West Street

West Street runs west from Treble Cove Road, across the Nashua Road, to the Carlisle line in West Billerica, where it continues in Carlisle as North Road. It is an old farm road of the Shed, Hill and Nichols families, and although the town records contain no laying out of it, the deeds show it in use by the 1770s. In 1779 William Shed Jr. sold his brother Thomas a lot beginning "at the westerly side of Treble Cove Road thence running on ye road that leads to Joseph Nicholas land." Later deeds describe the same road from its farms: in 1812 Benjamin Russell sold part of the Shed farm bounded by Treble Cove road and "the road leading to the Baptist meetinghouse in Chelmsford," in 1815 it was "a road leading from said main road by the house lately occupied by Alpheus Hill deceased," and in 1824 Samuel Brown 2nd sold Asa Hill a quarter acre of pasture "on the road leading from said Asa's mothers house to Stephen Nickles house," beginning "nearly opposite the widow Martha Hill's house." Asa Hill built his brick house there about 1825, and the Asa Hill House at 17 West Street still stands on the road; deeds of 1861 to 1910 bound the farm on "the road leading by the dwelling house on the premises."

The road had no fixed name before 1899. When the town first named its streets, the committee chosen in 1896 listed it as "Hayes street, running westerly from Winning street to Carlisle line, W. Billerica," Winning street being the committee's name for that part of Treble Cove Road. The committee gave no reasons, but the name was evidently that of Michael Hayes, who bought the old Asa Hill farm on the road in 1870 and owned it until his death in 1896; he is the "M. Hays" of the 1875 and 1889 maps. The Billerica Historical Society revised the list, and the version accepted at town meeting on March 27, 1899 gave it as "West street, from Treble Cove running westerly to Carlisle line, W. Billerica," after its place at the western edge of the town. The new name was slow to take hold. The highway surveyor graveled "2,820 feet on North Street, West Billerica" in 1911, the Land Court certificate of the Kennelly farm in 1913 bounds the brick house lot "southwesterly by North Street," and the state historic survey of the Asa Hill House in 1974 still gave its address as North Road. These were probably borrowed from the Carlisle road it joins at the town line, which is still North Road. Town reports of the 1910s to 1930s also list a "North Road" and a "North Street" without saying where they were, and those entries are not counted here.

This West Street should not be confused with the "west street" of the first settlement, on the other side of the Concord River. In 1658 the town agreed that "the highway called the west street should runne from long street, beginning at the southeast of Jonathan Danforth's house lot," to the river. By 1730 it had become a "bridle-way," and the Centre bridge of 1737, the Middle Bridge, was built "against the bridle way"; that first West Street is now part of River Street.

The present West Street was a gravel road for most of its history. It was graveled in 1904 and 1911, received small sums in the highway appropriations of 1930 and 1931, and was only "scraped and raked" year after year through the 1940s, until in 1953 it was "scraped and asphalt penetrated," the first record of a hard surface. In 1973 town meeting voted to discontinue "West Street as a Public Way running from Treble Cove Road to Nashua Road," effective February 15, 1973, and to convey that short piece at its east end, "the way known as West Street or Old Road," to New England Erecting Co., Inc. The rest of the street, from the Nashua Road west to the Carlisle line, remains a public way.

It was formally accepted as a public way at the Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, which voted, 124 to 19, under Chapter 82, sections 21 to 24, of the General Laws, to accept the 44 old roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." The town manager explained that the state already treated these roads as public ways, but the town had no record of accepting them and so could not spend money to maintain them. The list gives it from the town line to Treble Cove Road.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Asa Hill House		17 West St	1825

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1897: street naming committee's list, "Hayes street, running westerly from Winning street to Carlisle line, W. Billerica"
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1899: Billerica Historical Society's list of streets, "West street, from Treble Cove running westerly to Carlisle line"
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1900: street list accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 96: the 1658 "west street" from Long Street to the river, its grant to Danforth and Kidder, and the bridle way of 1730
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 101: the Centre bridge of 1737 built "against the bridle way"
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): 1776 tax list with Hazen's note placing Enoch Kidder at the Parker place, "south of West Street"
7. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1904: highway surveyor's report, graveling on West Street
8. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1953: West Street "scraped and asphalt penetrated"
9. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1973: town meeting votes to discontinue West Street between Treble Cove Road and Nashua Road and convey the way
10. Annual Report 1911: Highway Surveyor, scraping and graveling 2,820 feet on North Street, West Billerica
11. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting, October 2016, Article 36 accepts as public ways the roads shown on the official town map of 1831 (124 to 19)
12. Annual Report 2017: warrant for Article 36, the 1831 list of roads with their termini