Download - Munroe Tavern Historic Structures Report

HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT

THE MUNROE TAVERN

LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Deane Rykerson and Anne A. Grady January 2010

Munroe Tavern Historic Structure Report ____________________________________________________________________________________

Rykerson Architecture / Anne A. Grady January 2010

PROJECT TEAM

Owner Structural Engineer Lexington Historical Society Aberjona Engineering P.O. Box 514 One Mt. Vernon St. Third Fl. Lexington MA 02420 Winchester MA 01890 781 862 1703 781 729 7960 Architect HVAC/Elec/Plumbing/Fire Protect Engineer Rykerson Architecture R. W. Sullivan Engineering 1 Salt Marsh Lane 529 Main St., Suite 203 Kittery Point ME 03905 Boston MA 02129 207 439 8755 617 523 8227 [email protected] Architectural Historian Landscape Design Anne A. Grady Wendy M. Pomeroy Landscape Design 10 Trotting Horse Drive 1 Salt Marsh Lane Lexington MA 02421 Kittery Point ME 03905 781 862 8977 207 439 8791 [email protected]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to express their appreciation to Susan Bennett, Executive Director of the Lexington Historical Society, and to Elaine and Sam Doran of the Society for their assistance in the preparation of this report. We acknowledge the previous research on the Munroe Tavern and its owners by Mary Fuhrer and Polly Kienle, and we wish to thank Frederica Cushman for help with historic photographs.

This project was funded by a Lexington Community Preservation Act grant.

Cover: Drawing of the Munroe Tavern in the 1870s by Edwin Whitefield. Courtesy of Historic New England.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION - 1 II. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS - 2

III. SIGNIFICANCE A. Historical - 7 B. Architectural -8 IV. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS A. Title History - 9 B. History of Property Ownership, Occupancy and Use - 9 V. ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS A. Design Derivation - 19 B. Preliminary Dendrochronology Results - 20 C. Original Construction - 21 D. Overview of Changes Over Time - 24 E. Exterior Views of the Munroe Tavern Over Time - 31 F. Building History by Category – 38 1. Foundation and Site - 38 2. Framing and Exterior Walls - 40 3. Sash and Doors - 47 4. Roof, Gutters and Chimneys - 47 5. Interiors - 48 Room 001. Southwest Cellar - 48 Room 002. Southeast Cellar - 48 Room 003; Room 004. Crawlspace - 48 Room 101. Percy Room, Parlor - 48 Room 102. Front Stair Hall - 53 Room 103. Bar Room - 54 Room 104. Dining Room - 57 Room 105. Back Stair Hall - 59 Room 106. Side Hall - 60 Room 107. Shop, Small Parlor - 61 Room 108. Kitchen - 63 Room 109. Pantry - 64 Room 110. Lavatory - 64 Room 111. Garden Room - 64 Room 112. East Garden Room - 64 Room 201. Washington Room - 64 Room 202. Front Stair Hall Upper - 68 Room 203. Northeast Chamber, Bar Room Chamber - 68 Room 204. Storage Room East - 70



Room 205. Back Stair Hall - 70 Room 206. Office - 70 Room 207. Bathroom - 71 Room 208. Storage Room West - 70 Attic - 71 6. Utilities - 71 7. Paint - 72 8. Hardware - 73 VI. SURVEY OF PHYSICAL CONDITION - 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY - 109 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RECOMMENDATIONS - 112

APPENDIX - 114

Unless otherwise credited, all historic photographs illustrated are courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society

Pen and ink drawing of the Munroe Tavern as it appeared before 1859

by Edwin Graves Champney, artist, 1880.



Existing Cellar Plan with Room Numbers.



Existing First Floor Plan with Room Numbers.



Existing Second Floor Plan with Room Numbers.

Munroe Tavern: Historic Structure Report


1

I. INTRODUCTION This Historic Structure Report was undertaken as part of a larger project to repair and restore the Munroe Tavern and to implement measures to accommodate new building uses and accessibility. The information in the report is intended to serve as the basis for current and future preservation decisions regarding the Tavern. The project, following on the successful renovation of the Hancock-Clarke House in 2008, is the Lexington Historical Society’s second recent initiative to improve the care of its properties and collections and to provide for current programmatic and interpretive needs. The initial phase for research, design, architectural and engineering studies, and for preservation recommendations, presented in this report, was funded by Community Preservation Act funds of the Town of Lexington. The report was prepared in 2009.

“Old Munroe Tavern” as it appeared before 1859. Reproduced from Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, 1868.



2

II. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Munroe Tavern holds a prominent place in the history of the Town of Lexington for its role in the Revolution, as a long-lived tavern, and for the past 98 years, as a popular house museum. The property’s position on the main road to Concord early on established a pattern of public accommodation that continued for nearly 150 years. The size of the property, varying between 21 and 50 acres over time, provided acreage sufficient for farming. The owners, like nearly all the residents of Lexington, supplemented farming with other occupations to make a living. Although a recent dendrochronology study indicates that the earliest part of the present building was built in 1735, there were buildings on the property from the mid 1690s on. With the exception of a small seventeenth-century cellar hole uncovered northwest of the Tavern in 1984 and a few reused joists in the southeast cellar, virtually no physical remains of the earlier buildings and outbuildings survive above ground. The building of 1735 included the current front rooms and a lean-to behind where the kitchen was located. Remains of the kitchen fireplace at the back of the central chimney have recently been discovered.

Kitchen fireplace evidence uncovered September 2009. Wooden portion at top is apparently the remains of the mantelpiece. Bricks below fill in previous firebox.

Paul Doherty, photographer. The history of ownership and use of the tavern property and of important events in the history of the site is described in the Historical Analysis section of this report. Highlights of the Tavern’s history include the role of William Munroe (1742-1827), later Col. Munroe, in the events of April 18-19, 1775, and the Tavern’s occupation by Earl Percy and his soldiers for two hours on the afternoon of the nineteenth. These redcoats destroyed stores of liquor and furniture, set a fire that was quickly extinguished, and killed caretaker, John Raymond, while a terrified Anna Munroe and her children hid in the woods behind the house. George Washington’s visit to dine at the Tavern on Nov. 5, 1789, was the next event of note. The construction of the large Masonic



3

Hall on the north side of the Tavern in 1798 (demolished in 1860) added a new dimension to the history of the building, offering as it did space for lectures, entertainments and sleeping accommodations, when not in use by the Masons. Though intermittently at first, the property was used as a tavern from 1713 until 1850. As such it embodies an important chapter in the history of the Town. Because of its location on travel routes from the north and being only a day’s walk from the stockyards in Brighton, Lexington became the locus of twelve taverns primarily serving drovers. This was a major enterprise in town until eclipsed by the coming of the railroad in 1846. For 75 years, the Munroe Tavern benefited from having particularly genial hosts in William Munroe and Jonas Munroe, who operated the Tavern from 1774 to 1820 and from 1820 to1850, respectively. After Jonas Munroe’s death in 1860, the Tavern became a private residence when it was inherited by his son, William Henry. Although William H. Munroe rented out most of the rooms, he maintained the former bar room and the chamber above for his own use until his death in 1902. By 1875, in a period of increasing interest in the American past, the Tavern was becoming known as an icon of the American Revolution. Mr. Munroe opened the tavern to various interested groups, most notably the newly formed Lexington Historical Society in 1889. As part of the celebration of the centennial of Washington’s visit to the Tavern, 200 to 300 people visited the building on the anniversary of his visit. The Munroe Tavern came to the Lexington Historical Society in 1911. With minimal restoration, the four front rooms and what was described as “the great rambling garret”1 were opened to the public. Donations of furniture and artifacts from the Munroe family and from the period of the Revolution enhanced the appeal of the Tavern. Travel by automobile was becoming a popular method of touring at the time. Tearooms, such as the one briefly at the Tavern between 1911 and 1913, arose at historic sites to serve these travelers and others. A series of photographs by Burr Church, prolific photographer of Lexington sites, show the rooms as they were installed a decade after the building was opened to the public. The Architectural Analysis section of the report covers the building’s evolution and repair from the time of its construction in 1735 until the present. The first enlargement of the original building was the addition of the two-story southwest ell, likely built in the early 1770s. Within a few years, a new roof was built over both new and old portions of the building. The next change came in 1860 when the exterior was remodeled by the reduction of the number of windows, the removal of the lean-to and its replacement by a two-story structure under a nearly flat roof. The front and side doorways may have been remodeled a few years earlier. Portions of the interior were “Victorianized” in 1860. The addition of a shed on the center part of the west wall followed shortly thereafter. We are fortunate to have a series of photographs of interiors taken by Edwin Graves Champney, resident of the Tavern from 1880 to 1895. Though somewhat blurred, the photos are a valuable record of the changes to the interiors in 1860 and the subsequent Champney years. By comparison with the present interiors, we can identify changes made after 1895 that otherwise might be mistaken for early features.

1 Unidentified news clipping, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library.



4

Percy Room, c. 1888 with Margaret Champney, born 1882. Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.

In 1939 the exterior was returned to its early appearance based on evidence in a pre-1859 photograph. New reproduction windows and doorways were installed to reflect the placement and design of those shown in the photograph. Some interior restoration occurred as well, most notably the replacement of Victorian doors in the front rooms with old doors brought in from elsewhere. It was not until 1950 that the Society began to charge admission of $0.35 to the Tavern. Before that, maintenance was supported by donations and sale of postcards. Maintenance efforts over the past 98 years by the Lexington Historical Society have included the installation and/or updating of utilities, introduction of fire safety measures, maintenance of roof gutters and chimneys, and major replacement of clapboards in 1939, the 1950s and 1993. There were substantial repairs to the sills and cellar beams in 1968. Since 1939, the exterior of the tavern has been repainted a number of times, always in what has become known as Munroe red. The section devoted to individual rooms and building components provides more detail on repairs and changes. In the Appendix is a timeline of documentary references regarding ownership, occupancy, important events, architectural changes, and repairs to the Munroe Tavern upon which much of the text of this report is based.



5

Recommendations for Further Research Though, remarkably, the dating of a single timber in the cellar by dendrochronology seems to indicate a logical construction date for the original part of the building, more dating results are needed to confirm that date and to date the changes to the building. During the renovations to the northwest portion to the building and when the contents are removed from the attic, framing previously inaccessible will be available for sampling. The areas under and around the west ell and in the crawl space under the northwest portion of the building, which will be impacted by the renovation of the building, have the potential to reveal important information about the history about the Tavern and its owners. Archaeology in these areas should be undertaken. Preservation Recommendations - Details in ‘Part II – Existing Conditions and Building Needs’ Site: The site has undergone various interventions to allow access to the museum and to direct water away from the foundation. The many mature trees impede experiencing an eighteenth century landscape. Besides accommodations for wheelchair access to the museum, and thinning of the trees and shrubs, site alterations should include removing concrete slabs, inappropriate paving materials, metal pipe rails, wood timber retaining curbs, and the metal trellis. Structure: The structure is fairly sound with the exception of some connections, one overstressed first floor beam, some undersized floor joists at the second floor, and some roof purlins. The main timber frame structure shows no excessive deterioration and has been repaired through most of its existence. Building exterior: The clapboard replacement in the 1990’s has left the cladding in good condition. The roof surface, although functional, would look more appropriate in wood shakes. Various systems, venting, and services that are no longer functional have left a variety of pipes, alarms, wiring, and fasteners that should be removed. The gutters are in poor condition and not integral with the corrugated downspouts. Gutters should be replaced. Downspouts with a round profile leading to drywells would improve function and appearance. The basement windows and pest screening are in poor shape. The basement windows should be replaced and screening removed. Building envelope and interior environment: The windows and doors are in fairly good condition and some interior storm windows exist. All windows should have winter interior storm panels; ultraviolet screening is desirable. There is no insulation in the walls, floors or attic. The basement crawlspaces allow extremely humid air in the building in the summer, endangering the finishes and collection. Sealing the open soil is important. Insulation could be added to the attic floor without detriment. Summer dehumidification and winter humidification would improve the indoor environment.



6

Systems: The 1927 sprinkler system is inadequate and outmoded. Replacement with concealed piping is recommended. An integral climate control system would be valuable for the building. Wiring is outmoded and not safe; it should be completely changed. A new water service and piping is also recommended. Smoke and heat detectors and the security system should be replaced. Lighting: There are a variety of fixtures, modern, replica, and utilitarian. A full lighting scheme will be proposed with appropriate fixtures.



7

III. A. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE The Munroe Tavern, one of Lexington’s oldest buildings, is significant for its role in several aspects of the Town’s history. Constructed in 1735, it has served the public on a nearly continuous basis as a retail shop, a tavern, and after 1911 as a museum. Its use reflects the important place that taverns held in colonial and early American life, as venues for exchange of information and discussion, and for sustenance and community. As one of the few remaining buildings of the twelve establishments that were in operation at the height of the tavern business in Lexington, it stands for one of the most important and profitable enterprises in the history of the Town. Drovers, who herded hundreds of animals at a time from northern New England farms, found Lexington an ideal stopping place, being a day’s walk from the stockyards in Brighton. By 1806 three main travel routes from the north passed through Lexington. It was not until the late 1840s, when new railroad connections with the north brought the tavern business to a virtual halt in Lexington, that the Town lost this important economic resource. Even if the tavern connection did not exist, the Munroe Tavern would be one of the most significant buildings in Lexington for its place in the events of April 19, 1775 at the beginning of the American Revolution. Earl Percy commandeered the Tavern for his headquarters and as a place to treat wounded redcoats on the retreat from Concord on the afternoon of the nineteenth. The dramatic story of the plundering of the tavern supplies, the killing of the temporary caretaker, and the narrow escape from death of Anna Munroe is one of the most vivid examples of the suffering incurred by townspeople on that day. The association of the property with William Munroe, who, as orderly sergeant of the Lexington Minutemen, played an important role in several events of April 18-19, 1775, adds to the significance of the Tavern. The Tavern property’s use as a working farm for over 150 years reflects another important component of Lexington’s history. Lexington was a farming town until well into the nineteenth century. Farming was a necessity for subsistence as few residents were of more than average means. The Munroe Tavern, the second building acquired by the Lexington Historical Society, opened as a museum in 1911. Like the Hancock-Clarke House, the Tavern museum is enhanced by the presence of objects and artifacts associated with 1775 and with the Munroe family. The current interpretation of the redcoats allows for a balanced presentation of the events of April 19, 1775. For over two hundred years the Munroe Tavern property has been associated with important events and people while being the locus of a number of business enterprises including retail sales, coopering, potash making, joinery, farming, in addition to its over 75 years as a tavern. All of these aspects have left their mark on the property. Additional impacts surely remain to be discovered.



8

III. B. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE The Munroe Tavern, when built in 1735, was a saltbox building with modest Georgian detailing. As such it bespeaks the changing architectural tastes in the second quarter of the eighteenth century when people were turning away from Post-medieval architecture toward the Georgian style newly introduced into New England. Remaining original features of the building such as a staircase embellished with turned balusters, a chimneybreast adorned with fielded panels, and exposed framing decorated with a bead along the edges of the timbers illustrate how new motifs were incorporated into houses, which in other ways were not different from earlier architecture. A hall/parlor house with a central chimney and kitchen in the rear, the Munroe Tavern was slightly asymmetrical in plan and retained the small entry of seventeenth century buildings in the region. The house was large for its time, being two-and-one-half stories in height with added space in the lean-to. An outstanding feature of the house is the layering of history embodied in architectural changes over time. From the first enlargement in the 1770s through the restoration of the late 1930s, the house was modified to meet changing architectural fashions and occupants’ new requirements for comfort and convenience. The Tavern now reflects multiple periods and owners over time. The small parlor, built during Col. William Munroe’s ownership, retains some of its 1770s trim. Col. Munroe updated the bar room mantel in the Federal period c. 1790-1800. In 1860, his grandson, William Henry Munroe, “Victorianized” the interior with new doors and door frames, rebuilt the northwest portion as two stories, closed up fireplace, put in heating stoves, and added a bathroom. He, or his father, reduced the number of windows on the exterior and added new doorways. The work of 1939 on the interior removed some of the 1860 features and installed old doors from other buildings in the front rooms. The exterior was returned to its early appearance by the installation of reproduction eighteenth century doors and windows like those shown in a pre-1859 photograph. The restoration was needed, according to Edwin Worthen, Jr. because the building was “A landmark with an altered face to the world.”2 In summary, the Munroe Tavern, one of the oldest buildings in Lexington, is a valuable resource for understanding the Georgian architecture of the original building, the accretions and changes that made it pleasing and functional for subsequent owners, and mid-twentieth century restoration practices.

Baluster detail, Munroe Tavern. 2 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr., and S. Lawrence Whipple. A Brief History of the Lexington Historical Society on the Observance of its One-Hundredth Anniversary, 1886- 1896 (Lexington: Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1986), 50.



9

IV. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS A. Title History

1693 John Poulter 169? Ebenezer Nutting 1697 Isaac Johnson 1699 John Comee 1719 John Comee/David Comee 1729 David Comee 1738 John Overing 1747 John Buckman, Sr. 1768 John Buckman, Jr. 1770 William Munroe 1827 Jonas Munroe 1860 William H. Munroe 1902 James S. Munroe 1911 Lexington Historical Society

B. History of Property Ownership, Occupancy and Use John Poulter In 1693 Edward Pelham sold to John Poulter 212 acres with no house (no deed recorded).3

3 Albert W. Bryant and Maurice Canavan both cite the transfer of 212 acres from Edward Pelham to John Poulter in 1693, without giving a source. See Albert W. Bryant, “The Munroe Tavern,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. III (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1904): 142; and Maurice J. Canavan, “Some Old Lexington Estates and Houses along Concord Road and the Descent of the Munroe Tavern From Edward Pelham to William Munroe, 1770,” p. 3. Typescript transcription of original manuscript, 1929. Accession #3761, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



10

Ebenezer Nutting At some point between 1693 and 1697 Poulter sold to Ebenezer Nutting, who is believed to have built the first house (no deed recorded).4 Isaac Johnson In 1697 Ebenezer Nutting sold to Isaac Johnson 50 acres, shop and small dwelling house.5 John Comee Born in Concord, John Comee (1665-1729) settled in Lexington while it was still Cambridge Farms. In 1688 he married Martha Munroe (1667-1730), daughter of William Munroe, the first Munroe to settle in what would become Lexington. They had six children, including David (1696-1800?), who was to inherit the Tavern property. In 1699 John Comee purchased the Tavern property, described in the deed as 50 acres with a small dwelling house and a shop, from Isaac Johnson. The deed calls John Comee a husbandman, but in 1713, he must have been operating a tavern because the Town Records of the newly established Town of Lexington indicate that on March 1, 1714/1715, the selectmen directed the Town Treasurer “to reckon with Mr. Comee for what the selectmen spent in the house last year.”6 Martha Munroe Comee certainly shared in running the Tavern. Thus we can say that the Munroe family was involved in innkeeping at the Tavern site as early as 1713. Comee is not listed as an innkeeper after 1713, however. By 1719, we know that there was new construction on the site. In that year, John Comee, deeded the southerly part of his house to his son, David, “being all the old end with cellar and lean-to.”7 In 1728, David Comee began offering services to the public again when he was approved as a retailer. Retailer in those days meant seller of spirits and such staples as molasses and sugar. David Comee continued as a retailer until 1735 when he, too, became a tavern keeper. The date 1735 for the renewed tavern use of the site correlates nicely with the construction date for the front part of the present house, as indicated by dendrochronology. David Comee’s new house included a lean-to across the back to house the kitchen. Canavan mentions that Comee sold a house in 1732 on the east corner of what is now Bloomfield Street, which suggested that he might not have been living in the tavern. We have no way of knowing if his retail shop was on the Tavern property, but certainly by 1735 David Comee must have run the Tavern on the current Munroe Tavern property, as it is unlikely that a renter would have built the new house. After interim ownership from 1738 to 1747 by John Overing, whose use of the property is undocumented, John Buckman, Sr., a housewright, purchased the property. From 1752 until his death in 1768, John Buckman kept a retail shop there. Mary Fuhrer in her research on families of men who fought in the Battle of Lexington, says that John Buckman, Sr., despite his occupations as a keeper of the retail store, housewright and potash maker, was not a wealthy

4 Again Bryant and Canavan cite no source for this transfer, but John Poulter witnessed the next transfer of the land from Ebenezer Nutting to Isaac Johnson in 1697, indicating that he was aware that Nutting held title to the property. 5 Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, Bk. 12: Pg. 85 (hereafter only book and page cited). 6 Excerpts of the Town Records of Lexington regarding taverns and retail shops, transcribed by Edwin B. Worthen from Mina K. Goddard’ handwritten transcription of the Town Records. Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 7 John Comee to David Comee. Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, 19-13.



11

man. “In 1750, when he was 33 years old, he ranked in the bottom third of Lexingtonians in assessed wealth.”8 John Buckman, Sr. would seem to have prospered by the time of his death in 1768, when his estate was valued at £545 including land worth £267 and personal estate worth £278. However, there were debts worth £463 against the estate. John, Jr. had to sell his father’s house, the land, and most of his possessions to pay the debts. He ended up with an inheritance of £90, which he shared with his 13-year-old sister, who was also his ward.9 As luck would have it, very soon John Buckman, Jr.’s financial position improved, thanks in part to an epidemic that carried off not only his father and mother, but also the father of his fiancée, Ruth Stone, whom he married in July of 1768. The Stone family operated a tavern near the meetinghouse in the center of Lexington; John Buckman, Jr. stepped in to run it after his marriage. Renamed the Buckman Tavern, the former Stone Tavern continued under Buckman’s proprietorship and went on to play an important role in the events of April 19, 1775. William Munroe In September 1768, William Munroe leased the future Munroe Tavern property from John Buckman, Jr., and in May of 1769, he received approval to continue the retail store. We know this from court records that state, “The Court grants License to William Munroe to be a Retailer in Lexington the remaining part of this year in the House in which John Buckman was licensed in September last, the said Wm Munroe having hired the house.”10 It was not until October 1770 that William Munroe purchased the property described as “a mansion house, barn, woodhouse, with ¾ of a potash-house and works thereto belonging, and 26 acres of land.”11 On October 10, 1774 William Munroe received approval to open a tavern. 12 William Munroe (1742-1827) was the great grandson of the original Scottish settler, who came to this colony in 1651 as an indentured servant and settled in the area of town known as Scotland near the Woburn line. The parents of William Munroe of the Tavern were respected citizens of average resources. His father was a farmer and shoemaker. His mother, Sarah Mason Munroe (1714-1785), taught a dame school. One of the family’s few luxuries, apparently, was to have a portrait of the father painted by John Greenwood of Boston. William, the future tavern owner, was four when his father died. His mother subsequently married Isaac Bowman, the wealthiest person in town. William may have enjoyed luxuries while living in the Bowman household with his mother, but his inheritance would come from his father’s estate, which he shared with his five siblings. As a younger son, he could not expect to inherit his father’s land. Land of enough acreage to farm successfully was becoming increasingly scarce in Lexington, and estate

8 Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for John Buckman, Jr. 9 Ibid. 10 Records of the Middlesex County Court of General Sessions of the Peace, May 16, 1769, as quoted in Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe. 11 Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, 75-401. 12 Lexington Town Records, as cited in Richard Kollen, “Was Col. William Munroe’s establishment a tavern in 1775?” Paper in the Lexington Historical Society Archives.



