Albert D. Manning House

The Albert D. Manning House stood on the east side of Treble Cove Road at what is now 148 Treble Cove Road, at the corner of Janice Road. The 1853 Walling map of Billerica labels it "A. Manning". It was a small farmhouse built in the late 1840s by Albert D. Manning on a five-acre corner of the old Manning homestead. It was replaced about 1940 by the present house, which still stands on the same lot.

The land was part of the homestead of Jacob Manning, a farmer west of the Concord River. He died intestate in 1762, and his widow Martha was appointed administratrix on November 1, 1762. In January 1769 his children divided his lands. Jesse Manning bought out his brothers Jacob, Isaac and Thomas and his sister Mary for 136 pounds. He took "Seventy five acres being the Remainder of the homestead that was our honored Father's Jacob Manning", apart from the widow's thirds. On February 9, 1824 the elder Jesse, now an old man, deeded "all my lands lying east of Treble cove road, so called, with all the buildings thereon", 75 acres, to Jesse Manning Junior for $500. The bounds were the road on the west and the land of Charles Cutler on the south. In his will, lodged in November 1825, the elder Jesse left his real estate to his grandson Jesse. He named his wife as Abigail, which shows that the Abigail Baldwin whom the genealogical register assigns to his son was in fact his own second wife.

In the 1840s the land belonged to Jesse Manning (born 1797), whose wife Eleanor joined his deeds. His house stood to the east, where 42 Nolte Road is now (J. Manning House). His eldest son Albert, born in New Hampshire in December 1820, bought two lots from him in 1842. The first was a five-acre lot of "pine plain land" by the land of Col. John Baldwin, which Albert sold to William Cutler in 1844. The second was a ten-acre lot behind it. On April 25, 1846 Jesse sold Albert, for $100, "a certain piece of Pasture land", five acres. It began "at Triple Cove road, so called, and land of Charles Cutler" and ran east along Cutler's wall, north by Jesse's own land to a wall at Dudley Foster's land, and west by Foster back to the road. No buildings were mentioned. By the census of September 13, 1850, Albert Manning, 29, farmer, with real estate worth $500, headed his own household with his wife Nancy and their month-old son. His was the house next to his father's, and the C. Cutler House was the next house beyond. The house was therefore built between 1846 and 1850.

The Mannings did not stay long. On March 30 and 31, 1854 Albert D. Manning and his wife Nancy Jane sold the back lot to Anthony Jones. They sold the house lot, "with the buildings thereon standing", to Joseph Robinson, yeoman, for $750. Robinson mortgaged it to John Baldwin Jr. and to Oliver M. Whipple of Lowell. On March 25, 1859 he sold it for $600 to his brother-in-law William Cutler, Charles Cutler's son. Cutler made his will the next day. To his sister Martha C. Robinson, Joseph's wife, he left "the use and improvement of my Robinson place, (the place where they now reside in said Billerica)" for her life, free of her husband's control, and after her death to her children. His inventory valued the "Robinson Place" at $600.

The Robinson place then passed to Martha's three daughters. In 1876 Martha L. Rollins sold her third to her sister Nellie L. Robinson. In February 1877 the third belonging to Alvira A. Philbrick, a minor, was sold by her guardian at public auction to Nellie for $275. By then the deeds described the house lot together with a 17-acre tract north of it, reaching to "the road leading to Jesse Manning's house", and a three-acre lot beyond. In September 1877 Nellie sold all three parcels to Martha L. Rollins for $1,200. In 1879 Martha sold them for $1,500 to Charlotte E. Fowler, wife of Edmund R. Fowler.

The little farm then changed hands often. Charlotte Fowler sold it in 1886 to George F. Higgins of Melrose for $3,500, holding a $1,500 mortgage. Higgins passed it to George R. Gay of Bedford, and Gay to Andrew J. Dow of Eastport, Maine. In 1891 Dow deeded it back to Charlotte Fowler for $2,500, and she sold it to Dudley Foster, the neighbor on the west. In 1892 Foster sold it to Henry S. Pihl of Lowell for $2,050. Pihl sold it in 1897 to Joseph D. Brunelle of Lowell, who was living in Billerica as a widower when he sold it in 1909 to Mary Hansen. She sold it in 1910 to Andrew and Eliza Wilson. In 1913 the Wilsons sold it to Domenico and Secondo Borracci, and in 1915 the Borraccis sold it to August Elfstrom, a cabinet maker living on Treble Cove Road in 1919. Every deed repeats the same three parcels "with the buildings thereon".

Elfstrom sold the farm in 1922 to Paul Kroll and Joachim Goscila of Lowell. In November 1923 they sold it to Antonina Pomarnacki by a deed whose book is missing from the online registry. In 1926 a straw conveyance made her and her husband Stanislaw tenants by the entirety, and in 1935 Stanislaw quitclaimed his interest to her. Stanislaw ("Stanley") Pomarnacki was listed on Treble Cove Road in the 1931 directory, and he died on February 9, 1945, aged 51. The old Manning house is recorded as taken down in 1939. The present house, which the assessor dates to about 1940, stands within about 40 feet of where the 1853 map places the Manning house.

In 1972 the Land Court registered the whole 1,121-foot frontage on Treble Cove Road to Antonina Pomarnacki and a joint owner (Plan 36671-A), between Janice Road and Charles Anna Lane. Plan 36671-B, drawn in December 1972, divided the corner into lots. Lot 1, 0.82 acre with the house and its outbuildings, is today's 148 Treble Cove Road. It has since been sold to private owners.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 148 Treble Cove Rd (parcel 39-99-0): 0.82 acre, Lot 1 of Land Court Plan 36671-B; house built about 1940
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register, Manning 14 to 19: Jesse Manning and his son Albert, b. 1820

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.