Bear Hill Road

Bear Hill Road is a street of about 1,350 feet in Billerica, south-east of the center. It leaves the east side of Boston Road and runs east, then curves north to Handel Road. It was laid out fifty feet wide on the "Bear Hill Estates" subdivision plan of land owned by Content Homes, Inc., drawn by Joseph H. Rego, registered professional engineer, of Hudson, and dated August 10, 1970. The Planning Board approved it on October 27, 1970, subject to a certificate of conditions, and it was recorded on January 4, 1971 in two sheets (Plan Book 111, Plan 157). The plan put 58 house lots, most of about 25,000 square feet, on Bear Hill Road, Beaver Place, Otter Circle and the western part of Handel Road, between land of the McQuaid family on Boston Road and of James E. and Phyllis Farmer to the north and south. The assessors date the first house on the road to 1971 and the rest to 1972 and 1973. By 1972 a water main had been laid in the road, which the Water Department said would "help to bring relief to the East Billerica area."

The road takes its name from the subdivision. The name Bear Hill was already in use here: in 1960 James E. Farmer called his plan for Bertha Circle, just to the south on Boston Road, "Bear Hill Estates." The town reports later speak of "Bear Hill Curve" on Boston Road (1984) and of the "Bear Hill water tower" (2009). In 1883 Hazen wrote of a "Bare Hill" south-east of the village, between the Boston and Lexington Roads, around whose northerly side the old road to Woburn had been carried; no record found ties the modern name to that hill, and the origin of the name was not established.

The Planning Board submitted Bear Hill Road for acceptance as a public way at the annual town meeting of 1974, which referred all the new streets to a Street Acceptance Committee. On April 24, 1975 the meeting voted to dismiss the article for Bear Hill Road, with the Street Acceptance Committee and the Finance Committee concurring. In 1978 the Board of Health reported that "the Beaver Place/Bear Hill Road drainage problem was studied" and that construction would start in the spring, and Bear Hill Road was on the Highway Department's list of drainage projects in 1979, the year the town recorded the forfeiture of a $1,000 Planning Board bond on Bear Hill Estates. No later vote accepting the road was found in the town reports.

References

1. Billerica town report 1972 (1969 vol.): water mains on Handel Road and Bear Hill Road completed
2. Billerica town report 1974: Art. 14 Planning Board street list incl. Bear Hill Road
3. Billerica town report 1974: Art. 14 streets deferred to a Permanent Street Acceptance Committee
4. Billerica town report 1975: April 24, 1975, motion to dismiss Bear Hill Road
5. Billerica town report 1975: motion to dismiss Bear Hill Road so voted
6. Billerica town report 1978: Health Department, Beaver Place/Bear Hill Road drainage problem studied
7. Billerica town report 1979: Highway Department drainage projects incl. Bear Hill Road
8. Billerica town report 1979: Planning Board bond forfeiture, Bear Hill Estates, $1,000
9. Billerica town report 1984: town meeting debate mentions "Bear Hill Curve"
10. Billerica town report 2009: "the Bear Hill water tower has been refurbished"
11. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 33: Bare Hill "between the Boston and Lexington Roads, south-east of the village"
12. Hazen 1883, p. 91: the Woburn road once ran over the top of Bare Hill, later around its northerly side