12

administrators frequently recommended that the eldest son receive the land in exchange for buying out the shares of other heirs. As a young man, William Munroe was apprenticed to a cooper. Meanwhile, William’s older brother, Edmund, in 1758 joined the Rogers Rangers, an independent company of men who served as scouts and rangers in the French and Indian War. Three years later Edmund recruited William and a number of Lexington men for the Rangers. Soldiering was one way for younger Lexington sons to accumulate money to buy land and set themselves up in life. William served until 1763. From then until 1768, when he leased the Tavern property from John Buckman, Jr., William, apparently worked as a cooper. In 1767 or 1768 he married Anna Smith (1742-1781).13 They would have six children before Anna’s death, after which William married Polly Rogers. William Munroe’s role as an orderly sergeant for the Lexington minutemen on April 19, 1775 is well documented, as is his standing guard at the Hancock-Clarke House with eight minutemen on the night of April 18 to protect Samuel Adams and John Hancock. His deposition given in 1825 for Elias Phinney’s History of the Battle of Lexington gives some details of his long absence from the Tavern and movements after Hancock and Adams were warned that the regulars were marching from Boston and that they were in danger of arrest. For their safety, Munroe said, “It was thought advisable that Hancock and Adams should withdraw to some distant part of Town. . . . I conducted them to the north part of town and then returned to the meetinghouse about 2:00 o’clock in the morning. . . . Between daylight and sunrise, Capt. Thadeus Bowman rode up and informed that the regulars were near. The drum was then ordered to be beat, and I was commanded by Capt. Parker to parade the company.”14 William Munroe goes on to describe the confrontation by the meetinghouse, the order for the minutemen to retreat, which not all of them did, and the departure of the regulars for Concord. During the day, Sergeant Munroe saw to the transfer of prisoners taken in North Lexington to Woburn or Chelmsford. Meanwhile Earl Percy occupied the Munroe Tavern as his headquarters and a place to treat wounded soldiers for two hours in the afternoon of the day. The soldiers destroyed furniture, ate food stores, consumed or emptied barrels of liquor, and shot John Raymond who had been left in charge of the Tavern. Before they left, they piled furniture in the bar room and set it afire intending to burn the building down. Fortunately Anna Munroe’s father, Jonas Smith, was nearby and put out the fire. All the while a frightened Anna Munroe and her small children were hiding in the woods west of the tavern. It was not until after the redcoats left the Tavern that William Munroe returned to his home to find the destruction of the contents and the body of John Raymond. Later William Munroe submitted a damage claim for damages to his property worth £160.15 Munroe served later in the Revolution with the Northern Army. By the time of

13 The information in the foregoing paragraph comes from Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe. See the complete entry in the Appendix. 14 William Munroe Deposition, 1825, in Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington on the Morning of the 19th of April, 1775 (1825. Reprint; Lowell, Massachusetts: Society for the Preservation of Colonial Culture, 1968. 15 Damage Claims submitted to Provincial Congresses of Massachusetts, as quoted in Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe.



13

Shay’s Rebellion in 1787, he was Col. Munroe leading the Lexington Minutemen toward Springfield to help put down that uprising. Mary Fuhrer, a social historian, and the staff of the National Heritage Museum did research in 2002 and 2003 on Lexington families of men involved in the Revolution for the exhibit, Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution at the National Heritage Museum.16 By comparing probate, tax and court records, Fuhrer and her colleagues were able to come up with profiles of these families. Their research indicated that the population of Lexington at the time of the Revolution was 852 in upwards of 120 households, with an average of 6.8 persons per household. The population was relatively homogenous and the people were of average means. The number of animals and improved land owned by most townsmen was just above subsistence.17 Also by the time of the Revolution farmland was becoming less fertile because much of it had been farmed for 50 or more years. Families took such measures as adding supplementary occupations and, as previously stated, limiting inheritance of land to one son. Lexington was apparently different from Concord, where there was more wealth and more controversy among supporters of the revolutionary cause and loyalists. For the period between 1769 and 1796 of William Munroe’s occupancy, we are fortunate to have two ledgers and a day book in which he kept a record of clients and transactions with them of both sales and purchases. The two alphabetized ledger volumes date to 1769 to 1776, and 1770s and 1780s respectively. A daybook from 1787 to 1796, records retail sales and tavern transactions on a daily basis. These records are a valuable resource for understanding Col. Munroe’s business and the network of neighbors, townspeople and others with whom he traded. We are indebted to Polly Kienle, who transcribed all three of the volumes in 2007-2008.18 William Munroe seems to have dealt in various kinds of merchandise, not just the typical

16 Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. 17 Ibid. 18 Here are Polly Kienle’s notes on the volumes and their Lexington Historical Society Archives accession numbers. 2116, daybook of Col. William Munroe 1787-1796. A hand-bound folio (H 16 1⁄2“, W 7 1/3”, bound with 11 stitches of twine through middleweight paper; light cardboard binding, dog-eared; complete – cover present; cover full of doodles. Not paginated; each page is dated. This date does not apply to the whole page – rather, on most pages, each new date is entered at the far right. In this way, Munroe’s daily sales volume can be traced. The day book records not only retail sales, but also tavern transactions. Whether an entry was paid or not is recorded. Many entries have double score marks at the left side, perhaps indicating that these entries have been transferred into the account book. The pages are hand-lined – each line records the customer’s name, the item/s sold and the amount of sale. Both sides of the pages are written on. Written in ink in two different hands, one of which is William Munroe’s. 2118 Ledger of Col. William Munroe 1769-1776 A hand-bound folio, three ties through thick, rough paper; leather binding, now curled; stitches on binding suggest that there may have been a (paper?) cover sewn to the ledger folios; clearly pages are missing – both front and back, i.e. outer leaves of folio; also some binding paste apparent where outer pages are missing Not paginated per se; accounts are numbered. The Contra and Due records for each customer’s account were recorded on the left and the right side of the open account book, respectively. Thus, the open book shows the contra page on the left and the due-to page on the right, even though the name of the customer and his/her account number appears on the top line of the right-hand page. The pages are lined at left and right to accommodate date (left) and sums (right); at top a line under name of customer. Written in ink in William Munroe’s hand. Ledger of Col. William Munroe (1770’s to 1780’s) # 2118, is the second ledger.



14

retailer’s supply of spirits and molasses. For example, he sold nails and joists to Dr. Fiske in 1773.19 A renowned event that occurred while Col. Munroe operated the Tavern was George Washington’s visit to dine there on Nov. 5, 1789, as part of the president’s tour through New England to assess the state of the region. Washington specifically chose to dine and stay at public houses where he could pay his own way. In 1798, a two-story addition, described as 20 to 30 by 60 feet in dimensions was built onto the north side of the Tavern to house the lodge of the newly organized Hiram Lodge of Masons. William Munroe was the first master of the Lodge. The Masonic hall was on the second floor. The layout of the hall is described in the Architectural Analysis section. An interesting description of the light source gives an explanation of how such large spaces were lighted at the time: For lighting purposes tallow candles were used. They were placed beside each window, in what was called a ‘candle holder.” This was made from a strip of tin fifteen inches in length and four inches wide. About four inches of one end was bent at a right angle, with a socket to hold the candle upright. This was suspended by a nail driven in the window casement; a pair of candle snuffers perfected the lighting appliances.20 A shop operated by Munroe was in the front (east) part of the first floor, with a cellar beneath it. There was a room behind the shop with a cooking fireplace and an oven. When not in use for Masonic meetings, the hall was available for entertainments, balls, and extra sleeping quarters for tavern guests. When the anti-Masonic movement of the 1830s caused the masons to cease holding meetings here, the hall was used for lyceum lectures and temperance meetings in addition to various kinds of entertainments. At some point a shed roofed tap room was built next to the bar room in front of the large ell. William Munroe, remained as proprietor of the Tavern until about 1820. He also continued as a leader in Lexington, serving for nine years as a selectman and for two years as a representative to the General Court. It is likely that Jonas Munroe (1778-1860) began to help out before he took over operation of the Tavern from his father. He married Abigail Cook in about 1814, and with their children arriving quickly (they would have five in all), Jonas was surely in need of a livelihood. The early nineteenth century was a busy time for tavern owners in Lexington. Taverns in Lexington William Munroe and his son, Jonas, who continued the tavern business until about 1850, were said to be genial hosts, well suited to be tavern keepers. They operated the tavern in the heyday of drovers bringing animals from New Hampshire and Vermont to markets in Boston. Edward P. 19 Ledger of Col. William Munroe, 1769-1776, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 20 Albert W. Bryant, “The Munroe Tavern,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. III (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1905): 148.



15

Bliss interviewed old residents and gave a paper on the taverns to the Historical Society in 1887. The old residents described seeing, “Ox-loads and the four, six, even eight, horse loads of the products of the once profitable farms of New Hampshire and Vermont – great wagons laden with grain or piled with wooden ware or packed with homespun woolens and many other commodities –- on the way to markets of Boston, or returning from the seaport with groceries, cotton goods, salt fish and many other necessities and luxuries that commerce brings from over the seas. . . . The roads were sometimes blocked with teams, and often at noon-time forty wagons would be drawn up before a tavern or the stores. Twelve taverns were none too many, and their accommodations were pressed to a degree unendurable to our habits.”21 By the first decade of the nineteenth century three routes used by drovers and stage coaches ran through Lexington, the Lowell Turnpike on the north, the Concord Turnpike on the south and the Concord Road through the center. The stagecoaches also provided clients for the Taverns. One account indicates that it was not unusual for drovers with hundreds of animals including horses, cattle, sheep and turkeys to stop for the night at a tavern. Drovers liked to stop in Lexington because it was a day’s walk to the stockyards in Brighton. They might stay two nights to rest their animals and clean them up. A typical tavern was the Viles Tavern operated by Joel Viles from 1820 to 1850. The tavern “was a large house, had long barns on one side for horses, and space in sheds on the other side for forty yoke of oxen, so much were those creatures then made of service.”22

Viles Tavern, 1827. Courtesy of Historic New England.

At the Munroe Tavern, according to Carrie Bacheller, “There were big barns with wide doors opening on what we now call Tavern Lane at the rear of the house. A hundred horses could be stabled in the barns and two or three hundred head of cattle could graze around the tavern. There were pens for the sheep. The turkeys driven in flocks through the roads to the Boston markets just before Thanksgiving would roost in the trees and on the tavern outbuildings.”23 21 Edward P. Bliss, “The Old Taverns of Lexington,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. I (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1890): 73. 22 Ibid., 79. 23 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodians Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 15.



16

The coming of the railroad to Lexington in 1846 with extensions to the north effectively terminated the tavern business as drovers took advantage of a cheaper and less arduous way to get their livestock to market. Jonas Munroe, by then in his seventies, closed the tavern shortly thereafter. When Jonas Munroe died in 1860, the property was inherited by his eldest son, William Henry Munroe (1815 - 1902). It was William, who remodeled the tavern to its present size and added Victorian trim. William, a bachelor and the treasurer of the New England Glass Works that was founded by his uncle Edmund Munroe, reserved the former bar room and the chamber above for his own use and rented out the rest of the house. In April 1875, the Tavern, becoming known for its association with the Revolution, was draped with bunting for the centennial celebration. Whether people were allowed to tour the Tavern on that day, as they were the Hancock-Clarke House on that day, is uncertain. It is also unknown how often William H. Munroe opened the house to visitors in this period of increasing interest in the American past and the icons of the Revolution. In 1888, 60 to 70 members of the Historical Society of Worcester toured the building.24 In 1889, on the centennial of George Washington’s visit, the newly formed Lexington Historical Society held a commemoration of the event that included displays in the house of items that were there at time of Washington’s visit. Other artifacts associated with the house, such as items from Anna Munroe’s trousseau, were also displayed. Two hundred to three hundred people attended. In 1893, fifty or sixty members of the Society of the Cincinnati, composed of descendants of officers in the American Revolution, were welcomed to the house.

Munroe Tavern draped in bunting for the Centennial of the Battle of Lexington in 1775. Note cleared land behind the Tavern and unpaved main road, now Massachusetts Avenue, in the

foreground. The men appear to have been hired to clean up the grounds for the celebration.

24 Edwin Graves Champney, Diary entry, June 6, 1888. Transcription by S. Lawrence Whipple, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



17

Edwin Graves Champney and family in the Percy Room at the Munroe Tavern, c. 1888.

Between 1880 and 1895, William Munroe leased the Tavern property to Edwin Graves Champney (1842-1899) and his wife. Their two children were born in 1882 and 1884. Champney, an artist, made drawings and a painting of the Tavern, kept a diary and, after 1887, took photographs of the Tavern, sometimes as background in photos of his children. These provide a rich history of his family’s occupancy of the tavern and the appearance of rooms in the Tavern at the time. There are interesting tidbits in the diary about the Lexington in the late nineteenth century. For example, Champney noted in July 1893 that men were “engaged in putting around the trunks of elm trees metal bands to prevent the ravages of canker worms,” a statement that now allows us to establish a benchmark in dating historic photographs. By the close of the nineteenth century, William H. Munroe had turned the former bar room more or less into a museum of tavern equipment and artifacts. In 1902, William Munroe died. His younger brother, James S. Munroe, carried out William’s wishes by offering the property to the Lexington Historical Society for a museum in 1911. The Society agreed to take on the building upon learning that little was required in the way of repairs and assuming that donations and sale of postcards would cover the cost of maintenance, as they did at the Society’s other house, the Hancock-Clarke House. As part of the refurbishing, a later fireplace was removed from the bar room and new wallpapers of suitable designs of the Revolutionary period were installed. The four front rooms and the garret were opened to the public in the summer of 1911. Briefly, a tearoom was operated in the tavern, but by 1913 it was given up for lack of suitable toilet room. In the early years, Carrie Bacheller was the custodian. A set of letters she sent to a Miss Thornton record further work done on the tavern, insights into her role as custodian and information about the times, such the effects of World War I and the closing of the tavern during the flu epidemic of 1918. In 1914, she reported that the exterior of the house had been repainted grey with green shutters and white window sash, much to the delight of the guide staff.



18

Bar room in 1899. Note electrical fixture in ceiling.

Historical Society council members found after the work was completed that “the Tavern now presents a handsome and dignified appearance.”25 The next major event in the life of the Tavern was the restoration of the exterior of the building to its pre-1859 appearance based on a daguerreotype supposedly of that date. The work, considered as early as 1936, was carried out in 1939 according to designs by Edwin B. Worthen, Jr., a graduate of the MIT School of Architecture in 1930. In 1950, the Society decided to charge admission to the Tavern for the first time, perhaps to defray repair costs. The charge was $0.35. In 1976, the Tavern was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of a district with the Sanderson House. In 1984, the Society, contemplating the rebuilding of the Masonic Hall structure for new curatorial uses, became interested in locating the footprint of the hall. Roland Robbins was hired to make archaeological investigations of the property. He did not locate the Hall’s foundations but he did find the cellar under the store, a small seventeenth century cellar hole to the west, a stone paved roadway leading to the rear of the house, and a well at the north side of the garden room. His findings emphasize the layers of history that are found in the ground and the buildings of this storied and significant site.

25 Minutes of the Council of the Lexington Historical Society, May 16, 1915. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



19

V. ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS A. Design Derivation The Munroe Tavern of 1735 embodied the shift toward Georgian architecture that occurred in New England in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Though nearly contemporaneous with the Hancock-Clarke House, the Tavern, in keeping with the status of its builder, was a more modest example of the new trend. Unlike the Rev. Hancock, who as minister was at the top of the social hierarchy in Lexington, David Comee was a relatively young man of average means. His house lacked the elaborate paneling and cased beams of the Rev. Hancock’s house. Nevertheless, Comee’s building was of substantial size for its time and incorporated Georgian features such as a staircase with turned balusters, beaded trim on the exposed framing, molded exterior window heads of some elaboration, and chimneybreasts that included the fielded panels that were a hallmark of the style. On the original front doorway, shown in a copy of a pre-1859 daguerreotype, there is a hint of the classical orders in the pilasters that support the pedimented entablature above. In plan, the house is trending toward the ideal of classical symmetry, though the tavern’s plan is still slightly asymmetrical. The design of the original tavern building was an early, if modest, attempt to incorporate features of the newly popular style. As such it reflected stylistic ideals of Georgian architecture that had their origins in the Italian Renaissance’s interpretation of classical antiquity.

Detail showing original front doorway of the Munroe Tavern as shown in a pre-1859 daguerreotype.

Courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society.



20

V. B. Preliminary Dendrochronology Results On May 18, 2009, Dr. Daniel Miles of the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory in England took core samples from seventeen oak timbers in the Munroe Tavern.26 Dendrochronology is the science of dating timbers by comparing the pattern of tree rings in an undated timber to a reference chronology composed of the average ring width patterns for a particular species of tree in a region. Oak is the only species of timber that currently can be dated by dendrochronology in Eastern New England. Dendrochronology can identify the calendar year in which the tree that was the source of a timber was felled. Because carpenters of early New England buildings preferred to use unseasoned timbers that were easier to work, construction of the buildings normally began in the year that the source trees were felled or shortly thereafter. At the Tavern, oak timbers were found in the cellar, the attic and as ceiling joists above Room 107 in the southwest ell and as selected joists elsewhere. Pine timbers, however, make up the majority of the framing of the front (east) rooms of the house; rafters and most purlins in the attic are also pine. Although the extensive use of pine for framing in the 1730 is not surprising given that oak supplies were diminishing by then, the limited number of accessible oak timbers made dating the components of the house more difficult. Ideally, a dendrochronology study should include ten samples for each phase of construction with 100 or more tree rings per sample that extend to the outermost layer under the bark. That number of samples is needed because, even under the best circumstances, some timbers do not date. Also, some timbers will date one-to-three years earlier than the majority of timbers in a building. This, apparently, is because timber framers used up pieces available in their framing yards. Preliminary information from Dr. Miles indicates that eight of the seventeen core samples taken from framing in the Tavern yielded interpretable dates. A beam in the cellar that ran under the north wall of the Percy Room dated to 1735. This beam is believed to represent the date that the front part of the house was built. The beam is partly embedded in the chimney foundation and the chimney shows evidence of being integral to the construction of that part of the house. Five joists in the floor of the Percy Room dated to 1699-1700. Some of the joists were framed into the 1735 beam. These joists must have been reused from an earlier structure, as it would be difficult in this situation to frame a beam from 1735 into a pre-existing structure from 1700. Also, no other elements of the house suggest construction in 1700. A single dated timber is not generally accepted as giving a reliable construction date for a building. However, given the fact that the framing decoration and surviving finish materials in the house are also consistent with a date in the 1730s, the 1735 date seems plausible for construction of the front part of the house. As will be explained below, c. 1772 is the suggested construction date for the roof over the front rooms. In the future, confirmation of these presumptive dates might be gained by sampling timbers in the crawl space and other places not now accessible, or by sampling the pine timbers in the house. (A reference chronology for pine in eastern Massachusetts is currently being developed.) 26 Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, Mill Farm, Mapledurham, Oxfordshire, England RG4 7TX. Web site: Dendrochronology.com.



21

V. C. Original Construction

Copy of a daguerreotype of the Munroe Tavern before 1859, believed to show the façade of the Tavern as

it was originally built. The image served as the basis for the restoration of the building in 1939. The tap room, of unknown construction date, and ell, built in 1798, are shown on

the right-hand side of the building. Courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society.



22

Pre-1959 photograph of the Munroe Tavern showing the façade as it is believed to appeared originally.

Note bare hillside behind the Tavern, an indication of the farm use of the property. Courtesy of Historic New England.

When David Comee opened his new house of 1735 as an inn, we believe it was a two-story house of two-room plan with a lean-to across the back, a central chimney and a gable roof with the ridge parallel to the Concord Road, as Massachusetts Avenue was known at the time. We have no way of knowing whether any of the previous building components on the site,



23

referenced in deeds, remained in use. As previously stated, there are some framing members in the cellar that appear to be timbers reused from earlier buildings, but these do not represent any cohesive remains from another structure. Moreover, the decoration of framing members and surviving finish materials in the front rooms above the cellar is characteristic of construction in the 1730s. There has been so much replacement of exterior elements on the house since 1859 that we have to rely on two photos taken prior to that date for information about what the house looked like before then (see photographs on the previous two pages). The house of 1735 apparently had a clapboarded exterior with slim corner boards. The windows were vertically sliding sash with 6/9 lights, and were vertically aligned in the five bays of the façade. The windows on the first level had relatively pronounced molded window heads. Window heads on the second level were suggested by portions of the cornice that was brought forward over the windows. The front and south side doorways had pedimented entablatures over five transom lights and pilasters on either side of the door. The entry on the main facgade facing the road was a small stair hall giving access to the rooms on either side on both levels. The stair trim of relatively thick turned balusters and a handrail molded on the side facing the hall, was in keeping with staircase design of the 1730s and was the most elaborate decorative feature in the house. Original features survive on three fireplaces; only in the parlor was the original trim completely removed. In the bar room the cupboards over the fireplace with paneled doors were part of the original chimneybreast. The fireplaces in the chambers appear to have their original trim except for the architrave around the firebox in the bar room chamber, which may have been replaced. The rest of the fireplace walls and the outer walls in all front rooms were plastered, with the possible exception of the outer walls in the parlor. There are two references to vertical sheathing pieces found when the parlor walls were opened up for repairs. Unfortunately, no description of the sheathing e.g., plain, feather-edge or shadow-molded, which might give an indication of its installation date, was recorded. The ceiling heights in the front rooms are, at 74 inches, relatively low for the period of construction. Framing in the corners of the rooms and in the ceilings is exposed and finished, more or less carefully, with a simple bead along the edges of the timbers, again characteristic of the 1730s unless an owner was able to afford cased framing as at the Hancock-Clarke House. Virtually no original doorframes remain from the 1730s; most were replaced in 1860 by frames with a beveled backband mitered at the corners. The only surviving original door from 1735 in the house may be the door to the attic. All the Georgian style doors now in the front rooms were brought in from elsewhere in 1939. That there was a lean-to serving as the kitchen across the west side of the 1735 house from the beginning, as indicated in family reminiscences reported by Carrie Bacheller in 1924, seems believable. We have now confirmed the presence of the remains of a kitchen fireplace behind the east wall of the current dining room. That the lean-to was built at the same time as the front rooms is indicated by the fact that the flue of the former kitchen fireplace at the back of the central chimney (as viewed in the attic) is completely integrated into the chimney stack, which dates from the original construction. Another reason for thinking that there was a lean-to kitchen is that neither of the fireplaces in the front rooms lent themselves to cooking.



