Structure · Built 1911
Boston and Maine Railroad Billerica Shop Complex - Locomotive Blacksmith Shop
Boston and Maine Railroad Billerica Shop Complex - Locomotive Blacksmith Shop
| Address | 1400 High St |
| MACRIS ID | BIL.383 |
| Built | 1911 |
| Tenants | |
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Forest Tech Sales (2003 - 2008)
Sanford Contracting (2008 - ????) |
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The Locomotive Blacksmith Shop at 1400 High Street was the forge of the Boston and Maine Railroad's Billerica Shops, the railroad's central plant for the heavy repair of locomotives and passenger cars, built from 1911 to 1914 and opened in February 1914 (see Opening of the Boston and Maine Shops). It stands directly north of the Locomotive Repair Shop, on the locomotive side of the shop yard, with the Power Plant beyond it. It is a one-story steel-frame and brick building about 90 feet wide and 332 feet long, with a shallow gable roof behind end-wall parapets, and its long north and south walls are broken by large window openings between brick piers. A concrete loading platform of the same years runs beside it.
The ground it stands on was farmland until 1911. Archie C. Burnett of Newton and Charles S. Cummings of Boston had taken options on the land east of High Street between the main line and the Bedford branch, and in April 1911 they turned their rights under the options over to the railroad, whose first purchase deeds were recorded with them on May 2. The blacksmith shop rose on the line between two of the parcels on the railroad's purchase plan: Parcel XI, 31.1 acres running from Pond Street north to Cold Brook, which Lawrence C. Swain of Wilmington conveyed in May 1911, and Parcel XII, 20.2 acres on its east side, one of three parcels that the former selectman John E. Rowell sold the railroad on May 1, 1911.
A commissioner's report printed in the town report of 1928 described the shop as it worked in the mid 1920s, a building "332 feet long by 99 feet wide" in which "the blacksmith work for the locomotive shop is done." It was "equipped with steam hammers, planers, and various styles of forging machinery adapted for making the various parts that go into locomotives, from the smallest bolt to the largest and most complicated forging." Locomotive and car springs were repaired and some new springs made there, and a section of the building held the reclamation plant and scrap dock, where scrap metal gathered from the whole system was sorted for sale and usable parts were reclaimed. The railroad's own list of its Billerica property for 1925 valued the "Blacksmith Shop" at $54,770 and the iron racks inside it at $10,850, and listed its oil furnaces, forges, steam hammers and bolt machinery at $54,780.
An MBTA survey of September 1988 reported that the original blacksmith shop had been moved during the previous twenty years into the 1927 wheel and car shop wing of the locomotive shop. By then the building had left railroad hands. On February 27, 1962 the Boston and Maine sold it, "together with the buildings thereon," to Wood Fabricators, Inc., a lot of 53,990 square feet laid out "at the southerly corner of a building used as a blacksmith shop," with rights over the shop roadway to High Street, and in 1966 it sold the company a strip of 29,359 square feet on the northwest side. The two parcels passed in 1985 to Iron Horse Realty, Inc. and in 1986 to WF Realty, Inc., companies with the same president as Wood Fabricators, and in 1997, for $100,000, to Salt Water Taffy Corporation. The assessors list the 1.9-acre lot as a brick mill-type industrial building and record Wood Fabricators, McFarland Cascade and the Sanford Company among its users, and Forest Tech Sales and, from 2008, Sanford Contracting have occupied it.
In May 2025 the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which already owned the locomotive shop and most of the railroad's shop land around it, bought the building from Salt Water Taffy Corporation. A 2017 historic survey of the shop complex counted the blacksmith shop among the buildings that keep their architectural integrity and recommended the complex for the National Register of Historic Places.
References
- MACRIS BIL.383
- Annual Report 1928, commissioner's report: the blacksmith shop, 332 by 99 feet, steam hammers and forging machinery, springs, reclamation plant and scrap dock
- Annual Report 1928: the railroad's 1925 list of its Billerica property: Blacksmith Shop $54,770, iron racks $10,850
- Billerica assessor, 1400 High St (17-43-1): 1.913 acres, brick mill-type building about 1910; Wood Fabricators, McFarland Cascade and Sanford Co.; 2025 sale to the MBTA
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Recorded |
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| May 2, 1911 | Release and Assignment of Options | Archie C. Burnett of Newton | Boston and Maine Railroad | 1911 shop purchase: release of the land options | 466/420 |
Signed April 26, 1911, recorded May 2, 1911 with the first purchase deeds. For one dollar and other valuable considerations Burnett releases "all my right, title and interest in and to any and all land situated in Billerica ... lying easterly of High street, southerly of the location of the main line of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, northwesterly of Pond street, or the road to Tewksbury, northerly of the road to Salem and northeasterly of the location of the Bedford and Billerica Branch," and assigns to the railroad "any and all rights under certain options to purchase" any part of it. Like releases follow by Charles S. Cummings of Boston (page 421) and by the trustee in bankruptcy of the Burnett-Cummings Company (page 422).
