Back in 1829, it only cost Isreal Whitney $100 to buy two acres of land in Needham, Mass.

He married Mary Fuller, whose family were early settlers of Needham, and this house was built for them in 1830.

The home served as the first town post office, of which Whitney was the postmaster. He carried letters to the local schoolyard and gave them to children to deliver to their parents. Sometimes, he’d spread out the mail on his cobbler’s table and people would drop by to claim theirs.

Whitney was also a shoemaker and a Justice of the Peace.

In the 1940s, the house was sold to Elizabeth D. Revere, whose husband, Paul, was the great-great-grandson of the infamous Paul “The British are coming!” Revere.

When the Dwight School caught on fire one night, Paul Revere called the fire department. But the dispatcher couldn’t get over his name, thinking the call was a prank, so they reportedly never sent anyone to the blaze.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.