24

V. D. Overview of Changes Over Time Early 1770s The first change was, apparently, the construction of the southwest two-story ell, Rooms 106, 107 and 206. There are several reasons for attributing the construction of this ell, long believed to be the earliest part of the house, to William Munroe’s ownership after 1770. Surviving elements of woodwork in the room are characteristic of the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The joists in the floor of Room 206 are deep, narrow, sawn oak framing members, often used in the period around 1770. The construction perhaps anticipated that renewed use of the building as a tavern in 1774 would create a need for more space. In addition, two oak purlins in the east roof frame dated by dendrochronology to 1772; thus that part of the roof is believed to have been built then, possibly in conjunction with other construction. Further confirmation that William Munroe may have been building something then is found in entries for building materials that he purchased in the early 1770s. Specifically, he paid for carting bricks in 1770, and in 1771 he paid an astonishing £128 for boards. It should be remembered, however, that in the early years of his retail business he was also acquiring building materials to sell, as when he sold nails and joists to Dr. Fiske in 1773.27 The ell may have replaced the south end of the lean-to, or an earlier structure in that location.28 The framing under the first floor of the ell, unlike the uniform deep narrow joists of the floor above, is a mixture of timbers that does not suggest any known date and could not be dated by dendrochronology. The southwest ell is served by its own chimney with fireplace on the first floor only. On the left side of the small fireplace in Room 107 some raised field paneling consistent with the c. 1770 date remains in place. The chimneybreast itself, however, has been altered several times since then. The confusing evidence presented in the inventory of John Buckman, Sr.’s estate after his death in 1768 should be noted. Though the inventory is not room-by-room, a number of rooms are mentioned in the list of his possessions; the rooms are not likely to be all in the same building. In the order of mention, they are: Best Room, East Chamber, Bedroom, Garret, West Chamber, West Lower Room, Retailer’s Shop, Shop Cellar, Woodhouse, Shop Chamber, and Joyner’s Shop. Though a kitchen is not mentioned, a substantial amount of kitchen equipment follows the mention of the West Chamber. The reference to east and west chambers is confusing. Although the house is not oriented exactly on the compass points, the orientation is closer to one in which the chambers would normally be called south and north. What this means is uncertain. Col. Munroe’s great granddaughter, whose reminiscences about the house were recorded by Carrie Bacheller in 1924, said, “The room which is now the kitchen was the shed. Opening out of it was the old buttery and the well house. What is now the shed was added when the house became a residence, and at the same time, the old lean-to roof running over the kitchen and the

27 Ledger of Col. William Munroe, 1769-1776, Lexington Historical Society Archives. Transcribed and kindly shared with the author by Polly Kienle. 28 I have not been able to discover the source of the tradition that a William Munroe built in 1695. Maurice Canavan and Albert Bryant cite the deed history that correctly identifies the owner in 1695 as Ebenezer Nutting. Carrie Bacheller, who was otherwise known to give an accurate account of the history of the Tavern, seems to be the first person to publish the faulty history. Perhaps she was quoting a Munroe family tradition.



25

shed was removed, and the two flat-roofed chambers added.”29 Thus we can assume that the lean-to kitchen existed from 1735 until 1860. This statement also indicated that before the current shed was added a well house and a buttery existed in the area behind the present kitchen.30 In fact, the remains of a well still exist below the north wall of the east garden room. 1798 In 1798 the large addition, the front wall of which is shown in the pre-1859 photographs, was built onto the north side of the Tavern. The upstairs was the hall of the Hiram Lodge of Masons. The lower floor housed a shop in the east part and a room with a kitchen fireplace and oven in the west part. Albert W. Bryant described the Masonic Hall thus: The hall was sixty feet in length and twenty feet in width. . . . The entrance was on the south side about twenty feet from the east end, and on the south side of the room. A few feet from the entrance, toward the west, a large, open fireplace furnished heat. On the south side, near the west end, an alcove, or recess, about six feet wide, was reserved for storing settees, desks, and what was not needed for the purpose for which the hall was to be used. . . . The carpet for the hall was the soft side of a pine board.31 Later, the entrance to the Masonic Hall was described as through an upstairs bedroom.32 After the large ell was built along the north side of the lean-to, the kitchen with the shed to the west necessarily became very dark. Col. Munroe’s great granddaughter said she always wondered how they could work in it, it was so dark.33 Later, Carrie Bacheller described the hall, based on reminiscences of others, as being thirty feet by sixty feet with a partition that could divide the upper floor, used as a dance hall, in two. When many drovers came, they put rows of cord beds in the “Dance Hall.” Persons who remembered the period said the beds were covered with blue coverlets.34 At the same time, or earlier, a shed roofed tap room was added north of the bar room. The tap room, which is shown in the two pre-1859 photographs of the Tavern, was also torn down in 1860. Apparently the tap room was connected to the shop and was accessed through a door where the north window is now in the bar room. The room must have served the useful function of providing a place to store and serve drinks offered in the bar room at the Tavern.

29 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 19. 30 That the previous shed housing the well house and buttery was part of the structure before 1840 appears to be indicated in an insurance policy, which lists the cost of insuring the “Dwelling House and attached shed.” See insurance policy receipts in the Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 31 Albert W. Bryant, “The Munroe Tavern,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. III (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1905), 148. 32 Ibid., 150. 33 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 19. 34 Ibid., 4.



26

C. 1790-1800 Around the time that the north ell was built, Col. Munroe updated the trim of the bar room by applying another mantelpiece over the existing one. The new mantelpiece featured a broad frieze decorated with three panels suggesting triglyphs, but with more grooves, and a mantel shelf with the delicate half-round moldings of the Federal style popular at the time.

Detail of the bar room mantelpiece added c. 1790-1800. 1850-1860 Jonas Munroe gave up the tavern business around this time. The tavern property gradually lost the outbuildings that served the drovers and others during the tavern days. By 1974, only one barn remained. Jonas Munroe died in 1860. The inventory of his estate lists his possessions by room in the house. The rooms listed indicate that the layout still included a lean-to. Unlike John Buckman’s inventory, the inventory takers used the expected compass directions to describe the rooms: “Southeast Front Room, Small Parlor, N. Room, Kitchen, S. E. Chamber, Entry Chamber [this probably refers to the upstairs stair hall], Small Parlor Chamber, Back Stair Chamber [this may refer to a lean-to chamber accessed by stairs from the kitchen], North Chamber, Old Hall, Cellar.”35 1860 William Henry Munroe, Jonas’s eldest son, inherited the tavern. He is said to have started to remodel almost at once. The remodeling involved reducing the number of windows on the façade, putting in window sash with 2/2 lights, removing the remaining part of the lean-to and, as mentioned above, raising the roof to a nearly flat shed roof to allow for two new chambers and an upstairs rear hall. William H. or his father, Jonas, installed new doorways with sidelights and flat entablatures on the east and south sides of the building. The presence of the lean-to before 35 Middlesex County Registry of Probate, Docket #38127.



27

1860 is known from Carrie Bacheller’s writings, quoted above.36 William H. Munroe also installed some Victorian features popular at the time including doorframes with beveled backbands, plain inner architraves and an ovolo molding between the two, doors with four flat panels and brown glass knobs. He partitioned what is now Room 208 into two rooms and he added closets in the bedrooms, a convenience considered necessary by 1860. He also walled up

1860 door casing

the kitchen fireplace at the rear of the central chimney, turned the former kitchen into a dining room and incorporated a new kitchen and pantries into the former shed along at the rear of the building. The main part of the tavern at that point assumed a more or less square footprint. Ceiling heights in the new part were nearly 80 inches, six inches higher than in the front part of the house. Soon, if not at the same time, William Henry added a one-story shed onto the central part of the west wall. . The date of the two photographs of lost daguerreotypes that show the house before the exterior was remodeled, has been given as before1859 (pages 21 and 22). They are the reason that we say the remodeling must have occurred in 1860, a date that also correlates with the acquisition of the house by a new owner. All the features of the remodel, except the doorways, are believable for 1860, being in keeping with mid- to late-nineteenth century tastes. The doorways with their broad flat entablatures and sidelights have a distinctly Greek Revival look that is more characteristic of doorway design of the 1840s or even earlier. Such Greek Revival features were out of fashion by 1860. The daguerreotypes showing the Tavern before the exterior changes could have been taken a decade or more earlier than 1859. We know that daguerreotypists were operating the Lexington by 1846.37 It is possible, then, that the doorways were remodeled by Jonas Munroe instead of his son. 1880 In August of 1880, William H. Munroe, in a letter to a prospective tenant for the Tavern, artist Edwin Graves Champney, described the layout of the tavern. The description, when compared to Jonas Munroe’s inventory, confirms the presence of the spaces added by William H. Munroe, and indicates that a bathroom was installed on the second floor at the west end of the rear stair hall: “Your favor of 30th ultimate, making enquiries in regard to rent, etc. of my house is received. It is, as you have heard, very pleasantly situated & shaded by fine old elms, with barn, garden, orchard, hen house etc. two minutes walk from Munroe’s [railroad] Station. It is an old

36 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 19. 37 Notation in the Robbins-Stone Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



28

fashioned house, but in good order and very convenient in its arrangement with 6 chambers, bath room, water closet and stationary wash stand for hot & cold water on 2nd floor. An old style unfinished attic. Parlor, sitting & dining rooms, kitchen, wood and wash room, an unfailing well of pure water brought by pump into the kitchen; good cemented cellar, a furnace heating three rooms – open or shut fireplaces as may be wanted in four rooms. Rent for the premises $400 per annum; for the house only without garden, barn, etc. $350. Either of the front chambers (about 17’ x 13’) I think will answer for a studio.”38 Champney’s diary and the photographs he took after 1886 record information about changes to the house. The diary indicates that a new mantel was installed in the parlor, and a mantel shelf was added to the existing chimneybreast in the Washington room. Champney’s photo of the small sitting room shows a Victorian mantel shelf different from the current one and not in keeping with the 1770s, suggesting that there have been three configurations of the woodwork surrounding this fireplace. Other fireplaces were closed up and replaced by stoves. The diary records that the roof was replaced and then painted in 1880, that the Tavern was hooked up to the Town water supply in 1885, and that a new platform was built in 1887 in front of the Tavern, as shown in the photograph of c. 1900 below. Champney purchased a new stove for the kitchen, a McGee, in 1880 and later photographed it.

Wood stove in the kitchen at the Munroe Tavern. This appears to be the stove that Mr. Champney purchased in 1880 and photographed about 1888. Behind the stove is the brick chimney and to the right

match boarding (still present in the kitchen in 2009). Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.

38 William H. Munroe to Edwin G. Champney, Aug. 3, 1880. Transcription by S. L. Whipple, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



29

1911 When the Lexington Historical Society received the Munroe Tavern as a gift, few changes were made. Some fireplaces were opened up and before 1924 a new mantel, based on the surviving original one in the Washington room, was installed in the Percy room. By 1915, the Tavern had been painted (grey with green shutters).39 1936-1939 In 1936, William Roger Greeley, architect and president of the Lexington Historical Society, Edwin Worthen, Jr. and others began to plan to return the exterior to its pre-1859 appearance. Worthen described the building before the 1939 restoration as “a landmark with an altered face to the world.”40 In 1937, they presented their plan to the Historical Society Board and it was approved. Edwin Worthen, Jr, a 1930 graduate of the MIT School of Architecture drew the plans. Russell Kettell, a historian of antiques with an interest in architecture, consulted and donated money. The exterior was given five 6/9 windows across the façade and new doorways on the front and south sides of the building based on those features shown in the pre-1859 daguerreotype copy. This required considerable replacement of clapboards. On the inside, new floors were installed in the front vestibule and the bar room, and old doors were brought in from elsewhere and installed as in the front rooms. The exterior of the house was painted red for the first time when the restoration was complete. See a more detailed description of the 1939 restoration on the Timeline in the Appendix.

Munroe Tavern during the restoration of the winter of 1938-1939. Courtesy of the Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library.

39 Carrie Bacheller to Miss Thornton, June 8, 1914. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 40 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. and S Lawrence Whipple, A Brief History of the Lexington Historical Society on the Observance of its One-Hundredth Anniversary, 1886-1986 (Lexington: Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1986), 50.



30

1940 to present Since 1940, the Munroe Tavern has been the subject of ongoing repair and maintenance by the Lexington Historical Society. No major changes have been made to the building, with the exception of the construction of a greenhouse west of the shed in 1952 at the behest of Edward Munroe, a Munroe descendant and custodian of the Tavern. The greenhouse was removed in 1991. The building has apparently been subject to more than its share of deterioration. All the clapboards were replaced in the 1950s. In 1968 major work was done to mitigate deterioration of sills and cellar beams; the work required replacing the six lowest rows of clapboards on the east and south sides of the building. All the clapboards were again replaced in 1993.

Workmen installing a new concrete footing on top of the foundation in 1968. A new sill was to be placed on top of it.

Utilities were renewed and fire safety measures were installed and then updated over time. A chimney for the former wood stove in the kitchen was removed in 1962. The roof was repaired or replaced and gutter and flashing work was done from time to time. The house was repainted from time to time, always in the same red on the exterior. When the house was painted in 1970, “something new was added . . . hammering tooth picks under the clapboards to Deteriorated southeast corner post, 1968.



31

improve circulation.”41 1984 In 1984, archaeologist Roland Robbins was asked to locate the foundation of the Masonic Hall building, but, apparently, he turned up no foundation walls during his excavations. He did, however, find a stone-bedded roadway, a capped well and a small dry-laid stone foundation of typical seventeenth century construction. Robbins described the cellar hole as being 9’ by 5 ½’ and only 3 ½’ deep. What might have been the function of this shallow cellar is unknown. It is also possible that the top of the walls of this cellar might have been removed when the land was re-graded at some point. 2009 In August of 2009 Prof. Allen Gontz did a ground penetrating radar study of the property in hopes of determining the location of former buildings and outbuildings. The results of his study are eagerly awaited.

V. E. EXTERIOR VIEWS OF THE MUNROE TAVERN OVER TIME

View of the south side of the Munroe Tavern, probably the photograph of the exterior that Champney records taking in his diary on Feb.17, 1887, “with children in foreground.”

Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.

41 Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Butters, Report of the Munroe Tavern Committee, April 6, 1971. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



32

Munroe Tavern, c. 1895. Records the appearance of the property shortly before William H. Munroe’s death. The revered chair in which Washington sat while dining is featured in both photos on this page.

Close up view of the scene above. Champney’s diary records that the platform in front of the Tavern was

built in 1887, and that the historical marker on the building was put in place in 1885.



33

Munroe Tavern with storm shed at the front door, 1890s. Courtesy of Historic New England.



34

Munroe Tavern, exterior view, colorized, c. 1900. Metal bands around trees were put in place in 1893 to prevent canker worm damage.



35

Munroe Tavern, view from the north, after the ice storm of 1921.



36

Munroe Tavern, c. 1925. Burr Church, photographer.



37

Munroe Tavern in 2009.



38

V. ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS E. Building History by Category 1. Foundation and Site Foundation The walls of the cellar rooms are of faced rubble laid in lime mortar with later partial coverings with cement. The foundation on the east façade was reinforced with a concrete footing in 1968. The foundation around the crawl space is made of fieldstones. Site The Munroe Tavern property has varied in size from 50 acres to under an acre when acquired by the Society to slightly more now. Since 1911, the Society has purchased several small plots to the south as they became available. The Tavern is situated on a more-or-less triangular site that slopes up from the Munroe Brook toward the house. North of the house is a level area. There have been a substantial number of outbuildings of over time. Beginning with a shop and continuing to the barn, located just south of Percy Road, that was torn down in 1912, references list outbuildings of various descriptions including, shop, retailers shop, joiner’s shop, potash works, a hen house, sheds etc. A fair number of these were likely on acreage no longer part of the Munroe Tavern site, though sheds to house animals are described as being between the Tavern and what is now Tavern Lane. There was more land east of the house because the County Road (now Massachusetts Avenue) was much narrower, as shown in historic photographs. See the Timeline in the Appendix for information from deeds and insurance and tax records that list various outbuildings. More recently the property has been the site of an award-winning garden of colonial flowers. The land on the hill behind the Tavern, not now part of the property, was alternately wooded and cleared, as land use needs changed. In 1775 the hill was apparently heavily wooded, as Anna Munroe was able to hide there from the redcoats. According to Carrie Bacheller, many of the trees blew down in the September gale in 1815.42 Early historic photographs show the hill cleared for farming or grazing. Later, the hill was covered with trees again. In 1984, the society, contemplating the rebuilding of the Masonic Hall structure for new curatorial uses, became interested in locating the footprint of the hall. Roland Robbins was hired to do archaeological investigations of the property.43 He did not locate the hall’s foundations, but he did find a cellar twenty-four feet44 in width, south to north, that he believed was under the shop on the first floor of in the east part of the hall building. That cellar was eighteenth century 42 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern, The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 6. 43 Roland Wells Robbins, “Munroe Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts: A Preliminary Search for the Site of the Masonic Hall.” 1984. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



39



40

in character. Robbins described it as made with heavy split stones laid in lime mortar and obviously the work of master masons. He also found a small seventeenth century cellar hole of dry laid stones, a stone bedded roadway leading to the rear of the house, a well on the north side of the garden room and the remains of a 16 inch-square post in line with the edge of the cellar under the shop. Robbins remarked at how smoothly the ground north of the Tavern had been graded at some point. If you flooded the yard, he said, the water would have been the same depth throughout.45 The question remains, what became of the foundation of the Masonic Hall? Were all the footings perhaps removed when the land was re-graded? V. F. 2. Framing and Exterior Walls Framing The framing of the original c. 1735 part of the Tavern was typical for its period of construction in design and in the combination of oak and pine timbers it contains. Oak timbers were becoming scarce by the early eighteenth century. The framing in the crawl space (Rooms 003 and 004) is fairly consistent in spacing and finishing. Sawn 3 x 4 inch pine joists, spaced 20 to 25 inches on centers, are framed into hewn sleepers. These joists are believed to date from the original construction in 1735. Framing under the Percy Room (cellar Room 002) is of sawn 3 x 4 inch oak joists 21 to 22 inches on centers, a number of which dated by dendrochronology to 1700. Because of the fact that some of these joists are framed into a beam that dated to 1735, they are assumed to have been reused from an earlier structure. Framing in cellar Room 001 under the southwest ell consists of three oak logs hewn flat only on the top face and sawn joists, mostly pine, of varying sizes that are framed into two major north/south spanning beams of different lengths. The beam west of the chimney foundation in the crawl space extends into Room 001 and terminates in an odd cantilever. There has obviously been some reworking of the ceiling framing in this room, but what, if any, building evolution it suggests is uncertain. There has been significant replacement of sills and resupport of framing in all parts of the cellar. Most work seems to have been done in 1968. The framing in the walls and ceilings of the front rooms, said to be pine, consists of exposed longitudinal summer beams on the first floor, summer tie beams on the second floor, and posts and beams around the walls on both floors. On the second floor posts in the original part of the house are splayed to receive the complicated joining of the plates, tie beams and rafters above. Photos during repairs show studded exterior walls with no evidence of bracing, and also indicate that there was much replacement or sistering of lower portions of studs before or during the repairs of 1968. Joists recently examined in the floor of the Washington Room are sawn oak or hewn pine 3 by 4 inches in dimension. Where the floor of this room had sagged at the center, pieces of similar size tapered toward the outer walls were used as shims to level the floor. In the southwest ell, the framing is mostly concealed behind walls or ceilings, although there is one cased post in Room 106. During the dendrochronology sampling, joists were exposed in the 45 Roland Wells Robbins, “Munroe Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts: A Preliminary Search for the Site of the Masonic Hall” p. 3. 1984. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



41

curator’s office (Room 206). They turned out to be sawn oak joists 2 by 9 inches in dimensions, a joist size characteristic of the second half of the eighteenth century. When the floor was taken up in Room 204, part of the 1860 construction, deep narrow joists of similar size to those in the ell were found, but they were of pine instead of oak. These joists had exceedingly long spans, running from just north of the rear stairs to the north wall of the building.

View inside the dining room ceiling, new in 1860, showing joists 9 by 2 inches in dimension. The roof frame over the east and south parts of building (the front rooms and the ell) is composed of principal rafters and three purlins per slope with a purlin at the ridge. Though of similar placement, the roof framing in the east attic is different in character from that in the southwest attic. The rafters in both parts are of hewn pine and are of similar dimensions. In the east part of the roof, however, the rafters are sequentially numbered I-IIII from the north gable, while those in the ell roof frame are unnumbered. The purlins in the east roof frame are sawn pine or oak, while the purlins in the ell, including those that extend to the south side of the hip corner, are hewn pine. Two of the purlins in the east roof frame were dated by dendrochronology to 1772, so it is likely that the east roof frame dates from that time. The framing of the hip seems pretty makeshift. The current working hypothesis is that east roof was built in 1772 and was a gable roof with ridge parallel to the street. At some point a new roof was added over the southwest ell and the two roof portions were at joined by making the southeast



42

corner of the building into a hip roof. Why the roof over the ell was rebuilt is uncertain. Surviving features in the small parlor in the ell are consistent with a construction date in the 1770s. Perhaps the ell began as a lower structure that was subsequently raised to full two stories. The date of the change is unknown, but hip roofs were popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Junction of rafters at the hip roof of the Tavern on the southeast corner. At some point, it appears that the raking eaves at the north and west ends of the building were extended so as to make a broader overhanging eave. The extended eave was held up in part by 3-inch by 3-inch oak outlook purlins. Two purlins were replaced in the west slope of the roof in the north of the chimney at some point. The new purlins have circular saw marks on two faces, indicating that they were sawn in the 1830s or later. The portion of the roof over the rebuilt 1860 northwest part of the house is composed of 2 inch by 10 inch sawn rafters that slope from south to north. The rafters rest at the south end of this roof on a narrow member 14 inches in height by 2 inches in width. At the north end, they sit on the north plate of the 1860 addition. The ceiling below is supported separately on joists running east to west. The shed on the west side of the building, believed built in 1860 or slightly later, has a typical mid-nineteenth century roof structure of sawn rafters nailed to a narrow ridge board. See framing plans below for details about framing materials and configuration.



