It was for many years the village tavern and was particularly well located for the purpose, as it was at the intersection of Foster Street which originally went south from the center and the old road which ran over the hill (now called “Starr Hill”) to Newtowne, passing a place called Beaver Dam, at the southerly end of Long Pond
Built c. 1700, this house was once known as Fox Tavern, operated by John Fox, who served as a Captain in the French and Indian War. He contracted small pox during an expedition on the Kennebec River and died in 1754 at age 48. Others in the family also caught the disease. His wife, Sarah Fox petitioned the Legislature and was awarded monetary compensation. She continued the business. Captain Leonard Whiting, a Tory sympathizer, kept the tavern between 1762 and 1770. This property was last used as a tavern around the Revolution when it became a meeting place for local patriots operated by William Henry Prentice, a surveyor from Boston. Reverend Edmund Foster (b. North Reading, April 18, 1752; d. Littleton, March 28, 1826) also lived here. An orphan, Reverend Foster worked his way through Yale College and subsequently studied for the ministry. He joined in the call to Concord and Lexington while a divinity student. He succeeded to the ministry upon the death of the second minister, Daniel Rogers, in 1782. Edmund Foster represented his district in both the House and Senate of the Commonwealth and was a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention of 1820. A later occupant was Reuben Houghton who ran a store on King Street near the intersection of White and King Streets. The next generation of his family founded the Reuben Hoar Library.
On the 1856, 1875 and 1889 maps of Littleton, this property is attributed to Edward Everett Kimball (b. Littleton, February 10, 1828), the son of John and Lucy Kimball. Around 1905/07, this property belonged to Albert E. Hopkins, a farmer. It was subsequently owned c. 1914 by Frank B. Priest who is variously listed as a store manager and as a farmer.