Building of the Middlesex Turnpike

The Middlesex Turnpike was a toll road of about twenty-six miles from Cambridge and Medford to Tyngsborough and the New Hampshire line, chartered by the General Court on June 15, 1805 and open by 1811. Hazen names Ebenezer Bridge and James Abbot of Billerica "among its corporators." Its builders ran it in one straight line across the town, from the Bedford line over Nutting's Pond and the Concord River to the Chelmsford line, about a mile west of the village, and the line they chose has shaped the west side of Billerica ever since: the Middlesex Turnpike, the Old Middlesex Turnpike and the Route 3 expressway all follow it. As a business the road failed. The Middlesex Canal (see Building of the Middlesex Canal) and then the Boston and Lowell Railroad took its through trade, and its charter was repealed in 1841.

The route was fought over from the start. Under the charter of 1805 the road was to run from the Tyngsborough meeting house through the centres of Chelmsford and Billerica to a stake on Abel Wyman's land in Bedford. "The line at first was to pass Billerica meeting-house," Hazen wrote, "but, in 1806, the route was changed, by permission of the General Court, from a point in Bedford, crossing Nutting's Pond, to Buisket bridge in Tyngsborough. Some lack of friendly co-operation in Billerica may have influenced this change, and the managers were ambitious to make their great road as near an air-line as possible. Hills and ponds must not stand in their way." The amendment, granted on June 23, 1806, left Billerica Centre about a mile to the east and Chelmsford Centre three quarters of a mile to the west, and Frederic J. Wood, the historian of the New England turnpikes, reckoned that it saved a mile at most. Neighboring Burlington had voted in 1803 that the road was neither necessary nor agreeable to the town.

In Billerica the road was made straight through farm, swamp and pond. It crossed Nutting's Pond, now Nuttings Lake, on a causeway that divided the pond almost in two, crossed the Shawsheen River just inside the Bedford line (see Middlesex Turnpike Bridge), met the Concord Road at Jaquith's, and crossed the Concord River on its own bridge "a mile above the centre bridge" (see Old Middlesex Turnpike Bridge), going on over the hills to the Chelmsford line. When the dower of Dorcas Hill was set off in 1811 in the Joseph Hill farm by the river, the land was bounded in part by "the new Middlesex Turnpike." A Burlington account gives 1811 as the year the road opened for business, with four toll gates on its twenty-six miles, and the official town map of 1831 draws it as a straight line labeled "Middlesex Turnpike" from the Bedford line to the Chelmsford line.

The turnpike changed the town's older roads. Hazen wrote that "after the opening of the Middlesex turnpike, the Hill bridge and road crossing it fell into disuse and decay" (see Hill's Bridge and Nashua Road). When some townspeople later set out to rebuild that bridge and straighten its road as a route from Chelmsford to Lexington "more direct and less hilly than the turnpike," others who "did not relish the proposed diversion of travel and business to a line so far from the centre of the town" tore down the new abutment; the town lost the suits that followed and had to build the bridge and road after all.

Through traffic was heavy in those years, but little of it used the new road. Hazen describes the trade of western New Hampshire and Vermont with Salem and Boston that "passed through Billerica": professional teamsters with "large wagons, drawn by four, six, or eight horses," carrying wool, butter and cheese down and salt, molasses, dry goods and rum back, and farmers driving their own produce to market once or twice a year. Before the railroad opened, "from twelve to sixteen stages passed daily through Billerica," and the village kept two or three taverns. But the turnpike, he wrote, "would attract very little local travel and support, and experience soon proved that the visions of a great through travel and traffic were delusive." Wood found that most drivers, especially those from the New Hampshire towns, kept to the old roads and their familiar taverns, and that a county road opened in 1823 between Chelmsford and Bedford, about a mile from the turnpike, drew away much of what was left, the stages among it.

"The canal and the railroad left little for the turnpike, and its charter was repealed in 1841." The Lexington part was taken into the public roads in 1840, the Chelmsford and Tyngsborough sections that lay in the way of the Nashua and Lowell Railroad were sold to it, and on March 13, 1841 the legislature dissolved the corporation at its own request. In Billerica the road broke into pieces. The river crossing was given up, and the Walling map of 1853 shows only the south part, from the Bedford line across Nutting's Pond to the Concord Road, labeled "Old Middlesex Turnpike." By the 1890s even that part was closed, and at the annual meeting of March 27, 1899 the town voted, on motion of Edward B. Haskell, that the "Old Turnpike" be opened at Francis Bowman's from the Lexington road to the Bedford line; the same meeting named it "Middlesex Turnpike, from Concord road to Lexington road." When Wood traveled the line about 1919 he found that "in Billerica the old road assumes an air of more importance" than in the towns below, with a flag stop at its crossing of the Billerica branch railroad, while at one crossroads farther north the old roadbed passed between a farmhouse and its barn and was blocked by the owner's henhouses. The town rebuilt the south part with state and county aid from 1924 to 1933, and in 1952 and 1953 the state laid the Route 3 expressway along the turnpike line north of the Concord Road.

People

• Ebenezer Bridge: One of the corporators of the Middlesex Turnpike in 1805, named by Hazen with James Abbot.
• James Abbot: Billerica merchant and former town clerk, one of the corporators of the Middlesex Turnpike in 1805.
• Edward B. Haskell: Moved the town meeting vote of March 27, 1899 to reopen the 'Old Turnpike' from the Lexington road to the Bedford line.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 274: Middlesex Turnpike chartered June 1805, Bridge and Abbot corporators; 1806 route change; air-line route; teaming trade; charter repealed 1841.
2. Hazen, History of Billerica, p. 275: first stage about 1795; twelve to sixteen stages a day through Billerica before the Boston and Lowell Railroad; taverns in the village.
3. Hazen, History of Billerica, p. 102: after the turnpike opened, Hill's bridge and road decayed; the mob that destroyed the new abutment; suits decided against the town.
4. F. J. Wood, The Turnpikes of New England (1919), pp. 148-157: 1805 charter route; June 23, 1806 straight-line amendment; Nuttings Pond causeway; 1823 county road; dissolution March 13, 1841; the road in Billerica about 1919.
5. Wikipedia, 'Middlesex Turnpike (Massachusetts)': chartered June 15, 1805, about 26 miles, four toll gates, charter repealed 1841, free road 1846; surviving pieces in Billerica.
6. Burlington Retro, '1811 Middlesex Turnpike opens for business' (reprint of J. E. Fogelberg, 1979): Burlington's 1803 opposition, 1806 route change, 1811 opening, four tollgates, 1841 repeal.
7. Billerica Annual Report 1899: annual meeting of March 27, 1899, vote on motion of E. B. Haskell to open the 'Old Turnpike' at Francis Bowman's; street list naming the Middlesex Turnpike.