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The Job Lane Farm is part of an early land grant that the Great and General Court of Massachusetts made to Governor John Winthrop and his Deputy, Thomas Dudley. In 1637, the two canoed down the Concord River to survey their land, and the two great boulders known as the Brothers Rocks stand today where they agreed to divide the land. Job (Laine) Lane (1620-1697), originally from Rickmansworth, England, and lately of Malden, acquired the land in 1664 from Governor Winthrop’s grandson, Fitz-John Winthrop. Mr. Laine, a housewright, paid the equivalent of £230 sterling for the Winthrop land by building him a mansion at New London, Connecticut. At that time, the land, consisting of 1500 acres, lay in the town of Billerica, and extended from what is now Sweetwater Avenue south to Bedford Center, east to Fawn Lake, and west in some places as far as the Concord River. The location of the house that Job built for his own family has never been located. Job passed the farm to his son, Major John Lane (1661-1714/15). When John died without a will, the court divided his land among his five children. Deacon Job Lane (1689-1762), John’s oldest son, built the present house on his parcel of land about the time of his marriage to Martha Ruggles in 1713. The house was half the size it is today, a saltbox consisting of three small rooms downstairs and a bedchamber and a garret above. |
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