43

Framing Plan of the First Floor.



44

Framing Plan of the Second Floor.



45

Framing Plan of the Attic Floor.



46

Roof Framing Plan.



47

V. F. 2. Framing and Exterior Walls continued Exterior Walls The walls are composed of studs and horizontal exterior sheathing, some of which was replaced over time, notably during the 1939 restoration. In 1993 the clapboards were replaced for what in some places was the fourth time since the Tavern came to the Society. The application of clapboards in 1993 reproduced period details such as skived ends and hand planed corner boards. The process was approved by the Historic Districts Commission on Feb. 11, 1992. A layer of building paper was installed under the clapboards. V. F. 3. Sash and Doors On the east, north, south and part of the west side of the building on both floors, the windows and frames are 1939 reproductions of eighteenth century windows and frames. They have 6/9 lights and inch-thick muntins. Interior casings conform to Georgian norms of a bead at the inner edge of the casing and a cyma molded backband at the outer edge mitered at the corners. On the exterior the window casings have similar moldings and plain, slightly canted sills. There are projecting molded window heads on the first level. On the second level window heads are suggested by the cornice, which breaks forward over the windows. On the c. 1860 shed housing the garden room and on the west wall of the main range west of it, the old 2/2 windows were retained in 1939. Exterior doors on the front and south side are reproduction doors installed in 1939. Apparently, Russell Kettell said that the side door should have a flat entablature instead of a pedimented one to indicate that it was a secondary door, whereas a second daguerreotype recently located indicates that both doors had pedimented entablatures before 1859.46 According to Carrie Bacheller, the old front door in 1775 is now the south door of the shed.47 V. F. 4. Roof, Gutters and Chimneys. Edwin G. Champney records in his diary that the roof, of wooden shingles no doubt, was replaced and then painted in 1880. In 1927, William Roger Greeley contemplated putting asbestos shingles on the roof, but was persuaded that they would fade too rapidly. Instead he decided upon black asphalt shingles, a relatively new roofing material that had recently been used on the Baptist Church.48 Photos show similar shingles from then on. The flat roof over the 1860 construction was composed of tar and gravel for years. Gutters and downspouts first appear on the building after the 1939 restoration. They have been modified or replaced several times since then. 46 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. to William Roger Greeley, Nov. 15, 1937. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 47 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern, The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 20. 48 William Roger Greeley to Henry Duffy, November 2, 1927. Lexington Historical Society Archives



48

The central chimney with its five flues was built in 1735 at the same time as the house. Though the chimney has been repointed, the only alteration was the rebuilding of the stack above the roof in 1970. The chimney serving the fireplace in the small parlor is believed to be the original chimney in the ell. A separate chimney that shows in early photographs, built apparently in 1860 to serve the new kitchen in the rear of the house, was taken down to below the roofline in 1962. V. F. 5. INTERIORS Cellars See description of the ceiling framing of the following three cellar spaces in the section on Framing. Room 001. Southwest Cellar This room has a foundation wall near the west end with a crawl space behind. The cellar is made of faced stones laid in lime mortar, now covered with partial cement coatings. Within the crawl space are the remains of a well and the foundation for the ell chimney. The floor is cemented. Room 002. Southeast Cellar This cellar, divided by a brick wall from the southwest cellar, has faced rubble walls similar to those in the southwest cellar. At the north side is the original chimney foundation composed of a brick arch on stone footings. There is a space east of it where stairs had come down from the bar room previously. The floor is cemented. Rooms 003 and 004. Crawl Space This L-shaped area underlies the dining room, kitchen and bar room. Original framing survives with added timbers and posts to reinforce it. The dirt floor was covered with plastic, likely in 1968. Room 101. Percy Room This is the legendary room that Earl Percy occupied when he and his troops commandeered the Tavern on the afternoon of April 19, 1775 and stayed for a little over two hours. The room has always been interpreted as his headquarters. For the families who lived in the Tavern before the public use of the building, this was the parlor or Best Room, a room reserved for more formal activities, and perhaps housing the parents’ bed. During the Tavern days, Ladies were served here away from the hurly burly of the bar room. Afterward the room was still the parlor and is so referred to by Edwin Graves Champney in the 1880s.



49

Of the original features in the room, only the exposed and beaded posts and beams, the ceiling, and perhaps portions of the original plaster walls remain. When the house was remodeled in 1860, the room received new doorframes and doors, and new windows and frames. The original chimneybreast was apparently removed. As soon as Edwin Champney occupied the Tavern, he made improvements. On Sept. 9, 1880 carpet was put down in the parlor. On Sept. 28 a “Carpenter put up a mantel in the parlor.”49 After Champney bought a “photographic camera” in December of 1886, he began taking photographs of rooms and family members. Three of his photographs of the parlor survive. They show that the mantel installed in 1880 had a plain shelf with curved corners that was supported by plain brackets backed by a wide frieze board. The area around the firebox was plastered and painted with a garland of flowers on one side. The walls of the room were hung with many paintings, very likely by Champney, including the one of William H. Munroe that the artist records painting in 1882. The lower part of the plaster walls were painted a darker color perhaps to suggest a dado.

View of the Percy Room looking northeast, c. 1887. Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.

49 Edwin Graves Champney, Diary, Sept. 28, 1880. Partial Transcription in the Lexington Historical Society Archives.



50

View of the Percy Room looking southwest, c. 1887. Painting of William H. Munroe is at the left.


When the Tavern was acquired by the Lexington Historical Society in 1911, few changes were made. According to Elsa Sullivan, floorboards were replaced in the Percy Room with ones “saved from a late thirties restoration project.”50 New wallpapers that were reproductions of papers of the Revolutionary period were applied. When a new furnace was installed in 1914 the back of the firebox was brought forward to allow for a smoke pipe from the furnace.51 The back was rebuilt with old bricks. Apparently a new hearth was put in at the same time.52

50 Elsa O. Sullivan, Time and the Tavern: The Munroe Tavern (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1993), 16. 51 Carrie Bacheller to Miss Thornton, Sept. 1, 1914. 52 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern, The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 3.



51

Above: Percy Room in 1915 postcard. Below Percy Room in 1924 with reproduction chimneybreast.



52

A reproduction chimneybreast was put in place sometime before 1924. Miss Bacheller states in her Custodian’s Story that the new mantel was based on the one of the Washington Room above, though it is not as deeply recessed behind the surrounding walls as the one in the chamber.53

Percy Room Building Element Description

Framing

Exposed, beaded somewhat unevenly.

Floor

Wide boards, brought in from another old building in 1939; some hand wrought nails; some blind nailing.

Walls

Plaster; only on the southwest part of the west wall does the plaster look old.

Baseboard

Plain baseboard except for a small molding at the top that is mostly concealed behind the plaster wall.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster, likely original, patched in places. Where the upstairs floor receded unevenly, and then was shimmed up, there is disparity in the height of the ceiling on either side of the summer beam.

Fireplace/Firebox

Appears to have old jambs, but the back is of old bricks re-laid in 1914 in a more forward position to give room for a smoke pipe from the furnace in.54

Mantelpiece/ Chimneybreast

Installed before 1924. Recessed thee inches from the surrounding wall, the chimneybreast is composed of two fielded overmantel panels above a molded architrave around the firebox mitered at the corners.

Hearth

Modern bricks, c. 1914.55

Doors

The doors have four raised field panels. They are believed to be old doors brought in from elsewhere during the restoration of 1939, the original doors having been replaced in 1860. There is correspondence with the Davenport Brown company in 1937 about the purchase of old doors.56 The door to the stair hall was pieced on two edges to fit the opening.

Door Trim

Door to stair hall: plain lintel over plain side casings. Door to Room 106: architraves with wide bevel.

Windows

1939 reproduction windows

53 An architectural drawing of the chimneybreast is in the Lexington Historical Archives. The author of the drawing is not identified. 54 Carrie Bacheller, The Munroe Tavern: the Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 3. 55 Ibid., 3; Carrie Bacheller to Miss Thorton, Sept. 1, 1914, “the Furnace is done.” 56 Letter in the LHS Archives



53

Window Trim 1939 reproduction window trim.

Hardware

Door to stair hall: Suffolk latch, installed in 1939; HL hinges. Door to Room 106: Suffolk latch, installed 1939, attached with round-headed screws; HL hinges.

Room 102. Front Stair Hall The staircase is the most elaborate decorative feature of the house. The turnings and handrail are just what one would expect for an unpretentious house of the 1730s. The newel posts are square and without drops; the finish trim around the stairs is extremely plain. During the 1939 restoration the contractor was requested to install oak floorboards. When the Historical Society acquired the house, the floor was covered with linoleum.

Stair Hall, c. 1925. Burr Church, photographer.



54

Front Stair Hall Building Element Description

Framing

Front girt is just visible at the top of the east wall.

Floor

1939, wide oak boards.

Walls

Plaster, patching visible, ages uncertain. In the stairwell, it looks like wood panels were put over failing plaster. Lines in the plaster of the east wall indicate the width of the previous doorway.

Baseboard

Plain, eight inches tall.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster except the soffit of stairs over the upper dogleg, which is wooden.

Doors to front rooms Front door

Apparent eighteenth century doors with fielded panels installed here in 1939. Both doors are pieced on some sides so as to fit the openings. Front door with six raised field panels installed in 1939 is a reproduction door.57

Door Trim

Trim on doors to front rooms: architraves with beveled backband. Trim on front door looks like a 1939 reproduction.

Windows

Five reproduction transom lights.

Window Trim

Reproduction trim intended to suggest eighteenth century trim.

Hardware

Suffolk latches on doors to the front rooms. Oversized strap hinges on front door are too long for a door of this type historically; there is large a box lock.

Special feature: Staircase

Balustrade with turned balusters and handrail molded on the outside only. Plain newels.

Room 103. Bar Room The bar room was the room where the wounded soldiers were treated and where the redcoats must have spread out when they plundered liquor and other provisions from the Tavern. It was where someone fired at the ceiling; the piece of plaster with the bullet hole has been carefully preserved down to the present day. Most of the ceiling plaster around it has been renewed, once before 1899 and again in 1939 making the little crumbling piece of plaster with the bullet hole north of the summer beam even more prominent. Here the redcoats piled furniture in the center

57 See correspondence between William Roger Greeley and William I. Brown of the Davenport-Brown Company, Dec. 22 and 26, 1936 about finding old doors to replace the “bad modern” exterior doors on the front and side of the Tavern. Though new reproduction doors were installed in 1939, the letters indicate the need to replace the existing doors.



55

of the room and set fire to the pile as they were leaving, hoping to burn the house down. Fortunately, Anna Munroe’s father, Jonas Smith, was nearby and quickly put the fire out. When Anna returned, she found the floor of the bar room covered with blood and pieces of household linen used for treating the wounded. The bar room has seen more changes than the other front rooms. The stairs to the cellar formerly went down from the door east of the fireplace where there is now a closet. At one time, the door to the tap room was where the north window is and a door to the retail store was in the west corner of the north wall.58 These doors must have facilitated access to stores of liquor and other provisions necessary to running a Tavern. William H. Munroe maintained the former bar room for his own use after 1860 while renting out the rest of the house. By 1899 photographs show that he had turned the room into a virtual museum of tavern accoutrements. He seems to have installed electric lights in this room by then. When the house came to the Historical Society, the floor of this room was covered with linoleum.

William Henry Munroe with Margaret Champney, c. 1888. Note stove in use and plaster-sealed firebox painted with a design of ivy


58 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern, The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924): 14.



56

Bar room in 1899 as decorated by William Henry Munroe, who retained use of this room and the chamber above while renting out the rest of the house.

Bar Room Building Element Description

Framing

The framing is exposed and beaded, more or less carefully. For an unknown reason, part of the edges of the rear posts were chopped off at some point.

Floor

Wide boards, new in 1939.

Walls

Plaster, various dates.

Baseboard

Plain



57

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Modern (1939) skim coat of plaster, given a rough surface, covers rectangular panels (of plasterboard?).

Fireplace/Firebox

Probably original bricks but the jambs are odd, having a perpendicular portion a brick in length and splayed sides from there to the back.


Cupboards over mantel with paneled doors are original. Mantel below is c. 1790-1800, with shelf that features the slim moldings of the Federal style and frieze decoration of panels suggesting glyphs. Molding surrounding the firebox has unusual returns at the bottom suggesting a plinth without a pilaster.

Hearth

Brick, nineteenth century.59

Doors to front hall, to closet and to dining room

Four panel doors in the style of the eighteenth century. They are old doors brought in in 1939. All were pieced to fit the present openings.

Door Trim

South doors: Plain lintel over plain jamb casings. West door: architrave with beveled backband.

Windows

1939, reproduction eighteenth century windows

Window Trim

1939, reproduction eighteenth century window frames

Hardware

HL hinges and Suffolk latches on doors to the front hall and dining room, reproduction or reused. Latch on closet door is an alternative style late eighteenth century latch with a brass knob to lift the latch, installed in 1939. Small H hinges on cupboard doors.

Room 104. Dining Room, former Kitchen We are fortunate that Carrie Bacheller left a record of conversations she had with people familiar with the building before 1860. These reminiscences are the source of our knowledge that this room was the kitchen. She wrote, “This room back of the bar room was the old kitchen and was changed into a dining room when the house was altered for a private residence in 1860. A big center beam was covered, and the fireplace and brick oven were walled up. At that point the partition with the china closet was put in. Previously the kitchen extended to the wall, which is now the side of the back stairway. The fireplace and the brick oven were in this corner against the bar room and connected with the chimney through the flue . . . in the bar room closet [westernmost cupboard]. Colonel Munroe’s great granddaughter told me that they always kept two bushel baskets of peat in the kitchen ready for use.”60 The ell [containing the Masonic Hall] extended from the back of the taproom down the side of the house, making this a very dark 59 Elsa O. Sullivan, Time and the Tavern: The Munroe Tavern (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1993), 19. 60 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 14.



58

kitchen. The great granddaughter of Colonel Munroe said she always wondered how they could work there, -- it was so dark. There was another small fireplace and also a brick oven in a small room west of the store no doubt under the fireplace in the Masonic Hall. No original features remain visible in the room. The room was thoroughly remodeled in 1860 when it became the dining room. Doors leading directly to the kitchen to the west and to a pantry with a pass-through at the north end of the west wall, in addition to a china cabinet transformed the room into a well-functioning Victorian dining room. That the remains of the kitchen fireplace survived behind the east wall of the dining room, though long suspected, was only recently confirmed. In the early 1920s and again in the 1950s opening the wall and restoring the kitchen fireplace and oven was contemplated, but ultimately rejected.

Dining Room during the Champney occupancy, 1887. Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.



59

Dining Room Building Element Description

Framing

Concealed. The ceiling framing, investigated by removing floorboards in Room 204, is composed of deep narrow pine joists that span the dining room and the adjacent hall in a north/south orientation. No framing of the former lean-to above the cellar ceiling appears to survive. Apparently the upper structure of the northwest part of the building was completely rebuilt in 1860.

Floor

Pine boards, c. 6 inches wide, 1860.

Walls

Plaster, new in 1860. A molded wooden chair rail is applied to suggest a dado. In the part of the east wall behind the chimneystack there is a stove thimble low down and a register higher up, indicating that even after the kitchen fireplace was closed up, the space behind the wall was used for heating pipes or flues.

Baseboard

Plain, 6 inches tall; projects only ¼ of an inch in front of current plaster walls.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster, 1860.

Fireplace/Firebox

Remains of kitchen fireplace are behind the east wall.

Door to bar room Other doors

Four panel door, probably of eighteenth century origin, installed in 1939. Four panel Victorian doors of 1860.

Door Trim

Architraves with beveled backband, 1860.

Windows

Reproduction eighteenth century windows installed in 1939.

Window Trim

Reproduction eighteenth century frames installed in 1939.

Hardware

Brown glass door knobs; butt hinges.

Special feature China cabinet with shelves and nine lights of glass. Scalloped board at the top hides a plumbing pipe.

Room 105. Back Stair Hall The back stair hall is a utilitarian space for access to the kitchen, the south entry and the back stairs to the second floor. At the bottom of the stairs is a door with glass panes that have been painted over. The stairs are enclosed on the first level. A double cabinet with shelving and doors was added to the east wall. The cabinet was added in the twentieth century, judging by the design and hardware.



60

Room 106. Side Hall A secondary entry, this room serves as a passageway to the small parlor, the Percy room and the rear stair hall. Part of the southwest ell addition of the 1770s, this room preserves a cased post in the southwest corner characteristic of the period of construction. The exterior door is a reproduction eighteenth century door installed during the 1939 restoration. Correspondence in the historical society’s archives suggests that a period door was sought for this location, but ultimately a modern reproduction was chosen.61 The door surround, the transom lights and their trim are reproductions of period trim dating to the 1939 restoration.

Side Hall Building Element Description

Framing

One post in the southeast corner in a beaded case.

Floor

Six inch-wide boards that extend into the rear stair hall indicating that Rooms 105 and 106 were once a single space.

Walls

Recent looking plaster.

Baseboard

Plain: does not project in front of the plaster indicating that a layer of plaster was added at some point.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Recent looking plaster.

Doors

South exterior door: a new reproduction eighteenth century style door installed in 1939; paint buildup on the outside belies recent age.62 East door: an apparent eighteenth century door with flat panels on this side. West door: an apparent eighteenth century door with four raised field panels. North door: a Victorian five panel door with upper panels replaced with glass.

Door Trim

South exterior door: 1939 installation loosely suggesting eighteenth century trim. East door: double architrave mitered at the corners; may be 1770s. North door: Plain lintel over plain jambs. West door: single architrave mitered at the corners; date uncertain.

Windows

Five transom lights, 1939.

61 Wm. R. Greeley and William I. Brown of the Davenport-Brown Company correspondence, Dec. 22 and 28. Munroe Tavern Collection. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 62 Both the east and south exterior doors are reproduction doors new in 1939. The slight curve where the feather edges meet at the corners is a feature not found in old doors.



61

Window Trim

1939 approximation of period transom light trim

Hardware

Exterior south door: oversized Suffolk latch; must be a 1939 reproduction. Two strap hinges installed in 1939, that extend almost all the way across the door – too big for this use. East and west doors: Suffolk latches, 1939. North door: brown glass knob and butt hinges.

Room 107. Shop, Small Parlor This is the first floor room of the ell entered from the south entry hall. Equipped with a small fireplace in the northwest corner of the west wall set on a slight diagonal, this room must have served as a place for family to retreat from the busy front rooms of the Tavern. Some bits of surviving physical evidence provide clues to what the room might have looked like when it was first built in the1770s. The cornice breaks forward above the fireplace. This very likely defined

Champney children in the “library.” January 24, 1887, according to Champney diary entry. Edwin Graves Champney, photographer.



62

the width and slight forward projection of the original chimneybreast, which probably had two fielded overmantel panels. Raised field panels cover the side of the chimney next to the west window. This sort of treatment would have been in keeping with 1770s design also. This is the only room to include a molded cornice, and with the other features described indicates an attempt to create a cohesive assemblage of Georgian woodwork. The window seat at the west window also bespeaks 1770s design. There may have been window seats below the south windows because the baseboard is cut on either side of the windows suggesting that some such change was made.

Small Parlor Building Element Description

Framing

Concealed

Floor

Wide boards

Walls

Plaster of uncertain age.

Baseboard

Double baseboard, shorter molded one in front of taller plain one.

Cornice

Typical eighteenth century cornice molding consisting of two cyma moldings.

Ceiling

Plaster, probably original.

Fireplace/Firebox

Small brick firebox.


A new chimneybreast with a wide flat overmantel panel was installed over original chimneybreast, probably in 1860. The mantel shelf is supported by modillions and a slim metal bracket at each end. The molded shelf, which surmounts a plain frieze, seems recent. The jamb covers are plain. Note: in 1887, the mantel shelf was supported by two different metal brackets, as shown in the Champney photo of that year.

Hearth

Stone, painted red.

Doors

Four-panel Georgian door, probably installed here in 1939.

Door Trim

Double architrave of same design as window architraves.

Windows

1939 reproduction of eighteenth century windows

Window Trim

Double architraves mitered at the corners. West window has a window seat.

Hardware

East door: HL hinges held in place by screws, i.e. likely installed in 1939. There are scars of previous hardware below the current Suffolk latch.



63

Room 108. Kitchen According to Col. William Munroe’s great granddaughter, after 1860, the kitchen was moved to the former shed behind the old kitchen. The kitchen seems to have had a projection to the west around the sink area with small windows, still in place, on the north and west sides. This was likely intended to provide light to the sink area. Edwin Champney’s photograph of the kitchen in 1888 shows the woodstove he had purchased in 1880 in front of the chimney. The chimney was probably built in 1860 to serve the stove; only its interior stack now survives. The walls are still covered with the same match boarding seen in the 1888 photo. The kitchen of 1860 must have been a state-of-the-art kitchen when it was built. The room was of ample size and there were two pantries and two closets. The one in the northeast corner of the kitchen included a pass-through for food that could be accessed from the dining room. There was also a direct door to the dining room. The match boarding forms a high dado around the walls of the room and has a molded cap.

Kitchen Building Element Description

Framing

None visible

Floor

Vinyl tiles in 12-inch squares.

Walls

Wallpaper above match boarding below with a molded cap.

Baseboard

Black baseboard cove.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster with electrical conduits and pipes for sprinklers and the upstairs toilet running across it. Boards running across ceiling in southwest part may hold back deteriorated plaster.

Fireplace/Firebox

Remains of earlier chimney for stove.

Doors

All doors are 1860s Victorian doors with four flat panels.

Door Trim

1860 casings with beveled backband.

