Harold W. Estey
Harold W. Estey
Harold W. Estey was a dentist, an officer of the Massachusetts militia and one of the five Billerica men who died in the service in the First World War. In October 1909 he bought from the Rev. Minot J. Savage the house on the corner of Concord Road and River Street at Billerica Centre, the old Bowers homestead now known as the Old Providence House, and made it his family's home; the directory of 1916 lists him as a dentist with his practice in Boston and his house at "Concord rd c River". He and his wife Elsie H. Estey had two sons born in Billerica, John Endicott Estey on April 7, 1913 and Harold W. Estey on March 18, 1916.
He served in the First Corps of Cadets of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, and about 1913, as captain of its Company A, he gave bronze prize medals for the drill of the Billerica School Cadets. In the war he went overseas with the American Expeditionary Forces, and he died in the service in 1918: the town's 1918 roll of its men in the service marks him "(A. E. F., France.) 'Gone Home.'", and a Massachusetts honor roll of the state's dead in the war lists him as a major, of Boston, who died of disease. The directory of 1919 recorded him as deceased. His widow, by then living in Winchester, sold the Billerica house in October 1920 to the Rev. Dr. George Morgan Ward.
When Billerica's veterans organized a post of the American Legion after the war they named it the Harold W. Estey Post No. 268, and it kept his name through the 1930s.
His name is on Billerica's memorial to its dead of the two world wars, the World War Memorials at the south end of the Town Common: first a plaque on a large boulder, set up in 1948, and since 2004 a larger granite memorial that lists the five men of the First World War and the twenty-nine of the Second.
References
- Billerica Public Library, Military Memorials (WWI names)
- Honor Roll of World War 1 Casualties from Massachusetts (Estey, Harold W, Major, Boston, DOD)
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Property | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1909 | Deed | Rev. Minot J. Savage of Cleveland, Ohio | Harold W. Estey of Billerica | Details | Old Providence House | 442/489 |
Dated October 11, 1909, for one dollar and other valuable consideration: "a certain lot of land, situated in that part of said Billerica known as Billerica Centre with the buildings thereon", from Fred H. Parkers stone bound on the south side of "the road leading to Carlisle, known as River street", south 163 feet on Parker, east 37 feet to the Bennett Public Library Association, north 70 and east 136 feet on the library land, north 107 feet on Main street and west 175 feet on River street, "being that part of the Bowers Homestead so called conveyed to me by Fred H. Parker by deed dated June 1, A.D. 1896 ... book 278, page 110", with his rights in the halves of Main and River streets in front. Recorded December 1909.
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Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.