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| Asa French House
The house’s most prominent resident was Asa
French (1775-1853), a trained civil engineer who opened Braintree’s first post
office in the house in 1825. Asa French also served as the town’s first
Postmaster for the next seventeen years. He also served as Town Clerk (1826-36)
and Town
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The
French family is one of Braintree’s oldest families and the Asa French House,
located at 766 Washington Street, is one of Braintree’s oldest homes. The
house, built about 1699 by Thomas French (1657/8-1717), the eighth child of
English colonists, John and Grace French, was originally part of a large family
farm. Thomas French was born in Braintree on March 10, 1657/58 and in about
1695/6 married Elizabeth Belcher (1677-1718) and had ten children. The house
then remained in the French family for many generations. Much of what is
visible on and inside the main block of the present house dates from the 1800s.
The ell is a twentieth-century addition. Little, apart from the central chimney,
remains of the original structure. 
Treasurer (1810-15, 1826-36). The house’s classically-inspired formal entrance
pavilion and moldings were probably added by Asa French. The house sold out of
the French family from 1964 to 1976, when it was purchased by a French family
cousin, Charlotte Valentine Taylor, who donated it to Thayer Academy. The house
then served as the residence of Jonathan Wales French, Jr., a French teacher at
Thayer Academy, and his wife Katherine. After Jonathan’s death, Thayer Academy
donated the house to Braintree Historical Society in 1999. The house is
currently a private residence but the Society eventually plans to restore it to
the period when it served as the town’s first post office. 