Bullet Hole House
Concord Journal, September 1, 1938
The Story of an Old House by Hon. John S. Keyes tells the history of this house [now 242 Monument Street] so well that an outline is all that is necessary here.
John Smedley, who is first mentioned in the records in 1644, owned in 1664 as much as 668 acres in the north quarter, with a house lot of ten acres on the North Road, which then probably ran on the other side of the house. His house contained only two rooms and faced south. Its frame was oak, its boards very wide of hard pine.
John, Jr., the next owner, married Sarah Wheeler, daughter of Sergeant Thomas and Sarah Meriam Wheeler. He died in 1717 and probably added two rooms and the entry and staircase and the lean-to.
His daughter, Sarah, married Ebenezer Hartwell and lived in half the house, and when John died, and they owned the whole place, they sold it in 1724 to Samuel Jones who lived next door to the south. They moved to the Carlisle boundary on Lowell Road. Samuel Jones gave it to his son Thomas and he to his son Elisha.
Elisha was the owner in 1775, who had the British shot fired at him, as he stood in the doorway. He was storing 55 barrels of beef and eight tons of salt fish. His sons James and Abel inherited. James married the widow of Francis Barrett and she came to the old house with eight children. He died in 1838 and the house was bought by Nathan Barrett, who rented it to a succession of tenants.
Mrs. John S. Keyes bought it from Nathan Barret, enlarged and restored it. A marble mantel was placed in the parlor which has stood from 1815 to 1865 in the hall of the House of Representatives in Washington. Judge Keyes’ daughter occupied the house until recently.
Judge John S. Keyes was very much interested in Concord antiquarian lore. He brought Jarvis’ book on old houses up to 1885, with many additions and corrections. His anecdotes about the earlier members of the Social Circle add life and color to everything he wrote for the Memoirs. He was Chairman of the Committee for the Celebration of 1885.
To place a date on any of these very old houses is impossible in the absence of documentary evidence. This house was, it is likely, built in 1643, when John Smedley settled in Concord. It is equally probable that the old Wheeler house (15 Sudbury Road [now 99 Sudbury Road]) was built when John Scotchford first settled in Concord, and the Alcott-Orchard House when Edward Wright settled on the Bay Road, and the Block House for the first miller. It is doubtful if any of the houses, except perhaps Peter Bulkeley’s, had more than a single room with a loft above. They were enlarged by building a central brick chimney with another room beyond, and the next step was to raise the second story and add a lean-to. Bricks were made in Concord before 1660. The early chimneys of clay and wattles, with thatched roofs nearby, proved very dangerous.