Elisha Jones House in Minute Man National Historical Park
The Elisha Jones House is located at 242 Monument Street in the North Bridge Unit of Minute Man National Historical Park. It is one of eleven houses within the park that existed when the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place on April 19, 1775. The National Park Service calls it a “witness house,” so other than being old and standing on the grounds of the battlefield, there is nothing special about it—no famous people lived here and no historic events took place inside. The house is currently used as a private residence and is not open to the public. However, you are welcome to view it from the street.
The property that the Elisha Jones House now sits on was originally owned by John Smedley. At the time, the main road through Concord was Groton Road, which follows the path of today’s Monument Street. However, in 1775 it did not continue north as it does today, but made a left turn at the North Bridge and headed west. The 10-acre Smedley lot was south of the turn and spanned both sides of the road. By 1654, Smedley had built a house on the west side of the street; the current Elisha Jones House is on the east side.
When Smedley died sometime between 1687 and 1692, his son, John Jr., inherited the house and property. In 1695, he deeded half of the house to his daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Ebenezer Hartwell, and the two families lived in the house together. However, by 1717 John Jr. was once again the sole owner. Ebenezer and Sarah had land elsewhere, so most likely the house was given or sold back to him.
When John Jr. died in February 1717, the house and property were inherited by Ebenezer Hartwell and Daniel Shepherd, husband to another of John Jr.’s daughters, Mary. Shepherd sold his half to Jonathan Hartwell in 1719, and then, in 1721, Ebenezer and Jonathan sold everything to Ebenezer’s son, Ebenezer Jr. It was he who sold the property to Samuel Jones in 1724, who at the time also owned the farm that abutted to the southern end of the Smedley-Hartwell property.
It is at this point that the construction date of the current house comes into question. In 1863 the house was purchased by John Shepard Keyes. Keyes wrote a book about the house based on his research, but at the same time he remodeled it, and in doing so, destroyed evidence that could help date it with more certainty. Keyes believed that the Elisha Jones House was none other than the 1654 Smedley House that Samuel Jones simply had moved to the other side of the street in 1727 as a wedding present for his son Thomas. However, there is no documentation to support that Thomas was living anywhere on the property at this time.
Between 1728 and 1732, Samuel Jones is the only taxpayer listed for the combined property consisting of his original farm and the Smedley-Hartwell lot. It wasn’t until 1733 that Thomas is listed as a taxpayer on the property, meaning that he could have been living in his father’s house on the original Jones Farm or in the 1654 Smedley house. However, in 1740 Thomas is listed as the sole taxpayer for the Smedley-Hartwell lot, which means that he had either been given or had purchased this property. There is also evidence that he was now living in a house that had been built on the east side of the street. Though Keyes believed that this was the original Smedley House that Thomas had renovated and enlarged, in his book he noted construction techniques and materials that did not exist until the mid-1700s, which points to Thomas building a new house from scratch.
When Thomas Jones died in 1774, his son Elisha inherited all of his property, which brings us to April 19, 1775, a day when Elisha Jones, his wife Elizabeth, and their two young children (the couple would later have four more) were living near the North Bridge when fighting broke out. According to legend, Elisha was watching the British retreat from the North Bridge when one of them took a shot at him; the bullet lodged in the shed. The hole can still be seen today, though whether or not it came from a bullet is up for debate. The shed that is now attached to the house is the actual shed, but it was not attached in 1775. In fact, it was located on a different part of the property (it was moved and attached by Keyes). Today, fact or fiction, the house is still known as the Bullet Hole House.
Shed attached to the Elisha Jones House (photo by National Park Service)
When Elisha died in 1810, the house went to his second son, James, who in turn left it to his nephew Nathan Barrett when he died in 1838. Nathan intended to make the house his retirement home, but it had become too dilapidated, so he instead sold it to John Keyes in 1863. Two years later Keyes began extensive renovations, and his book includes information about what he did and what he found during this time. (Keyes was born in 1821 in Concord, so as a boy he knew James Jones and Nathan Barrett, and much of his historical narrative from the 1830s on is based on his personal recollection of the house.)
Keyes’ wife died in 1898, and though he remarried, his will gave the property to his daughters Alicia Keyes and Annie Keyes Emerson when he passed away in 1910. Upon Alicia’s death in 1924, her half of the property went to Anne, who in turn sold everything the next year to Henry Fay. It was Fay who owned the house when Minute Man National Historical Park was created in 1959. He sold it to the National Park Service in 1963 for inclusion in the park.
Because the house had been so drastically altered by Keyes, the National Park Service decided that it was not possible to restore it back to its 1775 appearance and should therefore not be part of the historical interpretation of the park. This is why it is now used as a rental property.
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Last updated on September 4, 2023
