The Belcher House

Built in 1776-77 on the site of the Holman-Belcher House that was destroyed by fire early in 1776, the Belcher House is a grand eighteenth-century federal-style mansion. Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757) was Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1730 to 1741 and had summered in the earlier home. Sold in 1781 by the daughter of Belcher’s late widow, the estate remained in the Rowe-Cunningham-Webster Family for the next century and a half, until 1940 when it became the headquarters of the Milton Historical Society. This greeting card dates from that period. In 1955, William B. Crosby bought the estate which once had been called “Willowbrook” under the Cunninghams. He subdivided it for house lots, laying out Governor Belcher Road, but preserving the Belcher House on a small lot.