Boston Road

Boston Road is the oldest highway in Billerica, the "country road" that ran through the town from Woburn to Chelmsford. Its village part was the "highway called long street" on which the first house lots were laid out about 1658, and the town records of 1660 describe it as "the country road that leads from Chelmsford towards the bay, or in long street." On Nov. 9, 1660 the town chose Ralph Hill Jr. and John Parker to join a committee from Woburn "to lay out the highway from Oberne to our meeting-house." No return of that work was recorded, and on Dec. 10, 1670 a joint committee, with Jonathan Danforth as surveyor, fixed "the country road to Woburn thro Shawshin farmes," allowing it "seven pole wide southerly from the ditch." The Woburn road at first ran over the top of Bare Hill; in May 1711 a committee was sent to view "a highway proposed to be exchanged with Crosby, upon bare Hill," probably the present route around the north side of the hill.

North of the village the road to Chelmsford first crossed the Concord River at The Fordway, where a bridge stood by 1658 and was rebuilt by Job Lane in 1667 and 1668. After that bridge was carried away by a flood about 1698, a new bridge was built at the Corner, "lately erected" by March 20, 1699 (see Corner Bridge), and on Sept. 25, 1699 committees of Billerica and Chelmsford altered the road between the two towns to suit it. For more than a century the way to the new bridge left Long Street at Brown's Corner, ran north on what is now Pollard Street to the Corner, and turned west down the "Bridge Lane," now the west end of Salem Road. In the 1840s a more direct route to the bridge was opened, following what is now Boston Road north of Pollard Street and reaching the bridge by the road now called Darby Avenue. The present line of Boston Road at the river did not exist until the bridge was replaced in 1920 and 1921 (below).

The road had many names. In 1733 the town's tax lists were divided by "Long Street or the Woburn and Chelmsford Road," and a deed of 1745 still speaks of "the County road to Woburn." By 1782 the town records call the south part "Boston road," and deeds of 1797 and 1802 have "Boston road" and "the road leading to Boston." Nineteenth-century deeds usually call it "the County road leading from Boston to Lowell," and Hazen in 1883 called the village part Main Street. When the town first named its streets, the committee of 1897 proposed "Main street, from Chelmsford line, running south to Burlington line," but a meeting at the Historical Society in March 1898 changed it to Boston Road, and the Society's list, "Boston road, from Chelmsford line running south to Burlington line," was accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899. The name comes from the road's destination: it was the town's road toward "the bay" and Boston, by way of Woburn (Burlington after 1799), and to Chelmsford and later Lowell in the other direction. Long Street was the long main street of the original township.

The County Commissioners relocated a stretch at the Chelmsford line in 1893. In 1896 the selectmen asked the state to build a state highway on "the main road commencing at the common in Billerica Centre and running to the Burlington town line," but the state money had run out. The town's first macadam on the road was built in 1901 on the east side of the Common, toward which the Lowell and Boston Street Railroad paid $300, and the 1902 contract carried it "from the north end of the Common to the elevator." In 1903 and 1904 the State Highway Commission set a new location and a higher road bed to give room for the electric car track. The state laid out its first state highway on Boston Road on Sept. 22, 1908, and in 1911 the state oiled the macadam at its own expense. With the help of the Highway Commission's "Motor Vehicle Fund" and the County, the macadam was carried from the Burlington line to the north side of the Shawsheen River in 1914 and 1915, with a new concrete bridge over the river. In 1916 the town agreed to a state highway "between the Chelmsford line and Pollard Street," the state laid out further sections in 1917 and 1920, and in 1917 Harry W. Essex closed "the entire gap of about 1.1 miles" with macadam under contract.

The last link was the bridge at the Corner. A new concrete bridge, built in 1920 as a Federal Aid project a short way from the old "Red Bridge," the steel bridge of 1896, was opened in the spring of 1921 and "completed the connecting link of good road construction in the route from Lowell to Boston via Billerica." Boston Road was carried to it on a new line, leaving the old approach to be called the "Old Boston Road" in the 1930 town warrant and later as Darby Avenue, and the old bridge was left to the Salem Road and Bridge Street traffic until it was posted "Closed" in 1931. By 1933 the road was part of Route 3, and Billerica was then "the only town on Route 3 between Boston and Lowell that has not accepted the throughway." After the new Route 3 expressway was laid out in 1952 and 1953 the old road became Route 3A, and Route 129 shares it from Chelmsford Road to Floyd Street.

Boston Road was not on the list of 57 old roads shown on the official town map of 1831 that town meeting accepted as public ways in October 2016, probably because most of it had been laid out as a state highway between 1908 and 1920. No separate vote of acceptance by the town has been found.

Historic Buildings

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): 1660 committee with Woburn and the 1670 laying out of the country road to Woburn through Shawshin farms
2. Hazen 1883: 1660 Andover highway record beginning "at the country road that leads from Chelmsford towards the bay, or in long street"
3. Hazen 1883: Woburn Road first ran over Bare Hill; Chelmsford Road crossed the river at the Fordway
4. Hazen 1883: 1711 committee to view a highway exchange with Crosby upon Bare Hill; the Fordway bridge
5. Hazen 1883: new bridge at the Corner, act of March 20, 1699 for the bridge "lately erected in Bilrica"
6. Hazen 1883: 1733 tax lists divided by "Long Street or the Woburn and Chelmsford Road"
7. Hazen 1883: 1782 squadron line names "Boston road" and "Chelmsford road"
8. John Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (1816): first bridge "on the Boston road" at the Fordway; road to Chelmsford altered Sept. 25, 1699
9. 1897 Annual Report: selectmen recommend a state highway from the Common to the Burlington line
10. 1897 Annual Report: street naming committee proposes "Main street, from Chelmsford line, running south to Burlington line"
11. 1899 Annual Report: March 1898 Historical Society changes, "Main street to be changed to Boston Road"
12. 1900 Annual Report: street list accepted March 27, 1899, "Boston road, from Chelmsford line running south to Burlington line"
13. 1902 Annual Report: first macadam on Boston Road, east side of the Common, Lowell and Boston Street Railroad contribution
14. 1904 Annual Report: macadam contract of 1902 finished "from the north end of the Common to the elevator"
15. 1904 Annual Report: new location and higher road bed set by the State Highway Commission for the electric car track
16. 1911 Annual Report: State Highway Commission to oil the Boston Road macadam at its own expense
17. 1914 Annual Report: Boston Road macadam carried to the north side of the Shawsheen River with state Motor Vehicle Fund money
18. 1916 warrant: state highway on Boston Road between the Chelmsford line and Pollard Street
19. 1917 selectmen's report: Harry W. Essex contract completes the 1.1 mile gap of macadam on Boston Road
20. 1921 report: new bridge over the Concord River opened, completing the road from Lowell to Boston via Billerica
21. 1933 report: Billerica "the only town on Route 3 between Boston and Lowell" not to accept the throughway
22. Massachusetts state highway layouts in Billerica: Boston Road LO 1212 (1908), 1733, 1749, 1756, 1778 (1917), 1862 (1920) and later alterations
23. Route 3A, formerly U.S. Route 3, with its Route 129 concurrency in Billerica
24. Annual Report 2017: warrant for Article 36, the 1831 list of roads accepted in October 2016 (Boston Road not listed)
25. 1930 warrant, Art. 31: land swap with A. C. Flint "at the intersection of the Old and New Boston Road" near Jones' Corner bridge

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.