Berwick

Berwick is a small neighborhood at the north end of Billerica, on the east side of Boston Road at the Lowell line, between the road and the Concord River. In June 1896 Walter C. Stevens, civil engineer and surveyor, of Melrose drew a "Plan of Building Lots at Berwick, situated in Billerica, Mass., between Lowell and North Billerica," for the Wood, Harmon Real Estate Association; the plan was recorded on July 2, 1896 (Plan Book 12, Plan 10). The selling agents were Wood, Harmon and Company, of 64 Central Street, Lowell. The plan divided the land between Billerica Road, as Boston Road was then marked, and the land of Prentiss Webster toward the river into 128 lots, most of 3,500 to 4,240 square feet, on Amherst Street along the town line and on Bristol, Casco, Vasa, Clifton and Winthrop Streets running back from the road. The road carried the Lowell and Suburban electric railroad, marked "To North Billerica and Lynn."

The plan does not explain the name, which is the name of towns in Maine and in England; the street names are a mix of New England places (Amherst, Bristol, Casco, Winthrop) and others. In 1937 a town report called Berwick, on the north, "perhaps the oldest development" in the ring of settlements on the outskirts of the town. The town reports of the 1930s and 1940s speak of the "Berwick district" of Boston Road, where the town installed street lights, and of graveling and scraping "Clifton Street (Berwick)"; Berwick was one of the school bus routes of the 1950s. The plan's Clifton Street is today's Post Street.