Editing Bedford, Massachusetts (section)

===Huckins Farm and Job Lane House===

Governor Winthrop's grandson, Fitz John Winthrop, in 1664, sold <span style="white-space:nowrap">1,200&nbsp;acres&nbsp;(5&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>)</span> of this land (including what is present-day Huckins Farm<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.huckinsfarm.com/|title=Huckins Farm Homeowners Trust - Real Estate in Bedford, MA 01730|first=Mark|last=Abrams|website=Huckins Farm Homeowners Trust|access-date=April 30, 2018|url-status = live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403130841/https://www.huckinsfarm.com/|archive-date=April 3, 2018}}</ref>) to [[Job Lane|Job Lane (1)]], a skilled artisan and house builder, in exchange for a house that Lane built for him in Connecticut. (Note: The numbers appended to the names of Lane family members indicate the generation number beginning with Job Lane (1), who immigrated from [[Mill End, Rickmansworth|Mill End]], Rickmansworth, England.) Upon his death, he passed all of this land to his son, John Lane (2), who left it to his three sons, John Lane (3), Job Lane (3), and James Lane (3). John Lane and his wife, Catherine (Whiting), lived on the site, and after she died, he married Hannah Abbott. Upon his death in 1763, their son, Samuel Lane, inherited the land now known as Huckins Farm. Some time after Samuel Lane died in 1802, the house was removed and Peter Farmer built the present farmhouse in the 1840s. It is known that Peter and Dorcas Farmer had two children in the late 1820s and 1830s. Later, Banfield succeeded Farmer as the owner.

Samuel W. Huckins, born in 1817, settled on the land about 1870. Huckins was respected for his good judgment and was honored with various offices in town. Maps {{circa|1875}} indicate that what is now known as Dudley Road was once called Huckins Street. Samuel Huckins lived there until his death in 1892. He had a son, Henry, who was born in 1849, and was living in Bedford in 1910.

In the late 19th century, Dudley Leavitt Pickman, descendant of an old [[Dudley Leavitt Pickman|Salem merchant family]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w7iMwuvNhnQC&q=%22dudley+leavitt+pickman%22+bedford&pg=PA103|title=History of the Town of Bedford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Year of Our Lord 1891 ... with a Genealogical Register of Old Families|first=Abram English|last=Brown|date=April 30, 1891|publisher=author|access-date=April 30, 2018|via=Google Books}}</ref> and his wife Ellen fell in love with the land. They bought a substantial parcel (mostly Winthrop's land and a portion of Dudley's grant). Huckins Farm was a part of this purchase. A direct descendant of both Winthrop and Dudley, Pickman bought the land without knowledge of the Winthrop-Dudley grant.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xckUAAAAYAAJ&q=leavitt&pg=PA24|title=Memorial of the Reunion of the Descendants of Governor Thomas Dudley: Appendix [to the History of the Dudley Family]|first=Dean|last=Dudley|date=April 30, 1892|publisher=D. Dudley|isbn=9780598991928|access-date=April 30, 2018|via=Google Books|url-status = live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160609184747/https://books.google.com/books?id=xckUAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22thomas+dudley%22+%22earl+of+lincoln%22&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&q=leavitt#PPA47,M1|archive-date=June 9, 2016}}</ref> He discovered later that he had purchased his ancestors' lands. About 1889, he had the [[#Two_Brothers_Rocks|Two Brothers Rocks]] inscribed with the names "Dudley" and "Winthrop" as well as the year 1638, as noted in the Bedford Town Report in 1889.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thebedfordcitizen.org/2014/10/the-pickman-family-in-bedford|title=The Pickman Family in Bedford|author=Brian Oulighan|date=October 6, 2014|publisher=The Bedford Citizen|access-date=October 27, 2018}}</ref>

The land was used as a dairy farm and apple orchard, in addition to the fields, pasture land, bog garden, and ponds. Chestnut trees lined the old road between the fields. A portion of Dudley Road was named Chestnut Avenue around that time. Today's Dudley Road and Winthrop Avenue in Bedford, as well as Pickman Drive, are named for these families.

A large portion of the Pickman land, Huckins Farm, was sold to a developer for condominium development in 1987, and other parcels including the large Pickman house (Stearns Farm) were sold to private parties.