Chambers Russell, whose ancestral roots were in Lincolnshire, England, had little difficulty in selecting the name “Lincoln” to become the newly incorporated town name for Concord’s Second Precinct. This was formalized on 19 April (of all dates!) 1754, but the naming came easier than did the actual change of address for some gentlemen in the North section, along what would later become known as Battle Road.

Ephraim Hartwell, cordwainer (shoemaker) and yeoman (farmer of his own land), and Nathaniel Whittemore, yeoman and early owner of the Capt. William Smith House, were neighbors and good friends. Both had supported Rev. Daniel Bliss and the “New Lights” of Concord’s Christ Church (First Parish) and had attempted to stop the 1745 “West Church” or “Black Horse Church” schism. When the Second Precinct was formed of East Concord, largely of “Old Light” believers, neither of these two men were supporters and thus were exempted from joining the new parish and paying for its minister. By 1753, Ephraim had risen to a status where he was elected a Concord Selectman, and thus was not enthusiastically in favor of a new town, torn asunder from his family’s old village.

When incorporation finally occurred, Ephraim Hartwell became a reluctant supporter of Lincoln. Having risen to the position of “gentleman,” he was elected as one of the new town’s first Selectmen in 1754 (and re-elected in 1755, 1758-59, 1764-66, 1768, and 1774).

Meanwhile, his friend Nathaniel Whittemore, having his family roots in the old settlement and serving as Concord Selectman (in 1743-46, 1749-50, and 1754), became the single strongest opponent of the new town. When Lincoln laid a road over his farm, he sued. He refused to involve himself in the governance of the town, and he stubbornly continued to list his address (even in 1756) as “Concord Alis Dick Lincoln” (alis dick / alias distus – otherwise called) .

By 1758, Whittemore decided that he had endured enough. He sold his Lincoln land to a William Dodge of Harvard and moved. Dodge would later deed a house plus some 120 acres (in 1770) to his step-daughter, Catherine Louisa Salmon, who in January 1771 would marry a failed merchant and brother of Abigail Adams, one William Smith. And you know the rest of that story!

Thus, even in the pre-Lincoln/Revolutionary days, the Town’s small sector on what we call now Battle Road was already steeped in political drama and intrigue. Such would only be added to in 1775.