Andover Road

Andover Road is one of the four original "country" roads of Billerica, the highways to Woburn, Chelmsford, Andover and Concord that the town kept up at public charge from the first years of settlement. It was laid out by a joint committee of the two towns and recorded on the 26th day of the 12th month, 1660 (February 1660/61), as "Andever highway." Sergeant John Parker and Sergeant James Kidder served for Billerica, George Abbot Sr. and Sergeant John Osgood for Andover, with Jonathan Danforth acting as surveyor. The return began "at the country road that leads from Chelmsford towards the bay, or in long street, neer the meeting house," and ran "crosse ye house lots of James Parker and Ralph Hill, Sen^r.," four poles wide, then "by the North line of John Shildon's house lott Towards foxes hill, and on the east side of the said hill, in ye old drawne way," so that, as with the Concord road, a beaten path was already in use. From there it was six poles wide to "a meadow, called Content meadow," and on to Strongwater Brook, George Abbot's meadow and Andover's own road, which it entered "at a hill called east hill," ending at "ye bridge that lyeth over Shawshin River, neere to ye house of William Ballard."

The road has always been named for its destination, the town of Andover, and the early records call it simply "the country road leading to andever" or "the country road at fox hill." Near the village it was also known as East Street: house lots granted in 1658 were bounded "by East street," and Henry A. Hazen, who wrote that the Andover Road was "sometimes called East Street," found that the street "was changed in 1660, to run across the center" of John Poulter's lot. Beyond Fox Hill the first line of the road did not follow the present Andover Road. A 1664 order for a highway "from ye country road leading to andever, to Shawshin Riuer, beginning on ye east of content bridge" was, in Hazen's reading, "the road from the depot to Pattenville," which puts the old country road's crossing of Content Brook at the East Billerica station, on the line now called Gray Street, and from there north through what became Tewksbury in 1734. The present road east of Gray Street, past King's Corner and Allen's Tavern to the Tewksbury line, was in place before the Middlesex Canal was dug across it about 1802, when the canal's Allen Bridge carried the road over the new channel.

When the town first named its streets, the committee chosen at the annual meeting of 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) listed "Andover street, running easterly from Main street to Tewksbury line." A meeting of citizens at the rooms of the Historical Society on March 23, 1898 asked that it be "Changed to Andover Road," and the Billerica Historical Society's list, accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, gave "Andover road, from Boston road running easterly to Tewksbury line." The older form lasted long after the vote: the highway surveyors wrote "Andover Street" in their reports into the 1950s, at times listing an "Andover Street" from Boston Road to Pond Street and an "Andover Road" beyond it as if they were two roads.

The road was graveled in short pieces in the 1890s, beginning with 800 feet "from guide-board to R. K. Underhills" in 1890. The first macadam was laid in 1907, when $2,000 of excise money paid for about 1,000 feet "from Main Street to Town Barn Lane," along with a sewer in the same street. In 1921 the highway surveyor macadamized Andover Street "from the Town Pump to Pollard School," at more cost than expected because the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company had taken up its rails in the street. The selectmen complained in 1926 that "no favorable action was ever taken by either the State or County with regard to Andover Road," but in 1927 the town voted $5,000 "to repair, roll, and resurface with binding oil Andover Road from the foot of Fox Hill to the Tewksbury line," and Middlesex County and the State Department of Public Works each added $3,000. Another $5,000 that year and $2,500 in 1928 carried the macadam east to Pond Street. The rest of the road was kept with tar and pea stone; in 1944 it was resurfaced with a tar and pea gravel road mix "from Fox Hill cemetery to Gray Street," and in 1963 it was surfaced with bituminous concrete from Pond Street to Fox Hill Cemetery.

Middlesex County relocated part of the road at King's Corner, the junction with Canal Street, in 1916, taking a strip of the Allen's Tavern lot. Near the Tewksbury line the road crosses the Boston and Maine Railroad on a bridge that was a wooden stringer span of about 1900 when the state inventoried it in 1980; its replacement was under construction in 2006. Along the way the road passes Fox Hill Cemetery, the site of the Pollard School, Rocky Hill, where three more street lights were put up in 1914, and the Middlesex Canal crossing at Jameson Way.

