Ash Swamp

Ash Swamp was a swamp on the southeast side of Billerica Center, at the corner where the first Township, the farm granted to Governor Thomas Dudley and the farm of the Rev. Samuel Whiting came together. No swamp of that name is mapped there today, and the name is known only from the town's earliest grants as Henry A. Hazen read them in 1883.

It served as a landmark for the bounds of the first settlers. The house lot of Joseph Tompson, recorded in 1660, lay "near the most easterly part (eastward of it) of Mr. Dudley's farme," bounded "N. by the farme line," and "his East line runes about ye middle of ash Swamp"; Hazen identified it as the later Tufts place, with Tufts Lane a fragment of the old road on its north. A grant of twelve acres to Mr. Whiting was "bounded by Ash Swamp on the South," by John Marshall "in ye old Township line" on the east and by the country road on the west, and its south-west corner was "a white oake standing on the East side of ye ash swamp, wch white oake is the N.E. corner of Mr. Dudley's farme." From this and the matching grant to John Stearns, Hazen concluded that the north-east corner of the Whiting farm and the south-east corner of the Township were at the same point, "on the east side of Ash swamp, where Charnstalfe lane and Tufts lane extended, would meet." John Marshall, he wrote, lived "partly on and partly off the towneship," on the east side, beyond Ash Swamp.

Hazen also used the swamp to describe the Dudley farm, whose north-east side followed the line of Charnstaffe Lane "extended from the river to a point just east of Ash Swamp and the narrow-gauge railroad," meaning the Billerica and Bedford Narrow-Gauge Railroad, then newly built. No later record of the swamp has been found, and its exact outline is not known.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): the Dudley farm bounded by Charnstaffe Lane extended "to a point just east of Ash Swamp and the narrow-gauge railroad"
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): John Marshall "partly on and partly off the towneship," beyond Ash Swamp
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), genealogical register: Joseph Tompson's house lot, "his East line runes about ye middle of ash Swamp"
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), genealogical register: Samuel Whiting's grant bounded by Ash Swamp, the white oak at the corner of the Dudley farm