Coburn S. Smith

Coburn S. Smith (about 1843-1927) held elected town office in Billerica, with few interruptions, for nearly half a century, from his first election as selectman in 1880 until his death in 1927. The town's record of his death gives his age as 83 years, 6 months and 22 days on July 11, 1927, which places his birth in December 1843. Hazen's History of Billerica lists him among the town's voters of 1880.

He was a Civil War officer. Hazen's record of soldiers and sailors from Billerica shows him mustered on October 31, 1862 in Company G of the 47th Massachusetts, a nine month regiment, and later serving in Company D of the 59th Massachusetts, rising to first lieutenant and being transferred to the 57th Regiment when the 59th was merged into it; his service ended on July 30, 1865. He remained active among the town's veterans: in 1912 The Billerica listed him as treasurer of the Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R., with Franklin Jaquith as president and Marcus Cowdrey as vice president.

Hazen's list of selectmen credits him with the years 1880 to 1882, and he stayed on the board until 1892, in the years when the selectmen also looked after the highways; the town report of 1887 shows him paid for "services as selectman, assessor and overseer of the poor." At the annual meeting of 1896 he was elected an assessor, an overseer of the poor and a member of the Board of Health, on which he sat until 1908. He was also on the committee the town chose in the late 1890s to name its streets. The highway reports of those years mention a causeway "from the iron bridge to Mr. C. S. Smith's" and a gravel pit at his place from which the town took gravel for the roads.

From 1903 he and Richard J. Conway were the town's overseers of the poor, a partnership that lasted a quarter of a century. When the overseers were replaced by the Board of Public Welfare in 1927 he was named to the new board, but he died on July 11, 1927, aged 83. The welfare board's report for that year, signed by Conway and Warren S. Holden, closes with an In Memoriam notice for him.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 290, record of soldiers and sailors from Billerica in the Rebellion
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 307, list of selectmen
3. Town Report, 1887 (services as selectman, assessor and overseer of the poor)
4. Annual Town Meeting, 1896 (elected Assessor, Overseer of the Poor and Board of Health)
5. Annual Town Meeting, 1898, Art. 8 (committee to name the streets)
6. The Billerica, July 1912, Societies and Clubs (Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R.)
7. Deaths, 1927
8. In Memoriam, 1927 (Board of Public Welfare Report)