Windows

North window: 1939 reproduction eighteenth century windows. West and south windows: 2/2 1860s windows.

Window Trim

North: Reproduction eighteenth century casing. West and south: 1860 beveled casing

Hardware Brown glass doorknobs and butt hinges. Note: the rooms on the first floor described below are part of the shed that was added to the central part of the west well shortly after the renovations of 1860. What utilitarian function the



64

shed served before the society acquired the building is uncertain. As late as 1937 Edwin Worthen, Jr., labeled the space an “unfinished ell.”63 Room 109. Pantry This ample pantry was furnished with shelves above a Formica counter on two sides and cabinets or drawers below. The walls were plaster above and horizontal matchboards below. Room 110. Lavatory This half bathroom was installed in March of 1975 in preparation for the Bicentennial celebration. Room 111. Garden Room The Garden room, with ceiling of unpainted boards and the floor covered with a green indoor/outdoor carpet, was fitted up for use by the historical society for various functions. The ceiling is supported by three posts. The walls are a combination of materials including composition board. Room 112. East Garden Room This room, which has a soapstone sink and closets, must have functioned as a place to perform messier kitchen work. The wall coverings are utilitarian plain boarding and composition board. The floor is blue vinyl tile. Room 201. Washington Room This room has always been revered as the place where George Washington dined on Nov. 5, 1789. It contains furnishings that were in the room during Washington’s visit, such as the chair in which he sat. We know the room was shown occasionally for its association with Washington even before the house came to the Society. At other times the room was a commodious best chamber, where honored Tavern guests or the Tavern keeper and his wife probably slept. Features that remain from the original construction include portions of the plaster walls and ceiling, and most notably the chimneybreast recessed about ten-and-one-half inches behind the plane of the wall. The chimneybreast retains its original trim of fielded overmantel panels, splayed wooden reveals and a molded architrave around the firebox. We are very fortunate to have a painting that Edwin Graves Champney made of the fireplace wall in1889 to verify that the original chimneybreast survives. When sections of the finish floor were removed for framing investigation in June, 2009, remnants of fine, white sand were found between the finish and sub-floor layers. If the sand had migrated through the finish floor cracks, this would indicate an earlier ‘sanded’ raw floor finish.

63 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. to William Roger Greeley, Jan. 3, 1937. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



65

Painting of the Washington Room by Edwin Graves Champney. Champney notes in his diary on July 7, 1884 that he is beginning this painting.

Washington Room during the Champney occupancy, including a child’s crib and an added mantel shelf.




66

Photograph of the Washington Room by Edwin Graves Champney, as it was arranged for the centennial of George Washington’s visit on Nov. 5, 1789.

The Washington Room c. 1925. Burr Church, photographer.



67

As with the other bedrooms William H. Munroe added a closet in this room in 1860 by moving the west wall forward to capture space for a closet here and in Room 206. He also replaced doors and doorframes with the kind he put in throughout the house -- frames with beveled backband moldings and doors with flat panels. Champney’s first photographs of the Washington Room show that a mantel shelf was installed over a panel above the fireplace. He took another photograph of the room as it was set up for the celebration of the centennial of George Washington’s visit. The mantel shelf had been removed by the time of the second photo, no doubt to return the room to its earlier appearance. Scars in the paint on the panel, however, still show where the shelf was positioned. Champney mentions in his diary that he was clearing out the room for the celebration. Furnishings appropriate to the time of Washington’s visit, or actually there when he came, are shown. The Washington chair is prominently pictured and other colonial artifacts, such as a spinning wheel, are displayed. When the Historical Society acquired the Tavern, the room continued to honor Washington. Little was done except to install new Revolutionary period reproduction wallpaper and to furnish the room with items there when Washington visited, or appropriate to that period. In 1939, however, eighteenth century style doors were put in along with the reproduction windows. In 1939, or perhaps earlier in the Society’s ownership, the framing in this room was cased, possibly to dress up this room in keeping with its important history. A second door opening to a shallow closet was apparently put in in the twentieth century; the door could be opened to display fragile artifacts.

Washington Room Building Element Description

Framing

Cased. Cases suggest twentieth century application as beading does not look historic. Extra wide summer beam case.

Floor

Wide boards, some blind nailing, sand remnants below finish floor layer.

Walls

Plaster. Some plaster renewed.

Baseboard

Plain, five inches high, with cyma molding along the top. The baseboard may have been added in the twentieth century to dress up the room at the same time that the framing was cased.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster, probably original.

Fireplace/Firebox

Original

Chimneybreast Original. Recessed chimneybreast with two overmentel panels and a molded architrave around the firebox.

Hearth

Brick, probably original.

Doors

All doors are eighteenth century style doors with raised-field panels.



68

Door Trim

North door to stair hall: Plain lintel over plain jamb casings. North door to rear stair hall: architrave with beveled backband. Southwest door: architrave with beveled backband. Northwest door: plain lintel over plain jamb casings.

Windows

1939 reproductions of eighteenth century windows

Window Trim

1939 reproductions of eighteenth century window frames

Hardware

HL hinges on all doors. West doors: plain lever latches. North door to stair hall: Suffolk latch. North door to rear stair hall: Suffolk latch.

Room 202. Front Stair Hall Upper This upstairs hall continues the modest trim associated with the first floor stair hall. One departure is the doorframes, which have plain lintels over plain jamb casings. The door to the attic is made of two vertical boards, one of which is feathered to fit into a groove in the other. This kind of door was used in utilitarian places in the early eighteenth century. There are several doors like this in the Hancock-Clarke House, including the door to the attic there. As in the rest of the house, the floor is of wide boards possibly original, but more likely replaced over time as softwood wore from the heavy traffic inherent in tavern use. The walls and ceiling are plaster, which may be original. The east plate of the building is visible below the ceiling. The cyma-molded baseboard is probably a twentieth century addition. Room 203. Northeast Chamber, Bar Room Chamber This chamber above the bar room has surely been a sleeping chamber for either tavern guests of family members from the beginning. The floor, plaster walls and ceiling may have been updated over time, but they retain the look that they must have had originally. The fact that this is the less formal chamber is signaled by its fireplace trim, a simple molded architrave around the firebox set in wooden reveal with plain plaster over the fireplace. The similarity with the fireplace wall in the less formal chamber at the Hancock-Clarke House is striking. The beams are exposed and beaded. Paint scars on the floor in the northwest corner show that this room had a closet in the post 1860 period. The closet was probably removed by the Historical Society. After 1860 William H. Munroe kept this room for his use.



69

The bar room chamber, or Little Bed Room.

Postcard, c. 1924.

Bar Room Chamber Building Element Description

Framing

Exposed and beaded. Northwest corner post is not splayed for some reason.

Floor

Wide boards, perhaps replacements of the twentieth century. Paint scars in the northwest corner show where a closet was put in, probably in 1860.

Walls

Plaster, only west wall seems to have early plaster.

Baseboard

The baseboard is double. A four-inch-high baseboard with a molding on the top is backed by a five-inch-high plain baseboard.

Cornice

None

Ceiling

Plaster, probably early.

Fireplace/Firebox

Molded architrave around the firebox, mitered at the corners. Architrave seems not to have enough paint to be original, but the design is right for the period of the house’s construction.


Plain plaster overmantel.



70

Hearth

Brick, extending only to the edges of the recess.

Doors

Old doors installed here in 1939. Door to stair hall has an extra molding on the groove into which edge of the panel fits.

Door Trim

Door casings with beveled backband.

Windows

1939 reproductions of eighteenth century windows

Window Trim

1939 reproductions of eighteenth century window trim.

Hardware

Southeast door: Suffolk latch and HL hinges. Southwest door: Suffolk latch and HL hinges.

Room 205. Back Stair Hall The rear stair hall is a central circulation space giving access to all the second floor rooms, except the front stair hall. Except for the doors to the front rooms, which may be eighteenth century doors or reproduction ones, all the doors are of the 1860 style with long flat top panels, brown glass doorknobs and butt hinges. All door trim is of 1860 with backbands composed of a broad bevel, then an ovolo molding and a plain inner architrave, mitered at the corners. The floor is wide boards running east/west. The ceiling is plaster. There is an offset in the ceiling where the ceiling becomes higher in the back part of the house. There are plain six-inch baseboards between the many doors. There are ventilation louvers above the two north bedroom doors. A skylight in the northwest part of the ceiling may be original to the 1860 construction, or may have been put in when the bathroom was added. The staircase has a balustrade of round dowels, a slim handrail, and a simple turned newel post. The staircase, if anything, looks earlier than 1860 in style and so may be the result of an earlier remodeling of which we have no other evidence. Room 204. Storage Room East; Room 208. Storage Room West These two rooms added in 1860 were fitted up as bedrooms, with ample closets, 1860s doors with beveled trim, and originally 2/2 windows of 1860 and accompanying trim. At some point both rooms received a small molded picture rail at the edge of the ceiling. After 1939, the north windows were reproduction 6/9 sash. The rooms now function as curatorial storage spaces. Room 206. Office After 1860 until 1951, the office was divided into two bedrooms as indicated in William H. Munroe’s letter to Edwin Graves Champney in 1880. Paint scars show where the partition transected the office. A sketch of the plan of the Tavern in a letter that Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. wrote to William Roger Greeley in 1937 shows that the doorway between the two rooms was at the south end of the partition wall. Each small bedroom thus created had a closet.



71

The room is now fitted up for office use and includes walls with areas of shelving, vertical match boarding, and plaster. A thimble near the top of the portion of the ell chimney in the room indicates that a stove was once installed here. There was once a direct entrance to the bathroom. The floor is of wide boards and the ceiling is of plaster that looks recent. The two south windows are 1939 reproductions with reproduction frames; the west window is a 2/2 sash with beveled trim. The doors to the rear stair hall, two closets and the former door to the bathroom and their trim are of the 1860 style as elsewhere in the house. Doors have four flat panels, brown glass doorknobs and butt hinges. Room 207. Bathroom This is a classic late nineteenth or early twentieth century bathroom, with claw foot tub, marble sink supported on metal legs and with a marble back splash and marble shelf above the sink, a dado of matchboards and plaster upper walls. The window in the west wall is a 1860s style window with 2/2 lights. Only the toilet, and the vinyl sheet flooring are more recent. Attic The attic, undivided by partitions, is accessed by two flights of stairs one leading to space south of the central chimney and the other leading to the north space. All ceiling framing is exposed. The floor is covered with wide boards. The floor level rises about eight inches over the ell portion of the attic. See the section on framing for more information on the roof framing and speculations as to the evolution of the framing. When the Tavern first became a museum, the attic was on the tour and billed as an old time attic perhaps furnished with discarded spinning wheels and trunks and things of the sort to evoke earlier times. V. F. 6. Utilities Heat In 1880, according to William H. Munroe’s description of the house in his letter to E. G. Champney, who inquired about renting the Tavern, there was a furnace for heating three rooms. Munroe also stated that “open or shut fireplaces may be wanted in three rooms.”64 Champney refers to putting in stoves and the photos he took after 1887 show stoves in place. The furnace in the cellar has been replaced several times. Most of the rooms in the back part of the house were heated by radiators in 2009. Light Champney photographs show kerosene lamps in use. By 1899, there was an electric fixture in the center of the bar room ceiling, as shown in a photograph of that date. This relates perhaps to

64 William H. Munroe to Edwin Graves Champney, Aug. 3, 1880. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



72

the fact that electricity was available after 1893 when it began to be used for streetlights.65 Whatever electricity there had been previously was upgraded in 1915, according to Carrie Bacheller, when new fixtures were installed. The lighting in the museum rooms was again updated during the restoration of 1939. Rewiring occurred in 1955.66 Water The remains of two wells exist more or less within the footprint of the house. One is in the south corner of the crawl space at the west end of cellar room 001. The other is under the easternmost window on the north side of the shed. Champney in his diary notes that the house was connected to the town water supply in 1885. Later in 1927 the water service was upgraded. Champney mentioned that as soon as the water was connected to the house, a new cesspool was constructed on top of the old one. That cesspool apparently remained in use until 1951, when Munroe House Committee chairman, Edwin Worthen, Jr. noted in his annual report, “The condition of the cesspool had been an almost constant source of annoyance and embarrassment to the occupants of the Tavern, the neighbors, and visitors to the house.”67 The Munroe Tavern was connected to the town sewer in 1951. V. F. 7. Paint Exterior Since 1939, the exterior has been painted red. At some point a paint company began marketing “Munroe red” paint. There seems to be virtually no possibility that original exterior paint is preserved on the building, if, indeed the building was painted in the beginning. Exterior finish materials have been replaced too many times. However, before the replacement of clapboards and corner boards in 1993, Sara Chase did an exterior paint study: Sample chips were taken where the wood had been sheltered or where wood was secured with cut nails. The sampled corner board was cut and the lower portion of the wood obviously had been cut when the [tap room was removed] . . . . There were earlier and later cut nails and we looked for wood attached with earlier nails. The early cut nails, with diagonally opposite cutting flanges might date from as early as 1815. No wrought nails were found on the exterior wood. . . . It appears that there are three layers of dark red paint, each slightly different in value, of most recent paints. Next below that are three layers of greys of quite different values on the clapboards and lighter ivory on the trim. The earliest paints found on the samples are a dull ochre with a lighter cream trim. It is clear that the ochre, cream and at least one

65 Edwin Graves Champney Diary entry, Nov. 2, 1893. Excerpts in the Lexington Historical Society Archives. 66 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Oct. 22, 1956. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 67 E. B. Worthen, Jr., chairman of the Munroe Tavern House Committee. Report of the committee for the year 1950-1951, March 1, 1951. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



73

grey layer are pre 1870, pre-machine made paints, because of their unevenly ground and poorly dispersed pigment particle.”68 Interior There has been no systematic study of paint stratigraphy on the interior woodwork, although James Kyprianos did a study of the paint history in the bar room as a graduate school project. His paper and paint samples are in the Lexington Historical Society Archives. There has been so much replacement of interior features that the results of a new paint study would be of limited use. However, the paint history on known original woodwork, such as the Washington Room chimneybreast and the framing in the museum rooms, could be researched in hopes of identifying original colors in those rooms. V. F. 8. Hardware Most of the doors in the house were replaced in 1860. With the doors came new hardware in the form of brown glass doorknobs, evident in late nineteenth century photographs, and butt hinges. During the restoration of 1939 old style hardware was put on the old or new doors installed at that time. The age of the hardware in the house now is, therefore, uncertain, and could be either reproduction hardware or old latches and hinges reused from elsewhere. Clues, such as the presence of latches attached with rounded nail heads or screws suggest reproduction hardware. The extremely long strap hinges on the east and south exterior doors are more appropriate for large barn doors than for entry doors to a house. See individual room entries for more information about hardware. 68 Sara B. Chase, “Munroe Tavern, A Brief Report on Exterior Paints,” June 11, 1991. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.

Munroe Tavern Survey of Physical Condition 74

Rykerson Architecture

MUNROE TAVERN-SURVEY OF PHYSICAL CONDITION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Introduction This survey, requested by the Lexington Historical Society and funded by Lexington Community Preservation funds is a preliminary document to Construction Documents for Repairs and Alterations to the Munroe Tavern prepared by Rykerson Architecture. The Munroe Tavern is an important historic museum owned by the Lexington Historical Society since 1911. Located at 1332 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, the structure consists of • A two story and attic central-chimney/central-entrance structure facing Mass. Ave. • A two story and attic ell to the west, • A two story shed roof structure infill, • A one story gable ‘garden room’ addition to the west.

Figure 1 Overall SW view Deane Rykerson Figure 2 Overall NE view HABS photo

CONTENTS 1. Building form evolution 75

2. Site 76 3. Building envelope 78

4. Interior environment 80 5. Structure 81

6. Building systems 82

7. Historic fabric 89 8. Building program 89

9. Code and regulatory requirements 89

10. Existing elevation drawings 91



1. Building form evolution There have been many structures on the site but it appears that the section with the large chimney and the two rooms flanking it is the oldest extant structure from dendrochronology of the large beam imbedded in the chimney base. This dates from 1735. The ell appears to be built later with deep joist construction and purlin changes in the attic dating from 1772. Although there is a recorded memory of a lean to infill earlier than 1860 and some kitchen hearth evidence, firm evidence of the north infill exists from 1860. The gabled roof ‘shed’ to the west was added sometime after 1860.

Figure 3 Assumed chronology. Illus. Deane Rykerson



2. Site The building is sited on a rise above Massachusetts Avenue on 1.48 acres with Tavern Lane behind and a granite curb cut 38 feet wide allowing access to a gravel drive with parking for four cars. The side of Tavern Lane allows for more parking as well as an area southwest of the building. There is a brick terrace at the intersection of the ell and the garden structure. The area has a ground cover of turf grass, some shrubs including lilacs, and large, mature trees including maples, oaks, birches, and pines.

Figure 4 LHS archives

A ‘colonial garden’ was designed and installed in the 1980’s after research conducted by Kristine Burton. There is also a path of labeled wild species to the south of the building across the gravel drive.

Figure 5 Garden from south by DR



Site Evaluation and Program Requirements The large, open site within a medium density residential area is underutilized for public use. The turf grass ground cover, largely treed, is historically inappropriate. The scattered parking lacks coherence and can be confusing to a first-time visitor. The gravel drive to the south is very close to the terrace, which impedes a clear view of the building. The remnants of older structures on the site are being discovered and could add to a richer interpretation of the site. The program requires both a handicapped parking place and wheelchair access to the museum. If the brick terrace is to be accessed from the house with wheelchairs, a transition or regrading would be required with another, more wheelchair-friendly surface. Seven parking spaces are required by Lexington Zoning (‘Code and Regulatory Requirements’). The landscape timbers and exterior handrails are in poor condition and the flagstone pavers are an inappropriate material.

Figure 6 South entrance

Site Recommendations Using archived photographs, documentary evidence, and ground-penetrating radar, the outlines of now-vanished structures should be indicated with hardscape materials (granite cobbles or marble edging) to enhance understanding of the site’s history. Concrete, landscape timbers, and flagstones should be removed from the site. Although the existing entry will not be used, it should be indicated with a path that is appropriate to the eighteenth century. A more authentic landscape plan should be developed using landuse patterns of the eighteenth century. Less trees, hayfields, herbs, vegetables, domestic animal areas are examples of more appropriate site uses. The wheelchair entry plan should be coordinated with an overall interior/exterior access plan. The terrace should be raised to the interior first floor level to allow unimpeded access from the museum. Level changes and pavers in the landscape should be accomplished with more authentic materials and handrails, if needed, should be historically appropriate. Air conditioning condensers will need to be placed and concealed on the site (see ‘Building Systems’). Handicapped parking also needs to be provided with stable paving leading to an accessible building entrance. Plantings adjacent to the building should be in containers to prevent damage to the building exterior.



3. Building Envelope The asphalt shingle roof at the high slopes appears to be in fair shape with no evidence of water entry. The built-up roof at the low sloped section also appears to be working. However, the asphalt shingles are inappropriate to the period interpretation of the Tavern. The canopy structure over the door to the garden structure is in poor condition.

Figure 7 Canopy over garden shed door

The gutters are discontinuous and lack connections to downspouts. The downspout drainage is generally directed away from the house but not effectively. The two brick chimneys appear stable although the chimney under Shop 107 has deteriorating base. The stone foundations are very porous to air infiltration. There is a band of gravel edged by landscape timbers around the foundation of the Tavern under the dripedge to prevent splashback and preserve the lower exterior walls.

Figure 8 Gravel bed and downspout The clapboards were replaced in the 1990’s with authentic coursing and skived ends. Deteriorated sheathing was presumably replaced at that time. Insulation has not been found in the walls, attic, or roof



of the building except for some random batts in the Garden Room ceiling. The exterior paint on the new clapboards is in fair condition. Some deteriorated wood trim is evident. In several cases, plants are deteriorating the exterior and even intruding to the inside of the structure.

Figure 9 Plant intrusion

At the basement level, the windows are severely deteriorated and pest screening unsightly. At the upper story windows, which are approximately 70 years old, there is some deterioration. There is no UV filtering in the glazing. The muntin patterns don’t match in some of the windows. The several remaining storm windows are in poor condition. There are about a dozen interior storm windows that are installed in the cold months.

Figure 10 Basement window and screen Building envelope evaluation and program requirements The below-grade soil floor at the crawl spaces results in very high relative humidity throughout the building (see ‘indoor environment’). The gutter/downspout system is ineffective for water dispersion. Exposure to UV, temperature, and humidity extremes endangers both the Museum Collection and interior finishes.



Figure 11 Basement crawl space Building envelope recommendations The extreme variations in the New England climate affect the integrity of buildings. The extreme summer heat resulting from solar absorption in the attic adjacent to the second floor ceiling results in an area conducive to water condensation. This adjacency also results in less efficient cooling. If the attic were not used for collection storage, some thermal insulation between the second floor and the attic would both save energy and temper the interior environment. Without removing the attic floorboards, the most effective and non-intrusive insulation would be encased rigid insulation laid on the existing floor and taped at the seams. Seasonal ventilation of the attic space as well as a permanent vent space between the roof sheathing and roof shingles would also be effective and the lifespan of the roofing shingles would also be increased. Gutters should be replaced with integrated downspouts that lead to drywells away from the building foundation. The gravel dripedge helps with splashback but the edging could be replaced with metal to be more discrete. A new roof cladding of white cedar shakes would be both more historically appropriate (see ‘historic fabric’), provide increased insulation, and with a breather space, temper the attic environment. The clapboards need minimal repair and the windows also require selective repair except for the basement windows that should be replaced. A full survey of windows with areas and level of repair should be undertaken. The interior storm windows should be adjusted and repaired for a tight fit and additional interior panels should be provided for every window. UV filtering should be applied to the glazing especially to the south. Some areas of wood trim require replacement. The garden shed roof canopy should be removed. Although a plastic vapor barrier has been attempted at the crawlspace areas, a more permanent insulating vapor barrier covered with a thin concrete ‘rat slab’ would be a great improvement. 4. Interior environment Temperature and humidity swings are extreme in the present structure. Ventilation through the building has been increased with openings in the basement level but mold and mildew are still very evident. Humidity and temperature control are accomplished with unit air conditioners, a unit heater, dehumidification units, and a recent model oil-fired water boiler and radiators. (see ‘building systems’) Lighting is variable with a mix of period fixtures, display lighting, and domestic units.



