When the Town of Wayland built a new town hall in 1878, the historic Grout-Heard House had to be moved from its original location, on Cochituate Road, to a new lot nearby. The town hall was demolished in 1958 and in 1962, the house was moved back to its original location! The house was probably built around 1740 by Jonathan Grout, descendant of an early settler of Wayland (then part of Sudbury). In 1744, he sold it to his brother-in-law, Richard Heard. The house was later sold out of the family and at the time of the Battles of Lexington and Concord housed the store of Elijah Bent. In 1787, the house was acquired by Silas Grout, a blacksmith, who operated his shop just south of the house. Silas Grout enlarged the house and updated the facade. One of his daughters, Jerusaha Grout, married Newell Heard, a shopkeeper. Their son, John Augustus Heard, was a noted photographer in the nineteenth century and his wife, Sarah Hawkes Heard, was Wayland’s librarian at the end of the century. In 1955, Raytheon Corporation bought the house and donated it to the Wayland Historical Society. Now, placed just a few feet back from its original foundation, the house is open as a museum.