Joseph Lee   September 12, 2002

1729, graduated Harvard - b. March 23, 1710/11, d. December 05, 1802188

At one time lived Mt. Auburn - no children189

 A founder of Christ Church in Cambridge in 1759 and church warden 1773 - 4.  One of the unpopular Mandamus Councillors before he was forced to resign.  Although he was a Loyalist, he took no active part in the Revolution, went to Boston during the siege,  and later he adhered to the government of the United States.  His family was evacuated from Cambridge during the war but were the only family permitted to return to their property when it ended.  Their home at Phipps Farm, one of the oldest houses in Cambridge, adjoined that of the Lechmere's on the west side, and had been built between 1685 and 1690 by physician Richard Hooper in what was then part of Watertown, Mass..
The original house was a small, medieval farmhouse with steeply pitched roof and a massive stack chimney of clay and oyster shells in the middle of the home that was twelve feet square.  Following Mr. Hooper's death early in 1691, his widow, Elizabeth, left with 2 small children, was forced to sell her "moveables" and take in boarders.  After Elizabeth's death in 1701, the house, unoccupied except for an occasional vagrant, became infested with "ye wormes" - probably termites - so that, according to the executor, "no body would live in it tho I proferred sundry to live in it rent free."
In 1716 Hooper's son Henry, also a physician, returned with his new wife to restore and occupy the house.  He added the east wing - whether as a new addition or to replace an old wing destroyed by "wormes" or other disaster is unclear.  At any rate, Hooper had another building moved onto the site and butted against the existing west half.  He also rebuilt the central chimney and added a one and a half story lean to with a fireplace.
A Boston merchant, Cornelius Waldo, acquired the house in 1733.  Soon afterwards he raised the roof o the main house to its present height in order to add two third-story bed chambers, and he remodeled the house, inside and out, in the then- popular Georgian style.  In 1742 his notice in a Boston newspaper advertised for rent a house on Brattle Street "with gardens and other Accomodations for a gentleman for a country seat," with the lean-to as a farmhouse for a "good husbandman."
Joseph Lee purchased the house from Waldo's widow in 1758.
Mr. Lee added a third floor to the original home and wainscotted it.  The home was on the north side of Brattle Street, nearly opposite Lowell Street, and later belonged to Mrs. D. Carpenter, his grand-neice.  The home later became the Cambridge Historical Society.
His share of the Phips farm was purchased by Seth Johnson of New York in 1795.
(Massachusetts - A Guide to the Pilgrim State:  Boston - G.B.Warden;  History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 168, 169, 183)

1764-5;  Representative.  (History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 461)
On Mandamus Council, resigned.    (History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 151, 153, 460)

September 2, 1774;  At 8 am he was on the Cambridge common to give full assurances to the regulars that he had resigned his seat on the board and would not act in any capacity that was disagreeable to the people.
Signer of petition for Christ Church.   Warden.  (History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 307, 308, 310)

1777;  On census.   (History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 444)

December 29, 1778; Joseph Lee and wife Rebecca deed to Mary Purcell (Gentlewoman) house and land; N.E. Cambridge St., S.W. Southacks Court, on house and land of late Mr. Young, and on land of late William Stoddard and Hugh Hall, Esq. (SD 129:222). Court/Cambridge St. and Howard St. (Thwing database)

March 6, 1785; Joseph Lee of Cambridge, and wife Rebecca, deed to Joseph Austin (baker) land; E. Ship St., S. Fleet St., W. heirs of Daniel Ballard, N. house and land belonging to Old North Church. (SD 176:15). N.W. corner of North and Fleet Sts. (Thwing database)

Town Offices: judge of Court of Common Pleas Middlesex Co., on school committee184,185
Well liked despite Tory sympathy and relations186
Fled home during Rev. but allowed to return without confiscation at wars end187
Honest, good neighbor, loyal and kind - cared for blind insane sister Abigail190