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 town manager explained that the state already treated these roads as public ways, but the town had no record of accepting them and so could not spend money to maintain them. The list gives it from Boston Road to the Tewksbury town line.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
John Sheldon House		28 Andover Rd	1698
Allen's Tavern		286 Andover Rd	1740
Sabbath Day House		20 Andover Rd	1765
Blodgett Homestead		10 Andover Rd	1800
Samuel G. Tucker House		13 Andover Rd	1815
First Congregational Church of Billerica	Dale Parish Hall	18 Andover Rd	1829
Hillside Farm	Old Sherry Place	200 Andover Rd	1830		1895
Oliver P. Greenwood House		24 Andover Rd	1830
Luther W. Faulkner House	Dr. Thaddeus Brown House	2 Andover Rd	1832
Deacon Edward Wright House	Billerica Poorhouse	57 Andover Rd	1840
Albert Marshall House	William S. Gleason House	9 Andover Rd	1845		1967
Thomas Shedd House		23 Andover Rd	1845
George Bacon House		27 Andover Rd	1846
M. Gustus House		245 Andover Rd	1852		1969
Jenkins House		17 Andover Rd	1853		1990
Samuel H. King House		350 Andover Rd	1855		2009
Dwight H. Dimmock House		49-51 Andover Rd	1860
A. H. Patten Jr. House		373 Andover Rd	1865
Field House		354 Andover Rd	1870
Cook House		42 Andover Rd	1873
Casey Tailor Shop		7 Andover Rd	1874		1894
Gerrit H. Bennink House		41 Andover Rd	1875
Rufus Kitteredge Underhill House		67 Andover Rd	1875
Frederick A. Morey Block		8 Andover Rd	1877
Watts House		39 Andover Rd	1878		1995
Richardson Cottage		37 Andover Rd	1880
Sears James Cook House		58 Andover Rd	1880
Shuman House		369 Andover Rd	1880
Foster House		352 Andover Rd	1883
Charles A. Menty House		62 Andover Rd	1884
Dr. Albert C. Lane House		3 Andover Rd	1889	1926	1970
Douglas E. Turner House		55 Andover Rd	1890
John Baldwin House (Andover Road)		14-16 Andover Rd	1890
Lewis Johnson House		43 Andover Rd	1890
Livingston House		40 Andover Rd	1890
Widow Martha Baldwin House	J. Baker Cottage	45 Andover Rd	1890		2016
Deacon John E. Bull House		38 Andover Rd	1892
Jennie Blodgett House		12 Andover Rd	1892		1973
Pollard School		Andover Rd	1892		1980
E. N. Ray House		7 Andover Rd	1895
W. B. Stearns House		29 Andover Rd	1898		2019
Herbert & Mary Jacobs House		15 Andover Rd	1900
Richardson Cottage #2		33 Andover Rd	1900
Charles A. Foster House		350 Andover Rd	1915		2009
Clark Berris House		356 Andover Rd	1915		2007
Elizabeth Morrisey House		75 Andover Rd	1915		1961
Freda Stahle House		267 Andover Rd	1915		1946
Spaulding House		34 Andover Rd	1915
Dale Parish Hall	First Congregational Church of Billerica	18 Andover Rd	1955
New England Telephone & Telegraph Company		9 Andover Rd	1968
Graham Building		12 Andover Rd	1973

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 88: the four country roads to Woburn, Chelmsford, Andover and Concord
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 90: the Andover highway laid out by the two towns, 26: 12m. 1660
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 92: the Andover Road "sometimes called East Street"
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 94: the 1664 highway from the country road to Andover east of Content bridge, "the road from the depot to Pattenville"
5. Billerica annual report 1890: Andover St. graveled from the guide-board to R. K. Underhill's
6. Billerica annual report 1897: committee of three chosen in 1896 to name the streets
7. Billerica annual report 1897: street naming committee's list, "Andover street, running easterly from Main street to Tewksbury line"
8. Billerica annual report 1899: citizens' changes to the street list, No. 23 "Changed to Andover Road" (March 1898)
9. Billerica annual report 1899: Historical Society list of streets, "Andover road, from Boston road running easterly to Tewksbury line"
10. Billerica annual report 1900: Historical Society street list accepted at the town meeting of March 27, 1899
11. Billerica annual report 1908: expenditures in macadamizing Andover Street, 1907, Main Street to Town Barn Lane
12. Billerica annual report 1914: three street lights on Andover Street from the top of Rocky Hill to the foot of the hill
13. Billerica annual report 1921: Andover Street macadamized from the Town Pump to Pollard School after the street railway rails were removed
14. Billerica annual report 1927: vote of $5,000 to resurface Andover Road with binding oil from Fox Hill to the Tewksbury line
15. Billerica annual report 1927: county and state aid of $3,000 each for Andover Road
16. Billerica annual report 1928: Andover Road macadam carried to Pond Street
17. Billerica annual report 1944: Andover Road resurfaced with tar and pea gravel road mix from Fox Hill Cemetery to Gray Street
18. Billerica annual report 1963: Andover Road surfaced with bituminous concrete from Pond Street to Fox Hill Cemetery
19. Billerica annual report 2006: Andover Road Bridge replacement construction underway
20. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting, October 2016, Article 36 accepts as public ways the roads shown on the official town map of 1831 (124 to 19)
21. Annual Report 2017: warrant for Article 36, the 1831 list of roads with their termini