North Andover farm house is older than Stevens Pond
This North Andover farmhouse was built before Stevens Pond existed. In fact, one of its stone wall boundaries is now under water.
The building sits on the land facing south toward the sun, on a rise catching the summer breeze, with its back to the cold.
It was built about 1805, reportedly for the coachman of M.T. Stevens. The house can be dated by the small evenly spaced windows,and the simple story-and-a- half shape with no ornamentation. The two story wing on the left is a mid-20th century addition. The glassed-in front porch was added around World War I.
I've photographed this house to show how it appeared in the 1800's, instead of showing you the front door.
In 1848, Simon Flanders sold the house with about 4 acres of land for $46 to Cato Freeman, a black man. Other black families lived in Andover, but we know about Cato Freeman because he left a record. His houses are recorded on both the 1830 and the 1852 town maps. ( The 1830 house no longer exists.)
There are references to him in memoirs of other citizens as well as his own writing. He was educated and respected member of the town. Born a slave, he was freed by the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. He lived with the Phillips family, who owned his parents, until he was 21. Mr. Freeman was a farmer. A permit issued to him in 1802 to pasture his cows on the Common, providing they caused no damage, still exists.
Mr. Freeman died at age 85 in 1853, leaving an estate of almost $1,000. His property was sold by his children and grandchildren to the Herberts.
Note: Charles Eastlake's opinion of Victorian taste as voiced in his Hints on Household Taste, quoted in Sunday Drive #28, should have read: "capicious and subject to constant variation".
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