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| May 2, 1911 | Warranty Deed | John E. Rowell of Billerica (Marietta F. Rowell releasing dower and homestead) | Boston and Maine Railroad | 1911 shop purchase: Rowell Parcel XII | 466/433 |
Signed May 1, 1911. For one dollar and other valuable considerations, "three certain pieces or parcels of land": First, about eleven acres on High Street at the Boston and Lowell location, bounded by the center of the old Middlesex Canal, Parcel V; Second, about 10.9 acres beginning on Cold Brook at land formerly of Edward Spaulding and of Lawrence C. Swain, bounded by Swain, John J. Fahey and Warren Holden land, Parcel X; Third, about 20.2 acres beginning on Pond Street at the Swain land and running about 2,503 feet to Cold Brook, by the brook about 405 feet to the John R. Sutcliffe land and back to Pond Street, Parcel XII, all on the plan "Land in Billerica, Mass. on High street, Pond street and the road to Salem purchased by the Boston & Maine Railroad," April 1911. No title recital.
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| May 29, 1911 | Warranty Deed | Lawrence C. Swain of Wilmington (Mina A. Swain releasing dower and homestead) | Boston and Maine Railroad | 1911 shop purchase: Swain Parcel XI | 467/184 |
Signed May 12, 1911; recorded May 29, 1911. For one dollar and other valuable considerations, a parcel beginning on Pond Street at land formerly of John J. Fahey, running about 997 and 345 feet by the Fahey land, about 1,350 feet by land formerly of John E. Rowell, by land formerly of Edward Spaulding to Cold Brook, by the brook about 380 feet and by other former Rowell land about 2,503 feet back to Pond Street, "about thirty-one and one tenth (31.1) acres," Parcel XI on the plan of April 1911. No title recital.
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| March 8, 1962 | Deed | Boston and Maine Railroad | Wood Fabricators, Inc., a Massachusetts corporation | 1962 railroad sale of the blacksmith shop lot | 1548/357 |
Dated February 27, 1962. For one dollar and other valuable considerations, "all of its right, title and interest in and to a certain piece or parcel of land, together with the buildings thereon," beginning "at the southerly corner of a building used as a blacksmith shop situated on said parcel," 43.62 feet from the bituminous roadway, about 53,990 square feet, on a plan of April 1960 by J. F. Kerwin, Asst. Chief Engr., drawn for an earlier proposed sale to a private buyer (Plan Book 96, Plan 49), with rights over a 30-foot driveway across the sidetracks and the 20-foot roadway to High Street. Preceded on the page by an Old Colony Trust Company vote (mortgage trustee). The Locomotive Blacksmith Shop lot.
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| April 18, 1966 | Deed | Boston and Maine Corporation, a Delaware corporation (E. F. Reed, vice president) | Wood Fabricators, Inc. | 1966 added strip, 29,359 sq ft | 1746/446 |
Dated February 1966 (the 1985 deed gives February 2, 1966). Directors' vote of October 1, 1965 for a sale "for a consideration of $1,150.00." About 29,359 square feet beside "a lot of land with a one-story brick building thereon, which the grantor conveyed to the grantee by deed dated February 27, 1962," along the 20-foot way and Boston and Maine land, on plan "Boston & Maine Corp. to Wood Fabricators, Inc.," J. D. Batchelder, December 1965 (Plan Book 103, Plan 93A). No right of way by necessity; fence covenant; for one hundred years no railroad liability for fire "communicated directly or indirectly by or from locomotive engines." Sidetracks and pipes excepted.
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| September 13, 1985 | Quitclaim | Wood Fabricators, Inc. of Billerica | Iron Horse Realty, Inc. of Billerica | 1985 to Iron Horse Realty, Inc. | 3177/60 |
Signed September 10, 1985, for $1.00. Parcel I, 53,990 square feet "at the southerly corner of a building formerly used as a blacksmith shop," "being the same premises conveyed to grantor by deed of Boston and Maine Railroad, dated February 27, 1962," Book 1548, Page 357; Parcel II, about 29,359 square feet on Plan Book 103, Plan 93A, conveyed by Boston and Maine Corporation by deed dated February 2, 1966, Book 1746, Page 446.
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| December 16, 1986 | Deed | Iron Horse Realty, Inc. | WF Realty, Inc. | 1986 to WF Realty, Inc. | 3833/77 |
Signed December 16, 1986; three pages. The same two parcels (Exhibit A): Parcel I, 53,990 square feet at the southerly corner of the building "formerly used as a blacksmith shop," and Parcel II, 29,359 square feet on Plan Book 103, Plan 93A, each "being the same premises conveyed to grantor by deed of Wood Fabricators, Inc., dated September 10, 1985," Book 3177, Page 60.
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| August 29, 1997 | Deed | WF Realty, Inc. | Salt Water Taffy Corp. | 1997 to Salt Water Taffy Corp. | 8757/11 |
Signed August 28, 1997, consideration $100,000: "the following described land in Billerica ... with the buildings thereon" (two parcels in Exhibit A, Iron Horse Park), subject to easements and restrictions of record and to outstanding real estate taxes, which the grantee assumes.
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| May 21, 2025 | Deed | Salt Water Taffy Corp. | Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority | 2025 to the MBTA | 39262/39 |
Recorded May 21, 2025 (registry consideration $1.00; the assessors record a sale price of $6,100,000). 1400 High Street, Iron Horse Park, the parcels on Plan Book 96, Plan 49 and Plan Book 103, Plan 93A: "Meaning and intending to convey the same premises conveyed to Grantor by deed dated August 28, 1997 from WF Realty, Inc.," Book 8757, Page 11.
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Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.