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Billerica Grange No. 223

Billerica Grange No. 223, Patrons of Husbandry, was the town's subordinate grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, the farmers' fraternal order better known as the Grange, working under the Massachusetts State Grange. It was organized in January 1900; the directory of 1901 gives the date as January 3, 1900, and later directories as January 5, 1900. For most of its life it met at the Odd Fellows' hall in Gardner Parker Hall on River Street, and from 1925 to 1939 it owned its own Grange Hall, the old First Baptist Church at 29 Concord Road on the Common. It was active through the 1940s and into the 1950s, and a second grange, Pinehurst Grange No. 398, was formed in the south part of town.

In 1901 the Grange met on the first and third Thursdays of each month at Odd Fellows' hall, with Albert H. Andrews as master, Edward B. Haskell as secretary and Clarence A. Bowman as treasurer. By 1912 it met on the second and fourth Thursdays at the I.O.O.F. hall on River Street, except in June, July and August, when it met on the second Thursday only. In 1912 the magazine Billerica gave its membership as 180, with James A. Ruth as master, Josiah Folsom as secretary and E. F. Dickinson as treasurer, and the directory of that year names Mrs. Lulu Hutchins as master. The warrant for the March 1911 town meeting asked whether the town would rent the banquet hall in the Town Hall to Billerica Grange 223 on its meeting nights, at two dollars a night. The officers chosen for 1913 were Harry F. Waite, master; Forrest F. Collier, overseer; Mrs. Forrest F. Collier (Lucy B. Collier), lecturer; Fred L. Smith, steward; Constantine D. Tutein, assistant steward; Charles Wright, treasurer; and Josiah C. Folsom, secretary. Collier was master in 1916, and Fred A. Smith in 1919.

The Grange served the farmers of the town and its social life. It gave the schools a radioscope for showing pictures in class, which the school committee acknowledged in the town report of 1911. On September 11, 1912, ahead of the Middlesex North Agricultural Society's fair at Chelmsford, it held a local fair of fruit and vegetables in Gardner Parker Hall, and at the Chelmsford fair it took a third prize for its Grange exhibit. In the winter of 1913 its lecturer, Mrs. Collier, arranged a program of talks: Professor E. M. McDonald of the Massachusetts Agricultural College spoke on corn on January 23, to prepare a Corn Contest that the Grange ran with the Billerica Board of Trade, and the superintendent of schools, Arthur B. Webber, spoke on vocational training in the schools. At a meeting early in 1913, after one speaker for woman suffrage and one against, the members voted 26 to 21 in favor of it. The Grange gave a minstrel show in the town hall, visited and entertained Bedford Grange, conferred its degrees with a Ladies' Degree Staff, and in May 1913 held a patriotic meeting with all the veterans of the town as its guests, welcomed by Dr. Charles Hosmer. It had a float in the parade of July 4, 1919, when the town welcomed home its soldiers and sailors.

The Billerica Grange Fair became a yearly event, at which the county extension service furnished judges and the 4-H boys and girls showed their garden, canning and clothing work; the town reports mention it in 1925, 1927, 1932, 1933, 1937, 1943, 1949 and 1953.

On April 8, 1925, the Grange, by then incorporated as The Billerica Grange, No. 223, Patrons of Husbandry, Inc., bought the old First Baptist Church on Concord Road, sixty-six square rods with the meeting house, from the Massachusetts Baptist Convention, to which the dwindling Baptist church of Billerica Centre had given its property the year before. It mortgaged the hall for $2,000 to J. Eva Towle, and in April 1926 its executive committee, William J. Canning and Harry F. Waite, refinanced the loan with the Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank. The directories of 1931 and 1932 list the Grange Hall on Concord Road, where the Grange met on the second and fourth Thursdays with Ruth E. Hallenborg presiding, Lula M. Hutchins as secretary and Joseph B. Nicholson as treasurer. In the years of the Great Depression the Grange could not keep up the mortgage. The bank sold the hall at auction on March 3, 1939, and bought it in itself for $1,000; on June 7, 1939, it sold it to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, and the building became St. Theresa's mission.

After the sale the Grange had no hall of its own. The Billerica Historical Commission's history of Gardner Parker Hall lists the Grange among the societies that met there, all left without a home when the hall burned on February 26, 1940 (see Gardner Parker Hall Fire of 1940). It carried on. In 1948 the town meeting accepted from the Billerica Grange the gift of a fully equipped 1936 Henney ambulance, bought with money the Grange had raised from individuals, groups and organizations in town; the balance went into an "Ambulance Grange Fund" toward a building to house it, and the meeting gave the Grange a rising vote of thanks. From 1947 to 1954 the Billerica Grange Scholarship Prize went each year to the second ranking pupil of the graduating class of the high school, and in 1949 the Grange gave the library a copy of The Grange: A Friend of the Farmer. Its advertisement in the 1950 Howe yearbook asked, "Why not join Billerica Grange and help make Billerica a better place to live?", over the names of Philip A. Peterson, master, and J. Edward Mitchell, secretary.

Pinehurst Grange No. 398 served the growing south end of town. It advertised in the Howe yearbooks from 1939, gave nine plays to the Pinehurst branch library in 1947, and held its own fair by 1949, when the county extension service sent judges to both the Billerica Center and the Pinehurst Grange Fairs. In 1953 the town meeting warrant asked to rezone for business land owned by the Pinehurst Grange #398 Building Committee between Grove Street and Greenville Street, and the 1985 directory still lists Pinehurst Grange No. 398 at 781 Boston Road.

The Billerica Grange appears in the town reports for the last time with its scholarship prize in 1954, and the 1957 directory lists no grange in Billerica. The records found so far do not show when Billerica Grange No. 223 gave up its charter.

Billerica Grange No. 223

Billerica Grange No. 223

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