Figure 12 Mold in basement Interior environment evaluation and program requirements The interior environment is far from the ideal for a Museum. Humidity and mold are destructive to the building fabric, to the collection, and to staff and visitors. The large swings in temperature and humidity are not good for the collection. Lighting could be more functional and integrated. Interior environment recommendations Limiting humidity should be an important goal in renovations. A zoned, integrated HVAC system for heating, cooling, humidification, and dehumidification should be provided (see ‘building systems’) 5. Structure Much work has been done in the later 20th Century to stabilize the Tavern’s structure including the installation of brick piers, sill replacement, and removal of beetle-damaged timbers. Although the older structure is quite variable and there is evidence of repair as early as the eighteenth century, most of the members are sound and adequately sized. Structural evaluation and program requirements An early beam under the partition between 106 and 107 has been under some extreme stresses evidenced by its twisting and rolling. It appears that many repairs have been undertaken over time to this beam. The second floor joist span under room 204 is excessively long.

Figure 13 Beam stress



Figure 14 Beam location Structural recommendations Additional stabilization is required for the first floor beam under the partition between 106 and 107. At rooms 205 and 206, the joists should be reinforced. Further examination of the roof members is ongoing by the structural engineer. 6. Building Systems Narrative by R.W. Sullivan Engineering July 31, 2009, revised October 2009:

EXISTING SYSTEMS A. Existing Fire Protection System

1. The existing fire protection system consists of a 4” incoming service into an OS&Y shutoff ahead of a 4” dry alarm valve Grinnell that appears to be dated 1982. The drain piping is shown connected to the underground piping. 2. Dry sprinkler system exists in the building. 3. Dry sprinkler piping and fittings are black steel schedule 40. 4. Summary of deficiencies that needs to be addressed are

The OS&Y does not have tamper monitoring connection to the fire alarm system. Double check valve assembly does not exist.

B. Existing Plumbing System 1. The existing plumbing system consists of domestic water service, building sewer, plumbing fixtures, soil, waste and vent piping, cold and hot water piping. All piping is installed inside the walls and below the slab. The entire plumbing system appears to be old and some does not comply



with the current plumbing code. C. Existing HVAC System

1. The existing HVAC systems are minimal in nature, they consist of the following; Located in the Basement, an oil fired hot water boiler, Burnham model , mbh input, with circulation pump and piping distribution system. The boiler and pumps are of recent vintage, sized appropriately and in good operating condition.

Cast iron radiation, fed from boiler in Basement, located mainly in the newer parts of the building. A horizontal hot water unit heater adapted with supply ductwork to provide heat to the Percy Room

through an original floor mounted gravity vent. Residential style thru window air conditioning units located at various points throughout the

building (but not complete coverage). There are no ventilation systems currently installed in the building. Portable dehumidifiers are in use in some of the storage areas of the building. D. Existing Electrical System

1. The existing electrical system consists of an overhead 100A, 120/240v, single phase service to the building. The utility pole is located directly across the street on Massachusetts Ave. The electric meter is located on the exterior of the building. The main panel is located in the basement and is a fused type panel. Adjacent to the main panel is a newer six (6) circuit load center manufactured by Murray. 2. The existing telephone system consists of an overhead service to the building. The utility pole is located on Tavern Lane. 3. The existing wiring in the building consists of various wiring systems. There are existing knob and tube, nonmetallic sheathed cable (Romex), metal clad cable (MC), armor cable (AC) and pipe and wire. 4. Nongrounded receptacles were found throughout the building. Window air conditioners were plugged into these receptacles using a ground to nonground adaptor. 5. The lighting in the building is limited. Majority of the rooms do not have ceiling/wall mounted lights. 6. The building currently is equipped with a Sentrol ESL 1500 Series conventional 1-Zone fire alarm system and is serviced by Simplex Grinnell. The fire alarm control panel is located in the basement along with a radio master box (#224). The building fire alarm system consists of smoke detectors, heat detectors, pull station, and audio/visual devices throughout the building

PROPOSED SYSTEMS RENOVATIONS A. Fire Protection System

1. The building shall be 100% sprinklered, in conformance to requirements of Massachusetts State Building Code, Lexington Fire Department, NFPA Standards, requirements of Authorities Having Jurisdiction and Owner’s insurance company. 2. A new fire protection service will be provided from the fire protection main originating from the street. 3. A new 6” fire protection service will enter the building in the Mechanical Room through a double check valve assembly and will supply water to a dry pipe sprinkler system as a base system. 4. An Alternate Fire Protection #FP1 would be to further upgrade to a preaction sprinkler system with UL listed releasing panel coupled with smoke detection to minimized accidental sprinkler rupture. This Alternate scope would require smoke detection alarm to release a solenoid valve upstream to allow water to be able to fill the system sprinkler piping after there is heat rupture on a sprinkler head. This means that both heat and smoke would have to be present.



5. Fire protection will be designed to NFPA with the density as Ordinary Hazard. 6. Each floor will be provided with wet automatic sprinklers supplied by a riser via flow control valve station. Each sprinkler feed will be provided with water flow alarms, isolation valves and inspectors test valves for zone control. 7. Sprinkler heads shall be concealed type in finished spaces, upright sprinkler heads in unfinished areas. 8. Scope shall include but shall not be limited to:

a. 6 in. Fire Protection Service b. 6 in. wet or dry alarm check valve assembly. c. 6 in double check valve assembly. d. Fire Department Connection e. Flow control valve stations f. Sprinkler heads, piping, valves and fittings. g. Shop drawings, permits, licenses and approvals. h. Maintenance manuals and start up instructions. i. Hydraulic calculations

9. Materials and products proposed are:

Underground Fire Service: Provide cement lined ductile iron pipe. Interior Piping: Provide Schedule 40 black steel pipe for wet pipe sprinkler system. Provide Schedule 40 galvanized steel piping for dry or preaction pipe sprinkler system. All drain piping shall be galvanized. Sprinkler Heads: Provide concealed type quick response sprinkler head in suspended ceiling areas. Provide upright type quick response sprinkler heads in exposed areas. Alarm Valves: Wet alarm check valve shall be selected for variable pressure and shall be provided with mechanical alarm. Provide pressure switches and sprinkler watchman with excess pressure pump. Valve shall be Reliable or approved equal. Dry alarm valve shall be selected for dry pipe application. Valve shall be Reliable, Tyco, Victaulic or approved equal with air compressor. Flow&Supervisory Switches: Waterflow switches and supervisory switches shall be furnished under this Section and shall be wired under Section 16100. Switches shall be Potter or approved equal. Fire Dept Connections: Per Lexington Fire Department requirements. Connections shall be Potter Roemer or approved equal.

B. Plumbing Systems 1. Plumbing systems shall conform to requirements of Massachusetts State Plumbing and Gas Codes, Lexington Water and Sewer Department requirements, and requirements of Authorities Having Jurisdiction. 2. A new water service will be provided by connecting to the water main located in the street. The new service will enter the building in the Mechanical Room and will be piped through a meter for domestic water system and a pressure reducing valve. A reduced pressure backflow preventer will be provided for water connections to equipment. 3. Domestic coldwater will supply fixtures located in toilet rooms, kitchen, and hose bibs. 4. A sanitary waste and vent system will be provided to serve all the plumbing fixtures. Refer to site utilities scope for building sewer drain. 5. Scope shall include but shall not be limited to:

a. Plumbing fixtures and trims. b. All fixtures will be “Watersense” low flow type c. Low GPM flow type restricted shower heads d. Dual flush water closets



e. Low flush urinals f. Sensor self powered operated lavatories faucets g. Domestic water service from street main by civil into building mechanical room. h. Domestic water meter, pressure reducing valve and reduced pressure backflow preventer. i. Domestic hot and cold water piping system to plumbing fixtures j. Interior sanitary sewer, waste and vent piping system up to 10’ outside the exterior building wall. k. Valves. l. Insulation. m. Vibration isolation and flexible connections. n. Seismic hangers, plates, inserts and sleeves. o. Hose bibs and wall hydrants, limited to heated areas. p. Supplementary testing and disinfection. q. Cleaning, testing and disinfection of water systems. r. Guarantees and warranties. s. Shop drawings, permits, licenses and approvals. t. Maintenance manuals and start up instructions

6. Plumbing Materials and products proposed are: Exterior Water Service: Cement lined ductile iron pipe. Interior Water Pipe: Provide fully insulated Type L copper connected with lead free solder. Sanitary and Conductor Provide service weight bell & spigot cast Drainage Piping: iron soil pipe with rubber gasket joints for underground piping. Soil, waste, vent and conductor piping above ground floor shall be no-hub cast iron with extra heavy stainless steel couplings. Conductor Piping: Horizontal and horizontal offsets shall be insulated with 1" fiberglass. Plumbing Fixtures: Provide the latest design, wall hung, vitreous china as manufactured by American Standard, Toto, or Kohler. Water Heaters: Provide a system by Navien, Rinnai or equal.

C. HVAC Systems 1. All systems shall be designed in accordance with the following codes and standards. The latest or locally applicable version shall apply except where stated.

a. MSBC: Massachusetts State Building Code, 7th Edition b. IBC: International Building Code, 2003. c. IMC: International Mechanical Code, 2003 d. IECC: International Energy Conservation Code, 2006 e. ASHRAE 90.1-2007 f. OSHA - The Occupational Health and Safety Act g. ASHRAE - American Society for Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers h. SMACNA - Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association

j. ANSI - American National Standards Institute 2. Design Criteria assumed for this project are as follows:

a. Summer: HVAC systems shall be capable of conditioning the area to 74 deg F db (+/-2 deg F) and 50% RH at OA conditions of 91deg F db/74 deg F wb.

b. Winter: HVAC systems shall be capable of conditioning the area to 72 deg F (+/- 2 deg F) and 30% RH at OA temperature of 0deg F.

c. Lighting & Electrical Load = 3 watts/square foot. d. Ventilation: 20 cfm/person e. Toilet Rooms: Exhaust airflow shall be based on 75 cfm/toilet fixture for toilet rooms and 6 to

10 air changes per hour for miscellaneous areas requiring exhaust depending on space



requirements. 3. We propose the following new HVAC systems:

a. Heating a. Provide conditioned air from the existing boiler in the newly renovated areas of

the Basement, at the First Floor, and the Second Floor. b. The First Floor AHU ductwork shall be located at the ceiling of the Basement

Level and provide conditioned air to above with new floor mounted registers located in each room.

c. The Second Floor shall be provided with new ceiling supply air registers in each room. New horizontal supply ductwork will be located in the Attic above and connected to the AHU in the Basement with ductwork passing through the First Floor in a newly created shaft enclosure.

d. Each AHU will have a single return register located in a central area to recirculate air back to the unit for reconditioning

e. It should be noted that the floor registers and ceiling diffusers mentioned above shall be installed in the original museum area rooms of the building, requiring new penetrations in the original wood floors and plaster ceilings.

b. Ventilation New Bathrooms shall be provided with a concealed ceiling mounted exhaust fan with ceiling register to remove odors and prevent moisture buildup. Exhaust ductwork (4”dia) shall be provided from the fan to a roof or wall mounted exhaust air outlet. Although not required by code, consideration should be given to providing a similar exhaust fan in the ceiling of the Staff Kitchen.

c. Air Conditioning. Provide an A-frame dx cooling coil in the supply air plenum in the Basement to provide cooling and dehumidification. Each cooling coil shall be connected with refrigerant piping to an exterior air cooled condensing unit located on grade at the exterior of the building.

d. Temperature Controls

Provide each AHU with a wall mounted, fully programmable thermostats to control cooling, heating, and fan operation.

e. Archival Storage New climate controlled storage areas in the Basement and second floor shall be provided with a new environmental control unit (ECU) to provide ventilation, humidification and dehumidification as space condition dictates for true archival storage conditions. A continuous vapor barrier at the room perimeter will be required for proper conditioning of the spaces.

D. Electrical Systems 1. The electrical service is recommended be upgraded from a 100A service to a 200A service to

handle any new mechanical systems, proposed climate control for archival storage and handicap lift.

2. The electrical system shall consist of a new 200A MCB, 120/240v, single phase, 3-wire, 42 circuit panelboard to replace the existing 100A fuse type panel and (6) circuit load center. All existing wiring will be removed. New wiring will be installed to new equipment and any existing equipment to remain.

3. Refer to HVAC, Plumbing, Fire Protection, Architectural, narratives/programming data for electrical connections and scope.

4. Double duplex receptacles shall be provided at every voice/data outlet in work areas. All offices shall have at least (2) double duplex receptacles on two walls for probable desk locations and at least one duplex receptacle on each wall.

i. All other locations shall be provided at least with (1) double duplex receptacle at 12’-0” O.C. (min). Equipment locations shall be provided with (2) double duplex



receptacles. ii. Four (4) duplex receptacles shall be limited to one 20A branch circuit. iii. Provide a dedicated branch circuit for each receptacle serving office equipment such as

copiers, fax machines, printers and specialty equipment. 5. Fire alarm system shall be a new addressable Class A system that complies with the

Massachusetts State Building Code (780 CMR) and National Fire Alarm Code (NFPA 72) requirements. The system shall include, but not limited to: radio master box, rotating beacon, remote annunciator panel, double-action manual pull stations, photoelectricsmoke detectors, fix-temp/rate-of-rise heat detectors, monitoring of building fire protection system flow, tamper and pressure switches, duct smoke detection, etc.

i. The fire alarm control panel will replace the existing panel in the basement. ii. The fire alarm system will be monitored by a central station and connected to the

existing Radio master box. iii. Remote annunciator panel will be installed at the building main entry or location as

approved by the Fire Department. iv. Manual pull stations will be located within 5’ of all egress doors and at the stairwell

entrances to each floor. v. ADA Horn/strobe notification devices will be located throughout all common

corridors, mechanical rooms, and public spaces. Strobe only notification devices will be located in any conference rooms and toilet rooms.

vi. System type smoke detectors will be provided throughout all corridors, stairwells, electric rooms and communication rooms for early warning purposes. Heat detectors shall be provided in mechanical rooms to avoid nuisance alarms.

vii. Duct smoke detection systems will be provided for HVAC air handling units producing greater than 2000cfm. System shall consist of system type photoelectric smoke detector and duct housing, equipment shut-down relay, sampling tube and key switched remote test station.

viii. The fire alarm system will monitor the addressable pull stations, smoke detectors, heat detectors, sprinkler system flow and tamper switches and duct smoke detectors. Signaling line circuits shall be Class ‘A’ style 6 and the notification appliance circuits shall be Class ‘A’ style Z.

ix. The activation of a manual pull station or an initiating device will activate the building fire alarm notification devices and will transmit an addressable “alarm” signal to the fire alarm control panel and annunciator panel. The Fire Alarm System shall be monitored via the radio master box which communicates directly with the Fire Department. The system shall be provided with a battery back-up rated for a minimum of 60 hours stand-by and 15 min alarm backup capacity.

6. Lighting Fixtures and controls i. The lighting will consist of energy efficient T8 surface wraparounds in utility rooms

and hard ceiling areas. ii. Occupancy sensor lighting controls shall be installed in all utility rooms, storage

closets, public toilet rooms and offices to turn lights off automatically when not occupied.

iii. A lighting control relay panel system with low voltage switches, photocell, timeclock, etc shall be utilized to automatically control the site lighting to reduce energy costs.

iv. Self-contained emergency battery units with remote heads or integral emergency ballasts within fluorescent luminaries shall be provided for emergency lighting at egress locations along with energy efficient LED type exit signs with integral battery.

7. Voice/Data/Video services i. The Owner shall coordinate with the Utility to determine if the building requires any

new communication services such as, but not limited to: telephone, Verizon, Comcast, etc.

ii. The electrical scope shall consist of an empty 1” conduit system from the empty outlet double-gang box to an accessible ceiling space with pull string. Owner’s vendor will need to advise if the conduits will require being larger than 1”.



iii. All offices will have at least two (2) communication outlets. iv. TEL/CATV wiring and head-end equipment shall be provided by the Owner’s vendor.

120V power connections as directed by the system vendor shall be provided for all head-end equipment as required. Owner’s vendor shall review above scope for final approval.

END OF NARRATIVE

Figure 15 Outmoded wiring

Figure 16 Inappropriate lighting



Figure 17 Visually detrimental inefficient AC unit

Figure 18 Exposed sprinkler piping 7. Historic Fabric Although much of the decorative elements have been altered from the eighteenth century, the timberframe and floors appear to be intact. Many doors appear to have been widened, the window locations and configurations have been changed, and much of the trim has a Greek Revival character. One intriguing area is the back of the central chimney where there is anecdotal and some physical evidence of a cooking hearth or oven. Hardware varies from what appears to be original to relocated to reproduction. The exterior has many abandoned or outmoded fixtures and fasteners with exposed conduit, boxes, and controls. Historic fabric evaluation and program requirements If areas are found with an extensive paint history, a paint analysis will yield valuable information. Since the floors appear to have been ‘raw’ (no finish) in the eighteenth century, an interpretation is needed. The widened doors, although altered, if maintained would allow wheelchair access through the house. The trim changes, although not eighteenth century, have existed in place for many years. Historic fabric recommendations Any recent interventions that are not needed on the interior and exterior should be removed. Wiring, systems, detection, sprinkler piping, and plumbing should be concealed. A full inventory of doors and hardware should be included in the Construction Documents. Any removals and patching should be done to be not visually obtrusive.



The new sprinkler system should have minimal visual impact. Changes to the structure should be thoroughly documented. 8. Building Program The Lexington Historical Society has initially set several goals.

• Restoration: researching the history of the structure to aid in interpretation and maintenance for the future.

• Visitor access: handicapped accessibility into and throughout the house, an accessible bathroom. • Expanded use: an interpretive space upon entering the building, increased use of the site. • Archival storage: climate-controlled storage of both collection items and temporary storage. • Improved staff work areas: Meeting and office rooms with climate control, data access, and

quality lighting, a staff kitchen, new bathroom, and storage. Building Program recommendations Rebuilding the Garden Room structure allows an excellent three level structure to accomplish many of the LHS goals. Refer to proposed plans. 9. Code and regulatory requirements The Munroe Tavern is listed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Building Code as a ‘totally preserved building’ in Appendix H ‘Historic Structures’. This allows application of ‘compliance alternatives’ if strict code compliance would adversely affect the historic nature of the structure. The building most closely meets the Use Group A-3 (Assembly including museums). However, a maximum assembly occupancy of less than 50 persons allows exemptions from several egress and fire rating requirements. Parking requirements: Lexington zoning requires one space for every 600 square feet in ‘museum facilities’. This results in seven required spaces including one handicapped space. One additional space should be provided for staff, but this could be located remotely on the site. The structure is within the Munroe Tavern Historic District and any exterior alteration visible from a public way would have to be deemed appropriate by the Historic District Commission. Since Massachusetts Avenue and Percy Road are both public ways, almost the entire perimeter of the structure is visible and changes must be approved by the Commission Regarding the State Building Code for Accessibility in a public building, if the work involved in renovation and restoration exceeds 30% of the value of the building, full wheelchair accessibility is required and, if there are toilet facilities, one accessible toilet room must be provided. Fire protection code requires detection; pull stations, and visual/audible alarms. A wireless transmission to the fire department is presently in place. See ‘Building Systems’ on electrical, plumbing, and fire protection code requirements. Code and regulatory recommendations Development of plans for Accessibility should continue for approval by the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. Application to the Historic District Commission for exterior changes should be pursued. In an informal hearing before the Historic District Commission on September 3, 2009, the concept of a gambrel-form addition was well received. The specific design will require formal approval from the HDC.



Deane Rykerson will schedule a meeting with Garry Rhodes, Lexington Building Commissioner for any additional requirements and recommendations.

10. Existing elevation drawings



Existing East



Existing South



Existing West



Existing North



11. Proposed drawings

Munroe Tavern: Historic Structure Report 109


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Brigham, Laura. “Stories told to Carrie Bacheller.” Dec. 9, 1913. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Canavan, Michael J. “Some Old Lexington Estates and Houses Along Concord Road and the Descent of the Munroe Tavern from Edward Pelham to William Munroe, 1770.” Transcribed 1929. Cary Memorial Library. Champney, Edwin Graves. Diary excerpts, 1880-1895. Transcribed by S. Lawrence Whipple. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Chase, Sara B. “A Brief Report on Exterior Paints,” June 11, 1991. Lexington Historical Society Archives. __________. “Architectural Conservation Assessment, Munroe Tavern, Lexington, MA” August 1992. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Fuhrer, Mary and the National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Initial Reports. National Heritage Museum, Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. “Hiram Lodge, Arlington, Massachusetts.” N.d. Paper in the Lexington Historical Society Archives. Jaquith, Wilbur. “The Munroe Tavern, Its Origins and Development 1693-1770.” Memorandum, March 20, 1972. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Kienle, Polly. “The Munroe Tavern Site: Ownership, Usage and Buildings.” 2009. Paper in the Lexington Historical Society Archives. Kollen. “Was Col. Munroe’s Establishment a Tavern in 1775?” 2008. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, 1911-1978. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Munroe Tavern Collection. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Munroe Tavern Files. Executive Director’s Office Lexington Historical Society. Munroe Tavern Photographs. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



Munroe, William. Ledger 1769-1776. Lexington Historical Society Archives. __________. Ledger 1770s-1780s. Lexington Historical Society Archives. __________. Day Book 1787-1796. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Robbins, Roland Wells. “”Munroe Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts: A Preliminary Search for the Site of the Masonic Hall.” 1984. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Wedlock, Bruce D. “History of Hiram Lodge, 1997,” An internet publication at www.mysticvalleylodge.org. Worthen Collection. Cary Memorial Library. Worthen, Edwin B., Jr. Architectural drawings for the restoration of the Munroe Tavern, 1937- 1938. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Secondary Sources Bacheller, Carrie E. Munroe Tavern, The Custodian’s Story. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924. Bliss, Edward P. “Old Taverns of Lexington.” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. 1, 73-87. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1890. Bryant, Albert W. “The Anti-Masonic Movement Particularly in Lexington.” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. IV, 24-47. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1912. __________. “Lexington Sixty years Ago.” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. II, 19-64. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1900. __________. “The Munroe Tavern.” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. III, 142-154. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1905. Columbian Centinel. October 10, 1798. Boston Athenaeum Rare Books. Garvin, Donna-Belle and James L. Garvin. On the Road North of Boston: New Hampshire Taverns and Turnpikes, 1700-1900. Concord, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1988. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Boston: Wiggins & Lunt, 1968. __________. History of the Town of Lexington. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913.



