The Bridge House
The Bridge house was built around 1748 by Matthew Bridge, who had been born in Lexington on 1 March 1694. He had married in 1719 Abigail Bowman, daughter of Nathaniel Bowman, another Lexington landowner. Matthew Bridge purchased the Waltham land from his father-in-law's estate just after Bowman's death in 1747. Before he moved to Waltham, Matthew Bridge had been in Lexington a selectman, assessor, town clerk and treasurer.
The Bridge property was situated at the current site of the former Metropolitan State Hospital. This land (Lot #9, 4th Squadron of the Great Dividends) was originally granted to John Page in 1636. In 1637, Page sold the land to Michael Barstow of Charlestown, who moved to Watertown by 1642. In 1671, Michael Barstow sold to John Traine 41 acres of upland being the ninth lot in the fourth division. John Traine in turn sold the land to George Lawrence in 1680. George Lawrence had settled along Trapelo Road in the 1650s, and purchased a number of lots over the years. In 1707, Lawrence sold most of this lot #9 to Nathaniel Bowman of Lexington.
After the death of Matthew Bridge in 1761, the property and house went to his son, Cornet Nathaniel Bridge, who had married Mary Fiske in 1753. Nathaniel Bridge was a Waltham selectman from 1767 to 1777, and was residing at this house during the American Revolution. A story handed down in the Bridge family claimed that Nathaniel Bridge had entertained George Washington at this house.
Nathaniel Bridge gave his son, William Bridge, one half of the estate upon William's marriage in 1784. This portion passed to William Bridge's daughters, Priscilla and Emma Bridge. In 1860, the two elderly women lived there with a young farmer, Benjamin T. Lane and his family.
Nathaniel Bridge continued to live in this house on the other half of the estate until his death in 1794. This portion and the house went to his daughter, Anna Bridge, who married Isaac Sanderson in 1801. In 1850, Isaac Sanderson lived in the house and owned 100 acres of improved land and 20 acres of unimproved land, valued at $10,000. Like other farmers in Waltham, Sanderson was engaged in mixed farming. In 1850, he had three horses, eleven milk cows, two oxen, three cattle, and four pigs. In that year, he raised ten bushels of rye, one hundred bushels of corn, two hundred bushels of potatoes, $75 of orchard fruit, $35 of market garden produce, and thirty tons of hay. From 1810 to 1849, a schoolhouse for the Trapelo district was located on Sanderson's land along Trapelo Road.
In 1855, Isaac Sanderson died without heirs, and the land was split among Asabel Bent, Dr. Ebenezer Hobbs, George Farrington and Jeremiah Sullivan. Sullivan may have lived in the former schoolhouse.
By 1875, the former Bridge house and estate was owned by farmer Martin Broderick, an Irish immigrant. In 1923, the farm was occupied by Martin Broderick's children, including Patrick Broderick, a well-known lawyer in Waltham. In 1915, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts started to buy up land along Trapelo Road to establish a state psychiatric hospital. A number of properties were taken by eminent domain, including that of Ernest DeVincent and Phinehas Lawrence. The Brodericks fought the land taking all the way to the state supreme court, and lost. By 1930, the Commonwealth had taken the Broderick land and house, and was building what was planned to be a modern psychiatric hospital located in a calming, healthful countryside. The hospital demolished the Bridge house within a few years, and built the hospital administrator's house, now called the McLaughlin house, at the same site. With the closure of the Metropolitan State Hospital, the reuse plan calls for the land to be sold to the City of Waltham for a municipal golf course. The McLaughlin house will be torn down when the golf course is built.
Timeline of Lot #9, 4th Squadron, Trapelo Road
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