Alden O. Dane

Alden Orrin Dane (1844 to 1923) was a farmer, baker and salesman who ran the Billerica Town Farm in the early 1880s, worked the town's roads as its road agent in the later 1880s, served as a selectman from 1891 to 1894, and laid out the house lots in North Billerica where Dane Avenue bears his name. He was born on August 18, 1844, in Derby, Vermont.

He was superintendent of the town farm from 1880 to 1886, at the Town Farm where the town kept its poor. The farm accounts of 1885 pay "A. O. Dane and wife" fifty dollars a month, and he also sold the farm butter and was repaid for sundries. In 1886 the town bought its own horses, harness and plows to work the highways, and Dane was paid as road agent at fifty dollars a month, with more for boarding the hired men; the highway accounts still list him as superintendent in 1889, and he was paid for work done with the town team. In 1889 and 1890 he bought the milk of the town farm, three to four hundred cans a month at 28 cents a can.

He was elected a selectman in March 1891 for three years, and in 1892 he signed the town warrant with Coburn S. Smith and Edward B. Haskell. By the end of the decade he was a baker: the jury list accepted at the town meeting of 1899 names "A. O. Dane, baker," the town paid him for crackers and bread, and the Lowell directory of 1901 lists him as a baker boarding at the corner of Andover Road and Pond Street. The town's voting lists of 1905 to 1908 give his occupation as salesman.

Shortly after 1900 he had a house lot plan made of "the Chase lot, so called," near the junction of Pollard Street and Boston Road. The town accepted Preston Street, laid out on his plan, in 1902. On March 17, 1904, the selectmen, "after giving proper notice to the owner of the land, Alden O. Dane," laid out Railroad Street "forty feet wide beginning at Fordway road and extending easterly three hundred feet to Dane avenue," the earliest record of the name Dane Avenue. In 1915 and 1916 he was paid from the town's account for the common and the town pump.

His wife, Lucy Baldwin Dane, was born Lucy Baldwin Parker on July 11, 1862, a daughter of Charles Henry Parker, postmaster of the village, and a granddaughter of Col. John Baldwin; she graduated from the Howe School in 1879. Their son Arthur Orrin Dane was born on February 11, 1899, and died three days later, and Lucy died on February 16, 1899, aged 36. In his later years Dane boarded with the Searles family on Andover Road. He died in Billerica on September 27, 1923, aged 79.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1886: expenses at Town Farm, February 1885, A. O. Dane and wife, $50.00
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1887: highway expenses, April 1886, A. O. Dane, road agent, $50.00, and boarding two men
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1890: highway expenses, March 1889, A. O. Dane, Superintendent, $50.00
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1891: town farm receipts, of Alden O. Dane for milk, 28 cents a can
5. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1892: town warrant of March 9, 1892, signed by Coburn S. Smith, Edward B. Haskell and Alden O. Dane, Selectmen
6. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1899: jury list accepted at the annual meeting, "A. O. Dane, baker"
7. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1900: births and deaths of 1899, Arthur Orrin Dane (b. Feb. 11, d. Feb. 14) and Lucy Baldwin Dane (d. Feb. 16, aged 36)
8. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1902: warrant Art. 31, $100 to build Preston Street on plans of Alden O. Dane of the Chase lot
9. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1905: selectmen's layout of Railroad Street, March 17, 1904, on the plan of Alden O. Dane, owner, to Dane avenue
10. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1923 (1920-24 volume): deaths, Sept. 27, Alden O. Dane, aged 79
11. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 107, PARKER 25: Charles Henry Parker m. Mary Baldwin; daughter Lucy Baldwin b. 1862, July 11