Lahikainen, Dean T. Lexington Portraits. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1977. Phinney, Elias. History of the Battle of Lexington on the Morning of the 19th of April, 1775. 1825. Reprint. Lowell, Massachusetts: Society for the Preservation of Colonial Culture, 1968. Sullivan, Elsa O. Time and the Tavern: The Munroe Tavern. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1993. “Washington’s Visit to Lexington.” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. I, xxxiii-xlix. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1890. Webber, Joan W. The Munroe Tavern. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1976. Worthen, Edwin B., Jr. and S. Lawrence Whipple. A Brief History of the Lexington Historical Society on the Observance of its One-Hundredth Anniversary, 1886-1986. Lexington: Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1986.



RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Research for this report began at the Lexington Historical Society Archives where much of the past research and information on the Munroe Tavern is housed. The six boxes that form the Munroe Tavern Collection contain papers from the Munroe family, files on maintenance and repairs since the Society acquired the building in 1911, the 1984 Archaeology report, previously published guide books, news clippings, articles about the building, and a selection of the many photographs. The Archives provided scanned copies of nearly all photographs of the Munroe Tavern as well as a printed inventory of the photos. These records were supplemented by reading through the Lexington Historical Society Council minutes in bound volumes and loose files in the Archives. The files in the current director’s office at the Depot were also reviewed for more recent information about repairs and renovations. Previous research of two scholars was very helpful. Polly Kienle made available transcriptions of two of Col. William Munroe’s account books, 1769-1776 and 1770s-1780s and his Day Book from 1787 to 1796 in which he kept track of charges incurred by various people. A closer study of these volumes than was possible for this report could reveal much about Col. Munroe’s tavern and retail store operations and the network of neighbors, townspeople and more distant clients with whom he traded. The research in 2002-2003 done by Mary Fuhrer and the staff of the National Heritage Museum for the exhibit, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution,” at the museum was provided by the museum’s archives. Mary Fuhrer, a social historian, and the National Heritage Museum staff analyzed the inheritance patterns and wealth of the families of the men who fought for Lexington in the Revolution through statistical analysis of probate, court and tax records. This helped to put the Munroe Family, one of the subjects of the study, in the context of their time and community. The Archives of Historic New England and the Boston Athenaeum supplemented the material available closer to home, and brought to light several significant images of the Tavern. One document that was not considered reliable enough as a source was in the letter supposed to have been written by Col. Munroe’s daughter, Sarah Munroe, who witnessed Washington’s visit to the Munroe Tavern in 1789. The letter was read by James P. Munroe at the part of the centennial of that visit. Although the letter must have been taken in part on family tradition, we have no way of knowing if it was based on an actual letter. The documentary research was intended to complement the physical examination of the building carried out by the authors of this report. That examination included standard methods of building archaeology: looking closely at stylistic features in the building and at building details such as the configuration and finish treatment of framing, paint scars, and nail and lath types. The cautious removal of some finish materials to examine underlying features was also undertaken. The most notable example of the latter was the uncovering of the remains of the kitchen fireplace in the current dining room. The projected renovation of the northwest part of the Munroe Tavern will provide an opportunity to examine and perhaps take dendrochronology samples from areas in the building that were difficult to access during the preparation of this report. In particular, the framing in the crawl space under the current dining room and kitchen should be closely examined for clues about the



age and evolution of the former lean-to in that location. Also, when the attic is cleared of the collections stored there, accessing the framing of the attic floor, which appears to be oak, will be possible by lifting floorboards. This framing could well provide dendrochronology samples that will aid in understanding of the building’s evolution. This cost of the documentation work and further dendrochronology study should be included in the proposed budget. An archaeological study should be undertaken in the areas where the new cellar will be located.



APPENDIX

1. Munroe Tavern Timeline Title History, Ownership and Occupancy History, Architectural Changes and Important Events. 2. Fuhrer, Mary and National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe.



Munroe Tavern Timeline Title History, Architectural Changes and Important Events

1693 Edward Pelham sells to John Poulter 200 acres with no house (no deed recorded). 169? Poulter sells to Ebenezer Nutting, who is believed to have built the first house (no deed recorded). 1697 Nutting sells to Isaac Johnson 50 acres, shop and small dwelling house (Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, Bk. 12: Pg. 85; hereafter only book and page cited). 1699 Johnson sells to John Comee (1665-1729) 50 acres, shop and small dwelling house (34-110). 1713 John Comee assumed to be innholder because on March 1, 1714 the Town Treasurer “is to reckon with Mr. Comee for what the selectmen spent in the house last year.”1 This may be the first reference to a tavern in Lexington. 1719 John Comee deeds his son, David Comee (1696-18002), “a certain parcel of upland and meadow being situated in Lexington by estimation thirty acres more or less, . . . Moreover, the sd John Comee does grant with the premises a convenient way to and from the land to the Concord Road and also the southerly part of his mansion house being all the old end with lean-to and cellar, and liberty of a wood yard on the Northwest side, with privilege of water at the well, as also land Engst (?) at the north East end of the Barn for David Comee to build an addition to the Barn of his father, with conveniency for a barn yard and free egress and regress to and from the premises above mentioned.” (Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, 19-399.) 1728, David Comee “Approbated [approved] as a retailer.3 June 24 Note: it is not certain that David Comee lived on the Tavern property at this time, as he owned a “mansion house, barn and 2 acres on Bloomfield Street.4

1 Town Records of Lexington as transcribed by Mina Goddard. From Edwin Worthen’s notes on taverns and retail shops in the records. Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 2 Comee family tradition is that David Comee died in 1800 at 104, according to M. J. Canavan, “Some Old Lexington Estates and Houses along the Concord Road and the Descent of the Munroe Tavern from Edward Pelham to William Munroe.” As transcribed from manuscripts of M. J. Canavan acquired by the Lexington Historical Society in 1929, p.7. 3 Town Records of Lexington as transcribed by Mina Goddard. From Edwin Worthen’s notes on the records, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library.



1729 John Comee dies. David Comee inherits the rest of his father’s property (Middlesex County Registry of Probate, Docket #4850 [no will; no inventory]). John Comee’s wife was the former Martha Munroe (1667-1730), daughter of William Munroe, first Munroe to settle in Lexington and ancestor of the Lexington Munroes. 1731 David Comee “Approbated as retailer.”5 1732 David Comee sells his property on Bloomfield St. He is assumed to be living on the Tavern property by the time of the sale.6 1733, David Comee “Approbated as retailer.”7 June 25 1734 David Comee “Approbated as retailer.”8 1735, David Comee is approbated as an innholder.9 July 1735 The front part of the current Munroe Tavern facing the County Road and a lean-to behind is built.10 1738 David Comee sells to John Overing (d. 1748) a “messuage [dwelling house, out buildings, and adjacent land]” plus 33 acres (39-55). 1747 John Overing sells to John Buckman 21 acres and a mansion house (47-153). According to Canavan, “John Buckman was a housewright, but after he got this location he became a retailer of spirits, and kept a store until his death on February 17, 1768.” 1751-1768 John Buckman, who is also listed as a housewright, is licensed by the town records as a retailer.11

4 Wilbur M. Jaquith, “The Munroe Tavern, its Origin and Development 1693-1770,” March 20, 1972, p. 7. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 5 Town Records of Lexington as transcribed by Mina Goddard. From Edwin Worthen’s notes on taverns and retail shops in the records, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 6 Wilbur M. Jaquith, “The Munroe Tavern, its Origin and Development 1693-1770,” March 20, 1972, p. 7. Lexington Historical Society Archives. Evidently this transaction was mentioned in a later deed (55-415). 7 Town Records of Lexington as transcribed by Mina Goddard. From Edwin Worthen’s notes on taverns and retail shops in the records, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Dr. Daniel Miles, “Tree-Ring Dating of the Munroe Tavern,” Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, 2009. Forthcoming.



1768, John Buckman dies. The inventory of his estate is not given room by room. However, rooms are mentioned in the inventory in the following order, though they are probably not all be in the same building: best room, east chamber, bed room, garret, west chamber, west lower room, retailer’s shop, shop cellar, shop, wood house, joiners shop. Missing from the list is mention of a kitchen, though surely here was a kitchen; cooking equipment is listed. (Middlesex County Registry of Probate, Docket #3384.) According to M. J. Canavan, John Buckman, Jr. kept the retail shop for a few months after his father’s death, but after his marriage to Ruth Stone, he moved to his mother-in-law’s tavern, which now bears his name.12 1769 William Munroe already occupies the Munroe Tavern. He was given a special license, dated May 16, 1769, from the Middlesex County Court of General Sessions, which granted or affirmed retailers’ licenses given by towns: The court grants license to William Munroe to be Retailer in Lexington the remaining part of this year in the House in which John Buckman was licensed in September last, the said William having hired the said house.13 1770 William Munroe purchases from the estate of John Buckman 26 acres, Mansion House, barn, wood house, three-quarters of a potash house and works belonging thereto (75-441). 1771 In the valuation of 1771, “Munroe’s property had ten of its twenty-six acres in ‘improved’ uses: five acres for pasture, two acres meadow, three acres tillage, and an orchard. . . . Munroe [also] kept a horse, two cows, a goat or sheep, and two swine. . . . The retail shop and its contents were worth ten pounds, probably in barrels of rum, beer and cider.”14

11 Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for John Buckman, Jr. 12 M. J. Canavan, “Some Old Lexington Estates and Houses along the Concord Road and the Descent of the Munroe Tavern from Edward Pelham to William Munroe.” As transcribed from manuscripts of M. J. Canavan acquired by the Lexington Historical Society in 1929, p. 10. 13 Records of the Middlesex County Court of General Sessions of the Peace, May 16, 1969, in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Archives, as quoted in Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe. 14 Mary Fuhrer and National Heritage Museum staff. “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.” Exhibition Research Files: Initial Reports. 2003-2004, MNH 004, National Heritage Museum, Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives, Lexington, Massachusetts. Entry for William and Anna Munroe.



1770-1774 William Munroe continues to be licensed as a retailer.15 1770s William Munroe, retailer, keeps accounts of items sold and ones he purchased. He paid for carting bricks, for purchase of nails, boards, including a substantial number of boards in 1771. He also seems to have sold nails, joists and shingles. For example, he sold nails and joists to Dr. Fiske in 1773.16 1775 William Munroe becomes a tavern keeper, or innholder. Although he is not listed in the Town or Court records as innholder until 1776, the tavern sign surviving from William Munroe’s ownership includes the date of the tavern’s establishment as 1775. 1775 The Munroe Tavern is occupied by the British as their headquarters and hospital for two hours on the afternoon of April 19. 1789, President Washington dines at the Munroe Tavern.17 Nov. 5 Washington’s diary says he dined at Lexington. Jonas Clarke’s diary says he dined with Col. Munroe. “Washington did not accept private hospitality except to dine or sup with some public men, but always went to houses of public entertainment where he could pay his own bills.”18 1797 Ten Masonic brothers, including William Munroe proprietor of the Munroe Dec. 11 Tavern, who had been raised in King Solomon's Lodge in Charlestown, learned at a meeting at the Tavern that their petition to organize a lodge in Lexington had been granted and a charter was issued for Hiram Lodge.19 Plans must have been made at that time to build the Masonic Hall onto the Munroe Tavern. 1798 An announcement in the Columbian Centinal of Oct. 10, 1798 stated that the Oct. 17 Grand Lodge of Massachusetts would on October 17, 1798 install the Hiram Lodge at Lexington. The procession would be formed at 11 o'clock and dinner would be served at three o'clock, per order of R.W. William Munroe, master. 1798 Description of the addition housing the store and the Hall of the Hiram Lodge of Masons by Albert W. Bryant, 1902, who was familiar with the addition before it was torn down “about 1850.”

15 Town Records of Lexington as transcribed by Mina Goddard. From Edwin Worthen’s notes on taverns and retail shops in the records, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 16 Ledger of Col. William Munroe, 1769-1777, Lexington Historical Society Archives. Transcribed and kindly shared with the author by Polly Kienle. 17 Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. I (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1890): xlv. 18 Ibid., xxxv. 19 Bruce D. Wedlock, History of Hiram Lodge, 1997 Posted on the web site of the Mystic Valley Lodge, 2009.



The ell 20’ by 60’ was built along the north side of the Tavern. The entrance was on the south side about 20’ from the east end and on the south side of the room. A few feet from the entrance toward the west a large, open fireplace furnished heat. On the south side, near the west end, an alcove, or recess, about six feet wide, was reserved for storing settees, desks, and what was not needed for the purpose for which the hall was to be used. Fro lighting purposes tallow candles were used. They were placed beside each window, in what was called a ‘candle holder.” This was made from a strip of tin fifteen inches in length and four inches wide. About four inches of one end was bent at a right angle, with a socket to hold the candle upright. This was suspended by a nail driven in the window casement; a pair of candle snuffers perfected the lighting appliances. The carpet for the hall was the soft side of a pine board. The hall was in common use for public purposes, -- singing and dancing schools, lectures, exhibitions and social dancing parties.”20 After the Anti-Masonic movement died down, consideration was given to reviving the Lodge, but “it was poorly arranged, inconvenient, without ante rooms, and the only entrance was through a sleeping room. 21 1827 William Munroe dies. His probate documents do not include an inventory. (Middlesex County Registry of Probate, Docket # 15727) 1827 Jonas Munroe inherits the property from his father and continues as a Tavern keeper.

1828 Insurance policy: New barn: $300. C. 1830 “It was in the old hall [Masonic Hall] that I first heard the temperance subject discussed. For many years Lyceum meetings were held there and in other places in town, and sometimes questions for discussion would be given. At one of the meetings the question was, ‘Are intoxicating liquors beneficial for any purpose?’ . . . . This hall, when not wanted by the Masonic Lodge, which had a prior right, was frequently occupied by shows and exhibitions. An East Indian by the name of Potter annually, for many years gave exhibitions of ventriloquism and legerdemain.22 1831 Lexington tax assessments: Heirs of William Munroe: 1 house - $1,005; 2 barns - $134 and $154; 1 out building: $45; 46 1/2 acres: $1795.23 20 Albert W. Bryant, “The Munroe Tavern,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. III (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1905): 148. 21 Ibid., 150. 22 Albert W. Bryant, “Lexington sixty years ago,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society Vol. I (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society): 52-53. 23 Copy of assessments in the Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library.



1833 Insurance policy: Tavern House: $1,600; barn and shed: $450.24 1835 Insurance policy: New barn: $300. 1840 Insurance policy: Dwelling House and shed attached: $600; New barn: $300; Barn and shed adjoining next to Tavern: $400. 1842 Insurance policy: Lower horse barn at Tavern: $300. 1846 “[Before the coming of the railroad] it was a common occurrence to stable a hundred horses per night.”25 1847 Insurance policy: Old mansion dwelling house: $1,000; Old Horse barn and shed adjoining: $300; New barn west of said house: $300. Reference to stock in south barn [meaning Old barn?] (Insurance policies in Munroe Tavern Collection Box, LHS Archives). 1850 The Tavern closed around this time because of competition from the railroad, which came to Lexington in 1846 and offered drovers an easier way to get their animals to market. 1860 Jonas Munroe dies. The inventory of his property that lists the rooms in the Munroe Tavern indicates that the roof over the northwest part of the house had not yet raised to a shallow slope that made possible the building of the two northwest chambers and the rear hall. Rooms listed: Southeast front Room, Small Parlor, N. Room, Kitchen, S. E. Chamber, Entry Chamber, Small Parlor Chamber, Back Stair Chamber, North Chamber, Old Hall, cellar. (Middlesex County Registry of Probate, Docket # 38127) 1860 William H. Munroe inherits the property and remodels the house. He or his father change the doorways. William reduces the number of windows, and raises the roof over the former lean-to in the northwest part of the house to a full two stories to include two northwest bedrooms and a rear hall under a shallow shed roof. The southwest bedroom was partitioned into two rooms at this time or at least by 1880. He builds a shed at the rear (west) central part of the house in 1860 or shortly thereafter. Note: the west wall of the kitchen is covered with clapboards, which have several coats of paint on them. This means that either the wall of the former lean-to survived the change, or the shed was not attached to the kitchen immediately. William H. Munroe kept the former bar room and the chamber above in the Tavern for his own use while renting out the rest of the building.26 24 This and the following insurance policy statements are in the Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 25 Albert W. Bryant, “The Munroe Tavern,” Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society, Vol. III (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1905): 151:



1850-1860 Bacheller stated in 1924: “This room back of the bar room was the old kitchen and was changed into a dining room when the house was altered for a private residence in 1860. A big center beam was covered, and the fireplace and brick oven were walled up. At that point the partition with the china closet was put in. Previously the kitchen extended to the wall, which is now the side of the back stairway. The fireplace and the brick oven were in this corner against the bar room and connected with the chimney through the flue which I showed you in the bar room closet (westernmost cupboard). Colonel Munroe’s great granddaughter told me that they always kept two bushel baskets of peat in the kitchen ready for use. The ell of which I have spoken extended from the back of the taproom down the side of the house, making this a very dark kitchen. The great granddaughter of Colonel Munroe said she always wondered how they could work there, -- it was so dark. There was another small fireplace and also a brick oven in a small room back of store. The room, which is now the kitchen, was the shed; opening out of it was the old buttery and the well house. What is now the shed was added when the house became a residence and at the same time, the old lean-to roof running over the kitchen and shed was removed and two flat-roofed chambers were added.”27 1880, Aug. 3

“Your favor of 30th ultimate, making enquiries in regard to rent, etc. of my house is received. It is, as you have heard, very pleasantly situated, shaded by find old elms, with barn, garden, orchard, hen house etc. two minutes walk from Munroe’s Station. It is an old fashioned house, but in good order and very convenient in its arrangement with 6 chambers, bath room, water closet and stationary wash stand for hot & cold water on 2nd floor. An old style unfinished attic. Parlor, sitting & dining rooms, kitchen, wood and wash room, an unfailing well of pure water brought by pump into the kitchen; good cemented cellar, a furnace heating three rooms – open or shut fireplaces as may be wanted in four rooms. Rent for the premises $400 per annum; for the house only without garden, barn, etc. $350. Either of the front chambers (about 17’ x 13’) I think will answer for a studio.”28

1880 William Graves Champney (1842-1899), an artist, rents the Munroe Tavern with his wife, Martha Wilson (b. 1848). A daughter, Margaret, was born on 26 Dean T. Lahikainen, Lexington Portraits: A Catalogue of American Portraits at the Lexington Historical Society (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1977), 70. 27 Carrie Bacheller, Munroe Tavern: The Custodian’s Story (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1924), 19. 28 William H. Munroe to Edwin G. Champney, Aug. 3, 1880. Transcription by S. L. Whipple, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



Aug. 14, 1882. A son, George Mather was born on Oct. 1, 1884. The following entries in Champney’s diary describe changes made to the tavern while he occupied it.29 Aug. 31 “Rode to L[exington]. Bought a range (McGee), kitchen utensils $9.00.” Sept. 8 “Putting down stair carpets. Sept. 9 “Put down carpet in the parlor.” Sept. 25 “Painted Library [small sitting room] floor this afternoon in three colors – black green and red. Sept. 28 “Carpenter put up a mantel in the parlor this P.M.” Oct. 11 “Mr. Locke has finished plastering the hen house.” Champney will use the hen house as a studio. Nov. 12 “The men finished shingling the roof today.” Dec. 3 “Painting in the house. Mr. Flint painting the roof of the house.” !881 “Changed stoves in upstairs. Wood stove in the painting room & coal stove in the Jan. 14 spare chambers.” Mar. 2 “Etching a view of this house as it looked years ago.” 1882 “Commenced the portrait of Mr. William H. Munroe.” Jan. 21 May 2 “Repainted the background of Mr. Munroe’s portrait.” 1884 “Painting sketch of the chamber over the parlor where Geo. Washington dined.” July 7 Oct. 23 “Purchased coal stove.” 1885 “Tablet with inscription was placed on the house today, ‘The Munroe Tavern, built 1692.’” 1885 “The water pipes are being laid in the street in front of the house. Workmen June 4 are Italian.” Sept. 26 “Harrington digging a trench in the cellar for cold air box.” Oct. 10 “The plumbers have been working in the house all the week, putting in the water

29 See partial transcription of the diary of Edwin Graves Champney by S. Lawrence Whipple , Lexington Historical Society Archives.



pipes. A new cess pool above the old one.” Oct. 20 “Water in the house today.” 1886 “Paid water tax -- $6.00.” May 17 Nov. 12 “I inquired about buying a photographic camera.” Dec. 4 “Bought a camera for $15, photographic outfit $8.35.” Dec. 15 “Experimenting with photography. I have spoilt three negatives.” Dec. 22 “Have had very poor success thus far in photography. Unable to get any good prints.” 1887 “Photographed our chamber. Exposure 2 minutes. Developed negative this Jan. 7 evening.” Jan. 24 “Made a negative of the children in the library and developed it this evening.” Feb. 17 “Exposed two plates, one out of doors, children in foreground. Another in small parlor. Developed them this evening.” Mar. 11 “Took a negative of the dining room.” May 13 “Took a negative of the house at 11 am.” June 10 “Mr. Swan’s man whitewashed the ceilings. Has tricycle.” Nov. 26 “Mr. Roach making a new platform front of the house.” 1888 “Joe Reed and son shingling south roof today.” Nov. 5 Nov. 29 A Memento of Lexington A book that reproduces etchings from pen and ink drawings that Champney made of Lexington, including the Tavern. 1889 “LHS celebrates Washington’s visit in 1789 and visits the Munroe Tavern. Nov. 5 One man took a photograph of the room where Washington dined. Between 200 and 300 in all.” 1892 “Pipe laid from house to furnish cows with water.” May 16 July 6 “The barn is being repaired and the shed torn down.” Sept. 9 “Mr. Parsons is to have the old hen house , which I fitted up and have used as a studio.”



Sept. 12 “The shed was moved up to Mr. Parsons’s today. 1893 “The electric lights in the town were turned on for the first time this evening.” Feb. 3 June 15 “The Society of the Cincinnati, who came to Boston for a memorial meeting made an excursion to Lexington, visited the Munroe Tavern. About 50 or 60 in number.” July 25 “Today men are engaged in putting around the trunks of elm trees in the vicinity metallic bands to prevent ravages of canker worm. Aug. 15 “I have been tying to learn to ride a bicycle and succeeded today in mounting and riding a short distance.” 1895 “Paperers and carpenters are already at work getting ready for the new May 1 occupants, Mr. Town and family.” 1899 Mr. Walter B. Perkins lived in the tavern at this time (note on historic photo of the bar room of that year). 1902 William H. Munroe dies. James S. Munroe inherits the property. 1911 James S. Munroe, fulfilling his brother, William’s, wishes offers the Tavern to the Lexington Historical Society on certain conditions. 1911 A committee is appointed by the Historical Society to consider whether the Feb. 11 Society should accept the gift of the Tavern property from James S. Munroe.

