Call Street

Call Street is the short road in North Billerica that runs east from Pollard Street, near the south end of the Fordway Bridge, to Rogers Street. It takes its name from the Call family, whose farmhouse stood at its west end on Pollard Street for most of the nineteenth century. H. F. Walling's town map of 1853 shows "R. Call" on a lane running off the end of Pollard Street toward the river, and the 1875 county atlas shows the houses of M. Maley and R. Call beside an unfenced way, drawn in dashes, leading toward The Fordway. Robert Call and Joseph H. Call were both on the town's list of voters in 1880, and in 1880 Owen Murningham bought ten acres "off Call Street" from Robert Call. Joseph H. Call, farmer and later market gardener, lived at "Pollard cor. Call" in the directories of 1901 and 1912, and the highway surveyor's account for 1899 records gravel laid "near J. H. Call's."

No laying out by the town has been found. Neither the 1831 nor the 1853 town map shows a road between Pollard and Rogers Streets, so the way probably grew from the Calls' farm lane in the second half of the century, and it is not among the 57 roads of the 1831 map that the town accepted in 2016. The street naming committee of 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) listed "Call street, running east from Pollard street to Rogers street, No. Billerica," and the Billerica Historical Society kept the name unchanged in the list accepted by the town meeting of March 27, 1899: "Call street, from Pollard street running east to Rogers street, No. Billerica." The town's card index of accepted streets, printed in 1956, lists it with no date of acceptance, as it does the other old roads named in 1899.

For many years the road was only graveled: 780 feet in 1901, 450 feet in 1903 and 580 feet in 1913. Two street lights were put up in 1915, beginning near Pollard Street, after a town meeting article asking for lights at Myrtle Street and "half way between the car line and Myrtle Street." The street was first treated with oil in 1927, "Pollard St. to McNulty's residence," and was patched and tarred for 1,000 feet in 1936. A Works Progress Administration project of 1940 widened it to 18 feet, regraded it and graveled 2,376 feet, and in 1942 a seal coat of tar was applied over its whole length, "0.5 mile, 18 feet wide."

The land between Call Street and the river was cut into house lots in 1911, when Owen Murningham's heirs laid out Concord River Park and Concord River Park Annex, with Myrtle, Glendale and Wedgemere Streets running off Call Street. Myrtle Street was accepted from Call Street in 1947. St. Andrew's Catholic Church stood at the corner of Rogers and Call Streets by 1901.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
R. Call House		6 Call St	1852		1929

References

1. 1897 Annual Report: street naming committee list, "Call street, running east from Pollard street to Rogers street, No. Billerica"
2. 1899 Annual Report: Historical Society list of streets, no. 16, Call street
3. 1900 Annual Report: list of streets accepted at town meeting March 27, 1899, no. 16, Call street
4. 1900 Annual Report: highway surveyor, "Near J. H. Call's, gravelled 174 ft. long"
5. 1901 Annual Report: Call street graveled 780 feet
6. 1903 Annual Report: Call Street graveled 450 feet
7. 1913 warrant, Article 29: two lights on Call Street, at Myrtle Street and between the car line and Myrtle Street
8. 1915 report: two new lights on Call Street beginning near Pollard Street
9. 1927 highway report: Call St. treated with oil No. 45, Pollard St. to McNulty's residence
10. 1940 report: WPA Call Street Project, widened to 18 feet and graveled
11. 1942 highway report: seal coat of tar on Call Street, 0.5 mile, 18 feet wide
12. 1956 report: card index of streets accepted by the town, "Call Street, Pollard St. east to Rogers St."
13. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): 1880 list of voters including Joseph H. Call and Robert Call