sanborn fire insurance maps, the footprint of the house changed radically between 1897 and 1903, and then it was moved to 8-10 Plympton Street sometime after 1918. So the house at 8-10 Plympton Street was probably built (or radically changed) around 1900, and then moved to its present location after 1918.

In 1869, Andrew Brown sold a large part of the Plympton lands south of Plympton Street to James Gault. The lot stretched from today's No. 36 Plympton Street to No. 74 Plympton Street, inclusive. Brown had obtained the lot from George W. Plympton, who had obtained it from Daniel Carey, who had obtained it from Josiah Beard, after the foreclosure of a mortgage Plympton had taken out with Beard, in 1855. The Gault family farmed and developed the lot, and lived there for many years.

In 1873, Ebenezer and Olive Plympton sold the remaining southeast corner of their former large lot, including the original house at 128 Bacon Street, to James Pope. This land had just been returned to them by George W. Plympton, after having previously been lost in the foreclosure of the mortgage with Beard. Pope then subdivided the lot and sold off individual house lots, including those on Plympton Avenue.