Bradley Woods was created in 1940 when the Hingham Homes Corporation purchased the land from the Bradley Estate and then conveyed it to another corporation called Hingham Homesteads, Inc., which registered and subdivided the land and built and sold houses. The FHA guaranteed the mortgages — and during this period the FHA required/encouraged restrictive covenants in subdivision plans they were underwriting. Original documents from this development reveal that racially restrictive covenants were part of the deeds of these homes. The deeds state in section G that “No persons of any race other than the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot, except this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of another race domiciled with an owner or tenant.”
The covenant became unenforceable in 1948 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Shelley v. Kraemer, though in many instances throughout the country, restrictions just went “underground” after that time through the actions of mortgage lenders and realtors.
[Source: Hingham Historical Society]