The committee reports in part, “the historical interest in this tavern seems to ussuch as to make the gift a most welcome addition to the treasures of the Society. . . . Mr. Washburn kindly visited and examined the building in the company of the Committee, and we are advised by him that a comparatively small expenditure – less than one hundred dollars – need be made at the present time for repairs. The main timbers are sound; the floors and ceilings are in good condition; most of the roof was shingled not long ago; and but a few of the clapboards are loose or unsound. No internal changes are required, except possibly the removal of a modern fireplace in the bar-room so as to restore the lines of the original larger one.”30 The committee suggested that only the front rooms be open to the public, that a small family could occupy the rest of the house, the custodian’s perhaps, and that like the Hancock-Clarke House receipts and donations would cover the cost of maintaining the building.

1911 March Lexington Historical Society acquires the Munroe Tavern. 1911 “Four rooms together with the great rambling garret will be open to the

30 Committee appointed by the Lexington Historical Society to consider whether to accept the tavern. Minutes of the Board of the Lexington Historical Society. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



public.”31 October 1 Despite their optimism in the Spring, the house committee reported to the LHS Council, We found the house sadly out of repair and in order to put it in proper condition for uses as a museum, it was necessary to make some changes. . . . Let me give you a few illustrations. We felt it necessary to restore the fireplaces, which we found, filled with brick, to properly cover the walls with new and appropriate wallpaper, to paint the woodwork, and to install suitable electric fixtures. We also found it necessary to do considerable plumbing and carpenter work and to connect the house with main pipes of the Lexington Gas Company. October 11 “The tea room has attracted a good many visitors, some of whom have made donations and bought postal cards and circulars, and we think this service will increase as it becomes better known.” 1913 February 24 “The committee recommends that Mrs. A. P. Brewer be asked to consider taking over the care of the Tavern and continuing the tea room for herself by the first of April. Mrs. Brewer asks that the society install a toilet room proper for visitors . . . . Estimates were submitted, and it was decided that in view of the question of the desirability of having a tea room at the Munroe Tavern, it was not wise for the Society to go to such an expense at this time.”32 1914 Exterior repainted grey with green shutters and white window sash.33 June 8 Lexington Historical Society Council minutes of Mar. 16, 1915 say, the Tavern “Now presents a handsome and dignified appearance.” 1915 Electricity in the Tavern is updated.34 July 1918 “Mr. Gilmore telephoned . . . to say that both houses should be closed during the Oct. 8 [flu] epidemic.”35 1924 Ell receives one coat of paint.36 Sept. 12

31 Unidentified news clipping, Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 32 This and the following two entries are from the Minutes of the Lexington Historical Society Council 33 Carrie Bacheller to Miss Thornton, June 8, 1714. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 34 Ibid., July 27, 1715. 35 Ibid., Oct. 8, 1918. 36 Minutes of the Lexington Historical Society Council, Sept. 12, 1924. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



1927 New connection to Town water service.37 June 11 Aug. 7 Sprinkler system installed (see many documents regarding sprinkler in Munroe Tavern Collection at LHS Archives). A dry pipe system is installed by Grinnell Co., Inc. Mr. K. C. Bills installs a Thermostatic system and a fire alarm system is connected to the fire station.38 Wm. R. Greeley considers use of asbestos shingles on the Tavern, but decides on black asphalt shingles after being convinced that asbestos shingles will fade too much and “are, therefore unsuitable.”39 1929 A plot of land about 200 square feet at the corner of Percy Road is deeded to the Jan. 3 Town “to make a better approach to the new Tavern Lane.” 1936-1938 Summary of restoration of the Munroe Tavern its pre-1859 appearance: “Of greatest importance in this period of the society’s history was the restoration of the Munroe Tavern. Although long a familiar landmark, the houses had since the Civil War era presented an exterior and interior quite different from what it had once been, a house in fact almost unknown to tourists and Lexingtonians alike. After an extraordinarily long life as one of the town’s most popular and busiest hostelries, this historic house had finally given up as a tavern in 1858. Though ownership of the house continued in the Munroe family until 1911, when it was given to the Historical Society, changes had been inevitable soon after 1858. There was no need for the large ell in which had been the hall (or ballroom) and store, and, with the tap room, it was torn down. The old sash in the house was replaced by large windows, and the rooms similarly changed and improved, in the manner of the times, for more comfortable living. As the years passed, the barns, too, disappeared. All that remained was the familiar old house, its rooms greatly improved by the Society, but a landmark with a greatly altered face to the world. In 1937, the President made many personal appeals for contributions. To advance and complete the work of restoration a committee was selected, with James Stuart Smith its chairman. The society possessed an 1859 stereograph of the old house showing its appearance before it had been changed, and this formed the all-important basis for the exterior restoration. It was not found possible, however, to build the taproom (which had been a small lean-to extension of the bar room on the front end) largely because there was insufficient information on which to base an accurate reconstruction. By the end of 1838, plans and funds were substantially ready, and early 1939 found the exterior work in progress. During this period the detailed architectural drawings were being prepared by E. B. Worthen, Jr., and given to the society. The contract for basic 37 Town of Lexington, Department of Public Works files. 38 See documents relating to the sprinkler and Thermostatic system in the Munroe Tavern collection. Lexington Historical society Archives. 39 W. R. Greeley to J. Henry Duffy, Lexington, Mass. Nov. 2, 1927. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



changes to the Tavern was above $1500, which in no way indicates the true cost of the completed work, for additional funds were procured, and much was also made possible through the most valuable assistance and interest of one of the restoration committee members, Russell H. Kettell. The gifts of both Mr. Kettell and Mr. Smith contributed very largely toward making the undertaking a success.”40 1936 As early as May 6, 1936, E. B. Worthen, Jr. is working on drawings for the restoration of the Munroe Tavern, as described in letters of William Roger Greeley of Killham, Hopkins and Greeley, architect, President of the LHS. The correspondence continues into 1938, and includes discussion and sketches of how to revise the northwest part of the Tavern, termed in a letter the “Gropius wing” because of its nearly flat roof. The flat roof was thought to detract from the historic appearance of the house, and in consultation with Russell Kettell and E. B. Worthen, Jr., proposed lowering the roof and adding dormers, and other such arrangements to “improve” the appearance of the Tavern.41 In the end, the nearly flat roof was left in place. Dec. 23; 28 Exchange of letters between Wm. R. Greeley and William I. Brown of Davenport-Brown Company about Mr. Brown finding old doors to replace “very bad modern doors now in use for the front and side door [of the Tavern]. He also inquires about old window sash. Brown replies that he will look to see if they have “something that would be satisfactory [for doors]. He also says that he may be able to find pedimented door frame that is a “real antique.”42 1937 Russell Kettell reports that he has seen Fred Kelley in New Haven, and thinks he Jan. 4 might be interested to come in as a consultant.43 [Apparently, this did not occur.] Mar. 9 William Roger Greeley, President of the Lexington Historical Society, presents a plan for the restoration of the Munroe Tavern to its former appearance, which the Society’s Council adopts. 1937-1938 Efforts to raise funds continue through 1938. Many copies of letters asking for donations addressed to individuals are found in the Munroe Tavern Collection folders on the 1939 restoration. E. B. Worthen, Jr.: “Through a very satisfactory conclusion [it] has been made possible by using the accumulated income of a small trust fund and by

40 E. B. Worthen, Jr. typewritten draft of the publication, History of the Lexington Historical Society 1886-1961. Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 41 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. correspondence with William Roger Greeley, 1937. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 42 Wm. R. Greeley and William I. Brown of the Davenport-Brown Company correspondence, Dec. 22 and 28. Munroe Tavern Collection. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 43 Russell Kettell to William Roger Greeley, Jan. 4, 1937. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



contributions from friends . . . . We have had one of $500. Mr. Smith and Mr. Kettell have contributed about $200 each in money and materials. The rest of the fund is from a number of small donations.”44 1938 One-page “Information for Bidder, Addendum to the Specifications” outlines the October work to be done. 1. Twenty-five new window sash, with sash weights and interior and exterior trim on east, south and north sides of the building. 2. New front doorway. 3. New side doorway 4. Painting all new and old work on the exterior and interior. 5. New flooring in the first floor front vestibule and bar room. These floors are covered with linoleum at present. 6. New lighting in the rooms open to the public, i.e. the front rooms on both floors. This may be a system similar to the candle light system used at the Concord Antiquarian Society.45 1939 Gordon Richards is hired as the contractor for the work on the Munroe Tavern.46 Jan. 7 1939 Historical Society Begins Munroe Tavern Restoration Work inside the house will be carried out as far as possible toward making the rooms more true to their revolutionary appearance. The present lighting will be eliminated and several floors will be re-laid with old boards. The Bar room will be plastered and most of the rooms will have new wallpaper. The first week’s work has uncovered many interesting discoveries, such as revealing the old split lath and hand wrought nails on the framing timbers, and under one floor over the unexcavated portion was found a brick lined passage, as yet not completely explained, in which was unearthed a quantity of old wrought iron strap hinges.”47 Jan.- March Tavern exterior restored; Percy room floorboards “saved from a late thirties restoration project.”48 E. B. Worthen, Jr. on the restoration of 1938-1939: “The exterior work of the restoration – new windows, doorways, steps, etc. was done in Feb. and March of 1939. In short, in the winter. Snow part of the time. Obviously the painting of the new finish (Clapboards, doors, trim, etc. must have been done say by the time the house opened, prob. sooner. Builders like to get 44 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr., Note in the Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 45 Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 46 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Jan. 7, 1939. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 47 Newspaper article, written by E. B. Worthen, Jr., 1938 or 1939. Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library. 48 Elsa O Sullivan Time and the Tavern: The Munroe Tavern (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Historical Society, 1993), 16.



new work protected reasonably soon. I would assume the new work was dried out before painting, otherwise there would have been trouble in the first few years. “So far as new finish is concerned, most of the new work was on the front of the house. There, the single windows were replaced by two windows each, plus new entrance and that meant so much patching that new clapboards were used nearly everywhere. As I mentioned, the only old ones left were a narrow horizontal strip across the front from the top of the first floor windows to the bottom of 2nd floor windows. Maybe a few more left along the bottom, etc. But largely all new work. On the sides of the house (toward the south and toward Percy Road) there were far less new clapboards, as old single windows were replaced by new ones in the same locations. Hence, only a relatively small amount of patching. On the Percy Road side most of the new clapboards were at the flat roof part (dining room and kitchen) but, of course, not the whole wall by any means. On the back of the house there was little or no new clapboards as the old windows were simply replaced. Nothing was done to the shed, but I seem to recall something about replacing some of the clapboards in more recent years.” Tavern exterior painted red for the first time.49 1939 Alexander Francis Low, architect, E. B. Worthen, Jr. says he “helped R. Kettell on paint used inside [the Tavern].”50 1945 Proposal for work of flat part of Munroe Tavern roof. Tar and gravel roof to be replaced, new copper flashing, 18” copper back flashing to be installed at the intersection with the pitch roof.51 1947 LHS turns down offer by Charles A. Munroe to pay for painting the Tavern white. December Hiram Lodge of Masons celebrated 150th anniversary of the lodge at the Tavern, founded at the Tavern in December 1797. 1949 Mr. Walter Black paints the Tavern under the supervision of Mr. James Smith and Jan. - April Russell Kettell. Ivy is removed.52 May 15 The chairman of the Munroe Tavern Committee informs Charles A. Munroe that the work he agreed to underwrite, widening the driveway and removing the old vine from the house and replacing it with clematis, had been completed at a cost of $210.53 49 E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters Sept. 11, 1966. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 50 Note with news clipping of architect A. F. Law obituary, 1966. Worthen Collection, Cary Library. 51 Gordon Richards to the Lexington Historical Society, May 2, 1945.Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 52 Minutes of the Lexington Historical Council, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 53 Ibid., May 15, 1949.



Nov. “Mr. Proctor gave a report on the whole matter of the chimney at the Munroe Tavern, which is cracked. Custance Bros. did the repair and reported that the chimney above the roof should be rebuilt.”54 1950s Assessment before reclapboarding in 1993: “The clapboards were entirely 1950s, even-out, double nailed”55 1950 Incursion of rats, remedied by pointing shed foundations above grade.56 Vote approved charging admission to the Tavern for the first time: 35 cents.57 1951 Connection to town sewer. “The condition of the cesspool had been an almost constant source of annoyance and embarrassment to the occupants of the Tavern, the neighbors, and visitors to the house.”58 1951 Partition removed between the two small bedrooms upstairs in current room 206.59 1952 Heating system renovated.60 Feb. 3 Installing a greenhouse for Edmund Munroe, resident, considered, image presented.61 May 13 “Points to Consider” by E. B. Worthen, Jr. “Possibility of investigating the restoration of the old fireplace in the present dining room.”62 Oct. 1 Fireplace in southwest parlor opened up and damper installed.63

54 Ibid., Nov. 1949. 55 Sarah S. Brophy, “Historic restoration for Lexington’s Munroe Tavern,” Preservation Advocate, 1993. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 56 E. B. Worthen, Jr., chairman of the Munroe Tavern House Committee. Report of the committee for the year 1950-1951, March 1, 1951. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 57 Minutes of the Lexington Historical Council. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 58 E. B. Worthen, Jr., chairman of the Munroe Tavern House Committee. Report of the committee for the year 1950-1951, March 1, 1951. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 59 Custance Brothers agreement with the Lexington Historical Society, January 19, 1951. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 60 E. B. Worthen, Jr., Report on heating work done by Vernon Page, April 20, 1952. Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes. See also agreement between Vernon Page and the LHS laying out the work that will be done. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 61 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Feb. 3, 1952. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 62 Ibid., May 13, 1952. 63 Ibid., Oct. 22, 1952.



1955 Wiring needed improvement. “The present system, which is probably over 50 years old with the exception of recent wiring is obsolete and inadequate, and will carry a total load of approximately 3300 watts.”64 Oct. 22 Chimney has been repointed. Rewiring is underway.65 1956 Custance Brothers reshingle two sections of the roof above the tar and gravel April 21 roof.66 Tavern exterior painted.67 1957 New Gutters put on the Munroe Tavern.68 Oct. 1 1959 Historic Districts Commission declines to approve installation of tool shed at the Munroe Tavern.69 Mar. 24 Ivy removed from Clapboards.70 1960 Tavern exterior painted.71 (E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters Sept. 11, 1966). 1962, Custance Brothers billed $130 for taking down chimney, closing up the hole in April 24 the roof, and patching paint in the kitchen. This refers to the northernmost chimney in the ell.72 May 16 Historic American Buildings Survey requests permission to make measured drawings of the Munroe Tavern.73 1963 Tavern exterior painted.74 64 E. B. Worthen, Jr., chairman of the Munroe House Committee, Report of the committee for the year 1954-1955. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 65 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Oct. 22, 1956. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 66 Custance Bros. Agreement with the Lexington Historical Society, April 21, 1956. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 67 E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters, Sept. 11, 1966. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 68 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Oct.1, 1957. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 69 Historic Districts Commission, Town of Lexington, Notice of Determination, Dec. 2, 1959. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 70 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, Mar. 24, 1959. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 71 E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters, Sept. 11, 1966. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 72 Custance Bros. Invoice, April 24, 1962. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 73 Lexington Historical Society Council Minutes, May 16, 1962. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 74 E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters, Sept. 11, 1966. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



Oct. 10 Water service renewed.75 1965 Kitchen ceiling sags dangerously in places. Custance Bros. estimate that repairs Feb. 21 will cost $250.76 1966 Edwin B. Worthen, Jr. of the Tavern Committee describes issues with regard to paint on the exterior: “This is our major item this year. There are as many ideas as you with to mention as to why we need to paint more frequently and more ideas as to type of paint, color, shingles versus clapboards, aluminum siding, take all the paint off to start over, remove clapboards and put on new ones, etc. ad infinitum. The overall paint condition has not worsened appreciably this year and I have been assured that it is better to have unpainted spots during the winter than to cover them without knowing what causes the situation. You will recall that I have contacted an expert who will give us a complete investigation including hypodermic, thermostatic and everything but electronic tests to determine to the best of his ability if there are basic ventilation or other problems effecting this increasingly expensive condition. These tests can be made only in midwinter when the heat is on, windows closed, etc. The fee for this diagnosis will be approximately $200. As has been discussed before, it was agreed to take this better educated guess than resort to selecting one of the other many ideas, suggestions, opinions, etc. At the same time that these tests are made we will have the same man check the basic major support beams for any sign of weakness or infection. A report will be submitted as soon as the examination of both conditions has been completed.77 Worthen does not “recall that the clapboards were ever stripped down to the wood. Maybe a bit here and there, but not the entire house.” 78 1967 Inspection report by Donald Muirhead details exterior paint peeling, damage to timbers, new leaks.79 1968-1969 For major work done 1968-1969, Munroe Tavern committee chairs, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Butters reported “and expenditure of $20,000 for work on foundations,

75 Department of Public Works, Town of Lexington files. 76 Custance Bros. estimate for repairs, Feb. 21, 1965. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 77 Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 78 E. B. Worthen, Jr. to Warren Butters, Sept. 11, 1966. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 79 Donald Muirhead. Inspection Report, The Munroe Tavern, Lexington Massachusetts, 1967. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



replacing and adding main building support beams, treatment of termite and beetle damage and recapping the chimney.80 Work done by Custance Brothers Company “. . . included replacement of the sills on the south and east with copper shield inserted on top of new timber and exterior clapboard replacement of most of the lower 3 to 5 courses of clapboards and some sash work. Painting was also done.”81 1969 Photograph in the Lexington Minute-Man shows that southeast corner post bared January 10 by the removal of clapboards and sheathing. The caption reads, “Exposed corner post at Munroe Tavern, showing where wood beetles have eaten through the greater portion of the wood. At the bottom is the new concrete footing.” 1969 Proposed upgrades to the fire alarm system.82 1970 Exterior painted. “We painted the outside with a special undercoating followed by a finish coat. Something new was added on this job, namely hammering toothpicks under the clapboards to improve the circulation.”83 Custance Brothers bid for painting the ends and rear of the Tavern accepted.84 Work completed Nov. 11, 1970. May 12 Chimney repointed and rebuilt by Custance Brothers.85 1971 Roof repairs. Paul E. Dutelle & Co. propose to do work on main roof, driveway April 11 side including reroofing with black asphalt shingles and installing a “formed copper hanging gutter, to match existing wood trough gutter.”86 1972 New lighting fixtures purchased with donations from Mrs. Munroe’s sister, Mrs. Douglas Donald87

80 Mr. And Mrs. G. W. Butters, Munroe Tavern Report, Annual Meeting, April 6, 1971. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 81 Sara B. Chase, “Architectural Conservation Assessment, Munroe Tavern, Lexington, MA” August 1992. Pp 3-4. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 82 L. W. Bills Company letter to the Lexington Historical Society regarding improvements to fire alarm. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 83 Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Butters, Munroe Tavern Committee, Report at Annual Meeting, April 6, 1971. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 84 Donald Muirhead to Custance Bros., Aug. 14, 1970. . Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 85 Ruth Morey to Donald Muirhead, May 12, 1970. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 86 Paul F. Dutelle Co. to Lexington Historical Society, April 11, 1971. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society 87 Minutes of the Lexington Historical Society Council, 1972. Lexington Historical Society Archives.



1975 Half bath being installed. New sewer connection approved.88 Mar. 20 April 5 Wooden steps replaced with granite ones.89 1978 Tavern exterior painted by Peter Kelley.90 1982 The new ceiling at the Munroe Tavern is up and painted. Apparently the Mar. 18 plumbing upstairs had been leaking for a long time, so when the plaster was taken down, there was a terrible mess.91 1985 New Sprinkler heads installed.92 Mar. 14 1991 Greenhouse removed from rear of the Tavern.93 1991 Exterior paint study by Sara Chase. 1992 Architectural Conservation Assessment by Sara Chase.94 1993 “All siding removed. Underneath, a corner post from 1695, along with partial corner posts and a piece of unpainted sheathing from the 1719 period. All of this material was retained intact. “The new clapboarding is quarter sawn Vermont White pine, with a very tight vertical grain. The boards were first primed on both sides, then given a final coat of paint after installation. A close look shows varying lengths of clapboard, feathered to a thin edge along the top horizontal, allowing the boards to overlap lengthwise as they are fitted on the building. At each end the clapboards are scarfed or shaved to an angle). Cutting them in this way allows for end-to-end overlapping requiring one nail only to secure them. Early builders used that single cut nail as an economy: the time and expense in producing a double number of hand-wrought nails was unsupportable. Today’s modern, rust resistant version of the cut nail is hot-dip galvanized. The nails were put in using hammers with neoprene caps to protect the nail head.

88 Ibid., Mar. 20, 1975. 89 Ibid., April 5, 1975. 90 Sara B. Chase, “Architectural Conservation Assessment, Munroe Tavern, Lexington, MA” August 1992. P. 4. Lexington Historical Society Archives. 91 Ibid., Mar. 18, 1982. 92 Ibid, Mar. 14, 1985. 93 Ibid., 1991. 94 See two reports by Sara B. Chase. Munroe Tavern Colletion, Lexington Historical Society Archives.



“The Lexington Historical Society’s tour guides can easily illustrate the construction method using demonstration samples of the clapboards and nails. Our visitors can now learn from a much more appropriate restoration to this special historic structure, while the Tavern benefits from a much more durable one as well.95 1998 “Heavy rains throughout June, 1998 flushed up numerous small pottery fragments on the sloping surface of the Tavern’s easterly lawn, next to the present flower garden. . . . pottery fragments concentrated in a specific area.” Don Matson decides to do a small excavation down 5 inches. More shards found kept as MT98.96

95 Sarah S. Brophy, “Historic restoration for Lexington’s Munroe Tavern,” Preservation Advocate, 1993. Munroe Tavern Collection, Lexington Historical Society Archives. 96 Don Matson, “Munroe Tavern: 1998 Site Report.” Executive Director’s files, Depot Building.

Download - Munroe Tavern Historic Structures Report

Top Related