Allen Road

Location	Map
Neighborhood	Riverdale
Laid Out	1700
Right of Way	30 - 32 ft
Pavement	18 - 20 ft

Allen Road runs from Boston Road, just north of the Shawsheen River and the mouth of Webb Brook, northeast past Baldwin Road to Andover Road at the foot of Fox Hill. It is one of the town's oldest local ways, and no laying out of it was ever recorded. Henry A. Hazen wrote that "from the Andover Road, sometimes called East Street, the road running south, at the foot of Fox Hill, was of course in early use," and he called it the "East Road" for convenience. He read the 1658 agreement for highways "at Loes-Plaine," which allowed a cart way "just below the Rockes and hills by the side of loes plaine," as outlining this road as far as Samuel Kemp's lot, and he found a later record of 1670/1 in which Thomas Foster and John Marshall, with Richard Daniel's consent, made a private way from Thomas Richardson's lot through the Shawshin Farm to the country road, although he could not say whether the present road followed it. In his notes to the tax list of December 1776 he defined the East Road as "the road running from the foot of 'rockey hill,' east of the village, to the Woburn Road, near the Shawshin." The Historical Commission's survey of 1974 added that William French's sons John and Jacob had house lots east of the township and that "the present Allen Road was established at the foot of the hill along the head of their house lots."

Several families lived along the road for generations. The south end was the Richardsons'. The Historical Commission noted that "Allen Road, south from this site, was informally known as 'Richardson's Row,'" the site being Jonathan Richardson's house of about 1740 at the corner of Webb Brook Road, and the 1776 tax list has Ebenezer Richardson on the "East Road, near Webb's Brook" and Jonathan Richardson on the "East Road, near Pasho place." In 1782 the Shawshin school squadron took in "Ebenezer Richardson & Josiah Richardson on the east road." Farther north were the Marshalls, the Frenches and the Allens.

The name comes from the Allen family. Samuel Allen of Gloucester, a former merchant of Newbury and Manchester, bought David Baldwin's farm in East Billerica in 1762 and divided it between his sons Jeremiah Allen, who kept Allen's Tavern on Andover Road, and Thomas Allen, who settled on the East Road. Hazen placed Thomas Allen in 1776 at "Miss Sophia Allen, East Road," and Samuel Kemp's early lot "on the East Road, near Miss Sophia Allen's." Sophia Allen, born in 1809, was a daughter of Thomas Allen's son Zadock, so the family had lived on the road for more than a century when it was named. The street naming committee chosen in 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) listed "Allen street, running northeasterly from Main street to Andover street, E. Billerica," and the Billerica Historical Society's revised list, accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, gave "Allen road, from Boston road northeasterly to Andover road, E. Billerica." Neither report explains the name.

Allen Road stayed a gravel road for many years. The highway surveyor graveled it in pieces from 1901, including 2,362 feet in 1909, 983 feet "filled in with stone, 2 ft. deep" in 1913 and 3,500 feet in 1917, and water mains were laid along it from 1915. In 1922 the town's Committee on Dangerous Highways reported that it had "not only through traffic but considerable local traffic," with "corners where the view is dangerously obstructed" and "spots where the road is dangerously narrow and unprotected from a drop," and recommended a relocation. In 1927 the town voted money for "two applications of Tarvia B" on "the following gravel roads: Allen Road, 2½ miles," and the first stretches were tarred that year from Boston Road to Webb Brook Road and from Andover Street to Baldwin Road. It was tarred 4,200 feet in 1931 and 8,500 feet in 1935, widened to 24 feet with new culverts in 1936, and rolled and tarred for 8,448 feet at that width in 1937. It was never macadamized; asphalt seal coats followed in the 1940s and mix-in-place surfacing in 1948, 1949 and 1956.

A relocation laid out by the selectmen came before the town meeting in 1961, which took no action. The Middlesex County Commissioners ordered "the relocation of a portion of Allen Road" near Baldwin Road on December 29, 1972, after the town had taken land for it in 1970. The road was rebuilt with state and county money in three stages: from Andover Road to Tower Farm Road, finished in the fall of 1989, from Tower Farm Road to Baldwin Road in 1992 and 1993, and from Baldwin Road to Webb Brook Road, substantially completed in 1996.

The town's list of streets accepted, printed in 1956, gave "Allen Road, Boston Rd. N. E. to Andover Road" with no date of acceptance. 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 57 old roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." The list gives Allen Road from Boston Road to Andover Road, and Allen Road Extension from Allen Road to Andover Road.

Historic Buildings

Name	Address	Built	Demolished
William French House	Allen Road	1735	1976
Reuben French House	14 Allen Rd	1806
A. Danforth House	31 Allen Rd	1852	1960
Abigail French House	9 Allen Rd	1852	1939
C. Kittredge House	34 Allen Rd	1852	1949
District 10 Schoolhouse	70 Allen Rd	1852	1900
H. Mackey House	178 Allen Rd	1852	1986
J. Hurd House	164 Allen Rd	1852	1953
T. K. Richardson House	24 Allen Rd	1852	1963
W. P. P. Pollard House	121 Allen Rd	1852	1956
Locke School	110 Allen Rd	1968

Allen Road

Allen Road

Historic Buildings

References