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Bare Hill

Bare Hill is the hill south and south-east of the village of Billerica Centre, between Boston Road, the old Woburn road, and Lexington Road. Hazen called it "the hill south of the village." It closes the north end of the central upland between the Concord and Shawsheen rivers: from Nutting's Pond, now Nuttings Lake, and Indian Hill on its northern side, a plateau rises to the north and, "beyond a depression, terminating in Bare Hill. This hill is flanked by meadows, beyond which is the elevated ground on which the village is built." Web's Brook rises on its north-east side.

Several of the first settlers took their house lots around the hill. William Hamlet, from Cambridge, who received a single share in 1656, had a first grant of fifty-six acres "on the North-East corner of bare hill, and on ye south of hogrooten meadow," and his house stood near the later Crosby place; the William Hamlet House on his lot, on the north-east side of Boston Road opposite the slope of the hill, stood until the early 1980s. William Tay was on the west side of the hill, Simon Crosby on its north side and Sergt. Thomas Foster on its east. In 1659 Goodman Walsley was granted ten acres "on the East side of bare hill, leading towards Shawshin," a grant later made null, and in 1660 John Kittredge received a house lot of ten acres "on ye south-east of bare hill, on ye west side of the country road." Benjamin Parker, son of Robert, had a grant south of the hill, where his house stood west of the old Woburn road "as it ran over the top of the hill."

The Woburn road at first ran over the top of Bare Hill, not around it. A road laid out in 1661 ended in the "road to the bay" on the "top of the hill Next to Thomas Foster's fence," which Hazen took as proof of the first route. On May 16, 1711 Deacon James Frost and Lt. Samuel Hill were appointed to view a highway proposed to be exchanged with Crosby, "upon bare Hill," and Hazen supposed that the change moved the road to the easier route around the northerly slope of the hill, where Boston Road runs today. In the order of 1661 for the common herd, those who lived "on the east and south of bare hill" were counted among the families living remote from the town. In Hazen's list of the garrison houses of the Indian wars, Simon Crosby's stood north-west of the hill, near the fork of the Lexington and Woburn roads, and Thomas Foster's south-east of it. When the town began dividing its common lands in 1705, the "Pond Squadron" received "all the land upon Bare hill to Bacon's farme and between Nutten's pond and Oakes' farme."

The Crosby family kept land on and around the hill for generations. Nathan Crosby and Josiah Crosby, sons of Simon, had their homesteads on the Woburn road "between the village and Bare hill," and Deacon Oliver Crosby (1749-1822) lived east of the hill. In 1810 or later Rebecca Lampson was living on the Woburn road south-east of Bare Hill, and from 1871 Dr. Francis Vergnies Noyes lived west of it, on the Lexington road. In its report for 1982 the Billerica Historical Commission noted "with regret the loss of the 18th century Crosby farmstead on Bare Hill."

Bare Hill

Bare Hill

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