Building of the Boston and Lowell Railroad

Type	Construction
Date	June 25, 1835

The Boston and Lowell Railroad, chartered on June 5, 1830 and opened on June 25, 1835, was one of the first steam railroads in the United States and the first to touch Billerica. Its line, the present MBTA Lowell Line, crosses the north and east of the town: it comes in from Wilmington over the Shawsheen River on a stone arch (see Lowell Railroad Bridge over the Shawsheen River), runs northwest through East Billerica, where it crossed the county road to Andover and Tewksbury beside the Richardson mills on Content Brook, and reaches the Concord River at the Canal Mills, now North Billerica, before going on to Lowell. It passed about two miles from Billerica Centre. The railroad brought the town a station at each end, took the trade of the Middlesex Canal and the stages, and fixed the places where the town's industry would grow.

The road was the work of the men who were building the mills of Lowell. Hazen wrote that they "saw that the railway was what their enterprise needed," and the canal's investors fought the charter in vain. James F. Baldwin, son of Loammi Baldwin, the canal's engineer, surveyed the route, keeping it close to the canal but straighter and laying it out to cross very few roads on the level; no public road in Billerica crosses it at grade. The corporation bought its location from the Billerica farmers in 1833 and 1834, usually a strip four rods wide, two rods each side of the centre line. On February 14, 1833 William E. Faulkner, clothier, sold it for $100 a strip "near the Canal Mills so called," 74 rods along the centre line and two acres and 65 rods in all, on a plan by S. Livingston of January 8, 1833. Samuel Brown sold a strip "on both sides of the road leading from Billerica meeting house by Allen's tavern to Pattens Mill" for $215.62, and on January 18, 1834 the heirs of Dr. William Bowers sold three pieces near "Cold or Content Brook" for $200.

The largest of the Billerica purchases was from Oliver Richardson and his son John Richardson 2nd, whose farm and saw mill lay at the Andover road crossing. On January 20, 1834 they sold the corporation, for $1,050, "a strip just four rods in width" through the farm "near said Richardsons dwelling house," with a longer strip along the mill pond on the other side of the road. They kept the right, for "our mill and water privileges," to flow the pond on both sides of the railroad and to use the embankment as a dam, and the corporation agreed to keep up the culverts and to fence the line. When Elizabeth French sold six sevenths of the old French farm by the Concord River that May, she excepted the land already taken by the railroad.

The line was built on granite, with a stone wall under each rail, and the first train made a trial trip to Boston on May 27, 1835. The road opened on June 25, and two days later its first advertisement offered two trains each way a day, leaving Lowell "at 6 A.M. & 2 1/4 P.M." and Boston "at 9 A.M. & 5 3/4 P.M.," at a fare of $1.00, and warned that "No baggage can be taken, except what belongs to passengers. Allowance to each, 40 pounds." At the North Billerica end a stopping place called Billerica Mills was in use by 1838, and the Talbots began their chemical works in 1849 "in a building near the depot." At the East Billerica end the first record of a stop comes in July 1841, when John Richardson 2nd gave the railroad a way from the county road "to give an easy access from the said County Road to the Rail Road" and the right to pile wood and freight beside the track and build a wood shed (see East Billerica Station). The corporation widened its location by more strips bought from Edward Collins and Thomas Pinnock in 1841, from William E. Faulkner near the Canal Mills in 1842 and from John A. Knowles in 1845.

The railroad ended the era of the canal and the turnpike in Billerica. "For several years before the opening of the Boston and Lowell Railroad from twelve to sixteen stages passed daily through Billerica," Hazen wrote; they did not survive it. The Middlesex Canal, which had paid dividends since 1819, earned less than its expenses after 1843, surrendered its charter in 1851 and was sold in sections in 1852; its proprietors "complained that the railroad had been permitted to damage their chartered rights without indemnity, but they had no redress." The Middlesex Turnpike's charter was repealed in 1841 (see Building of the Middlesex Turnpike). At North Billerica the canal company sold its dam, water rights and mill buildings to C. P. Talbot and Company in 1851, and the mill village that grew up there (see Rise of the North Billerica Woolen Mills) was built beside the railroad.

The village at the Centre gained much less. Hazen contrasted "the four trains of 1835" with "the twenty-five passenger trains of 1882, with almost as many more for freight," but held that the benefit to Billerica "has been much less than it would have been if it had followed a more direct line, through Woburn, and passing between the village and Fox Hill": "some feared and repelled the railroad; others, more sagacious, saw its benefits and sought its location on a more northerly route; and the growth of the village has been hindered by its distance from the stations." The search for a railroad to the Centre led to the Billerica and Bedford Railroad of 1877 and the Boston and Lowell's own Billerica and Bedford Branch of 1885. The main line itself passed to the Boston and Maine on lease in 1887, drew the railroad's repair shops to North Billerica in 1911 to 1914 (see Opening of the Boston and Maine Shops), and since 1976 has belonged to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (see Boston and Lowell Railroad).

People

Oliver Richardson: With his son John sold the Boston and Lowell Rail Road Corporation its location through the Richardson farm at the Andover road crossing on January 20, 1834, for $1,050.
John Richardson: Joined in the 1834 sale of the railroad location and in July 1841 granted the access way and wood yard that mark the first stop at East Billerica.
William E. Faulkner: Clothier who sold the railroad its strip near the Canal Mills at North Billerica on February 14, 1833, and a small piece beside the track in 1842.

Building of the Boston and Lowell Railroad

Building of the Boston and Lowell Railroad

People

References