Wheeler-Harrington House Concord, Massachusetts

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Wheeler-Harrington property meets Criterion A for its multiple roles in the Concord's social, agricultural, and economic development over the course of two centuries. The oldest known building in West Concord, the house's connection to the agrarian life ofthe west part of town began with its early association with the large Wheeler fami ly, origina l settlers of the rural South Quarter. The property exemp li fies local and regional trends and patterns of development of variou historical periods. For instance, Uke many 18th -century Concord farmers, the first owner of the farmstead , Jo iah Wheeler, carried on a second occupation as a bricklayer. Early in the 19th century, a period when a good portion of Concord's farmland was leased out by its owners, under Noah Wheeler, Jr. the farm entered a period of absentee ownership. And in the second and third quarters of the 19th century under Joseph Harrington the property typified a general farm moving into the era of agricultural specialization. For thirty years in the following generation, the 1 00+-acre Harrington Farm was one of a handful in Concord operated by a female farmer, Joseph's daughter Lucy Harrington. The farm was subdivided during the residential building boom of the early 20th century, but remained largely undeveloped for decades. After World War II the acreage directly around the farmstead took on a new agricultural use as the horse farm of the LeBallister family.