Alexander Road

Alexander Road runs northeast from Cook Street, at the corner of Connolly Road in Pinehurst, to the Wilmington town line in the southeast corner of Billerica. No laying out of it has been found in the town records. It is one of the 57 ways that the town said in 2016 were shown on the official town map of 1831, and the Walling map of 1853 shows a house on it, owned by G. Gleason and A. G. Sheldon, near the present 71 Alexander Road. Before the streets were named it was simply a back road from Cook Street toward Wilmington.

The name comes from the Alexander family, who farmed beside it near the Wilmington line in the late nineteenth century. Frank, Jonas, Joseph, Noble D. and Watson Alexander were on the town's list of voters in 1880, and W. Alexander was paid for "self, team and help" on the highways in 1885. The street naming committee chosen in 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) listed "Alexander street, running northeasterly from Cook street to Wilmington line, E. Billerica," and the Billerica Historical Society's revised list, accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, kept "Alexander street, from Cook street to Wilmington line running northeasterly." The directory of 1901 placed Frank H. Alexander and J. Watson Alexander on "Alexander n. Wilmington line," and in 1903 the highway surveyor paid for "graveling near Alexander Bros.'" The family were the road's best known residents when it was named, although neither committee explained the name. It was usually called Alexander Street until the 1920s and Alexander Road after.

The road stayed rough and rural for a long time. The highway surveyor was "making gutters on Alexander Road" in 1903, and in 1922 he wrote that it was one of the outlying roads "in such poor condition" that it ought to be resurfaced with gravel, while the Committee on Dangerous Highways called it "a side road" in "a dangerously rocky and rutty condition." The town voted $1,000 in 1923 to repair "Alexander Road leading from the Billerica-Wilmington town line to Cook Street," and in 1935 a special appropriation of $1,500 paid to have "the entire length of street" widened, graveled and brought to grade. It was first tarred in 1949, when 2,000 feet were "graveled, tar-penetration applied and sealed," and another 1,000 feet were treated in 1950.

After 1950 the farmland along the road gave way to industry and schools. The Shawsheen Valley Regional Vocational Technical School District took the old farm at Cook Street and Alexander Road by eminent domain in 1967, and the school opened there in 1970. In 1975 the Permanent School Building Committee proposed an elementary school on Alexander Road, but town meeting voted down the purchase of the 30-acre site, 23 to 125, and the motion to build the school was withdrawn, leaving only kindergarten additions to other schools; the school was never built. Water mains were laid along it in the early 1960s, and the road was rebuilt with Cook Street under a state and federal project that was awarded in 2008 and completed in 2010.

The town's list of accepted streets printed in 1956 gave "Alexander Rd. Cook St. N.E. to Wilmington line" without a date. 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 old roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." That list gives Alexander Road from Cook Street to the Wilmington town line.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
G. Gleason and A. G. Sheldon House		71 Alexander Rd	1852		1987

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1897: street naming committee, "Alexander street, running northeasterly from Cook street to Wilmington line"
2. Annual Report 1899: Historical Society street list, "54. Alexander street, from Cook street to Wilmington line running northeasterly"
3. Annual Report 1900: street list accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): list of voters in 1880, with Frank, Jonas, Joseph, Noble D. and Watson Alexander
5. Annual Report 1903: highway accounts, "Graveling near Alexander Bros.'"
6. Annual Report 1903: highway accounts, "Making gutters on Alexander Road"
7. Annual Report 1922: highway surveyor on the poor condition of Alexander Road
8. Annual Report 1922: Committee on Dangerous Highways, Alexander Road "in a dangerously rocky and rutty condition"
9. Annual Report 1935: special appropriation, Alexander Road widened, graveled and brought to grade its entire length
10. Annual Report 1949: Alexander Road graveled, tar penetration applied and sealed 2,000 feet
11. Annual Report 1956: list of streets accepted, "Alexander Rd. Cook St. N.E. to Wilmington line"
12. Annual Report 1975: Art. 25, purchase of 30 acres on Alexander Road for a school, LOST 23 to 125; Art. 26, Alexander Road elementary school motion withdrawn
13. Annual Report 2008: Cook Street and Alexander Road reconstruction awarded and begun
14. Annual Report 2010: Cook Street and Alexander Road reconstruction completed
15. Annual Report 2017: Article 36, 1831 list of roads, "Alexander Road, Cook Street, Wilmington Town Line"
16. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, Article 36 accepts the 1831 roads as public ways (124 to 19)