NORTH ANDOVER — A potential buyer has emerged for an imperiled historic house in town with ties to the nation’s birth.
A week and a half ago, June 4, arriving a month before the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, the town-imposed demolition delay expired on 169 Chestnut St., the former home of Bunker Hill and Revolutionary War hero Col. James Frye III.
In the coming days, a Massachusetts man who heads an architectural lighting company will visit the circa-1730 Colonial house at 169 Chestnut St. in North Andover.
It belongs to developer and homeowner John “Jack” Cahill.
The potential buyer, whose name isn’t being disclosed for the time being, contacted North Andover Historical Society Director Joanna Kerr in May.
He read in North of Boston publications (The Eagle-Tribune and The Andovers magazine) about the plight of the Frye house and the Save the Frye House initiative to preserve it, Kerr said.
The prospective buyer is meeting with Cahill in the coming week to tour the property.
Cahill said on Thursday that he had no comment when asked to discuss the matter.
Kerr and fellow Save the Frye House supporter Bob Allegretto are cautiously hopeful the house will be saved.
The individual is interested in buying both the house and barn on the property, and living in and preserving the house — a best-case scenario, Kerr said Thursday at Diane’s Cafe on the Common, at the historical society.
“He even mentioned the potential of opening it up once a year for tours,” Kerr said.
Earlier preservation-related inquiries Kerr fielded about the Frye house were little more than “tire kickers” that went no further, she said.
Still, time is of the essence.
Kerr and a NAHS director from the 1990s, Pat McGarry, met with Cahill on Thursday.
Cahill can do as he wants with the entire property at this point now that the demolition delay is up.
Two other lots on his 2.6-acre subdivided parcel are already for sale.
The property’s historical barn sits on a fourth lot. Cahill has filed for and received permission to demolish the massive, stone-foundation barn.
Meanwhile, Cahill has told Kerr and Allgretto that a person is eager to take down the Frye house, piecemeal, and move the pieces to Virginia.
That prospect, which would remove the house and its story from North Andover, has lent a sense urgency to the upcoming meeting between the interested buyer and Cahill.
Kerr, Allegretto and other local history- and preservation-minded folks have rallied support to save the house for more than a year.
The NAHS has hosted multiple presentations on Col. Frye by local historian Alex Kane, and driven past the property during narrated history tours hosted in tandem with the Andover Center for History & Culture.
Frye, who was born in 1710, was raised as a farmer, owned an ironworks, and became an early leader in Andover.
He also owned at least one slave, a man named Caesar, who may have accompanied him at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Frye, who lived to 66, was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars and later led an Essex County militia regiment’s response to the Lexington and Concord alarms.
On Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, Frye was mortally wounded by a British bayonet while rallying American troops and holding the line, Kane said.
The Americans proved their mettle on the hill and that fighting spirit and resilience would ultimately prevail in the long war for independence.
Frye died almost seven months later in Andover (North Andover was then a part of it), likely in the historic house on Chestnut Street, according NAHS educator David Blauvelt.
Frye played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War, both leading up to and in the earliest phases of the rebellion.
“He trained the minutemen and the militia for years from, like 1770,” Kerr said.
Frye is buried in the Old North Parish Burying Ground on Academy Road.
Kane, the guest speaker at this year’s Memorial Day ceremonies at Ridgewood Cemetery in North Andover, spoke about Frye to the some 130 people gathered, in rainy weather, among them descendants of veterans who had fought on Bunker Hill.
Kane’s words about Frye and his leadership at Bunker Hill held meaning for non-veterans and veterans alike including veteran Joseph LeBlanc, director of veteran services for North Andover and Boxford.
“One hundred percent, on the 250th anniversary of our country, these men had a lot to lose,” LeBlanc said. “They were going against the most powerful army in the world.”
Kerr said she has been told by several people connected to the town of North Andover that saving the Frye house is a lost cause.
She said she and the others who are fighting to save the house, as a living witness to history, take inspiration from Frye.
In spite of long odds against Frye and fellow citizen soldiers, they fought on at Bunker Hill, and the movement eventually prevailed in the fight for independence.