Cummings Street

Cummings Street is the short street at the south end of the Common that joins Concord Road to Boston Road in the Centre. It belongs to the oldest part of the village. The historic district survey of the Centre describes it as the way that "joined the two roads from the south," with the old road to Andover leaving from it and heading east, and the Historical Commission's walking tour places the first meetinghouse (1663) "south of the corner of Concord Road and Cumings Street" and the second (1694) on its north side. The street is drawn on the official town map of 1831 and on the Walling map of 1853. Along it stand the house at 1 Cummings Street, built on the corner of Boston Road by Edward F. Dickinson, and the Fannie Blanchard house at 8 Cummings Street, which keeps the hip-roofed carriage house of Reuben Duren's house of 1799.

For most of its history the street had no name of its own. The street-naming committee chosen at the annual meeting of 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) proposed "Common street, running west from Main street to Bedford street, Billerica," and the Historical Society's revised list of 1898 kept "36. Common street, from Boston road running west to Concord road, Billerica." When the list came before the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, "E. F. Dickinson moved that the street named by the committee 'Common street' (36) be changed to 'Cummings street,' and it was so voted," and the list was accepted. Dickinson lived at the corner of Cummings Street and Boston Road.

The vote gives no reason for the name. The most likely person honored is the Rev. Henry Cumings, the fourth minister of the First Parish, ordained in 1763, whose pastorate "extended to nearly sixty-one years" until his death on Sept. 6, 1823 (Hazen). His house, the one now at 36 Concord Road that serves as the Historical Society's museum, stands just south of the corner of Cummings Street. The town has always spelled the street with two m's, although the minister wrote his name Cumings, and no family named Cummings is recorded on the street.

The street was one of the first in town to be macadamized: the highway surveyor's report for 1909 lists "Macadam, Cummings Street, Boston Road, Bedford Road," 8,010 square feet of it on Cummings Street. In the 1930s and 1940s it was tar-patched yearly. Articles to "widen and improve Cummings Street from Concord Road to Boston Road" and to route traffic one way around the Square were put before town meeting in 1952, 1953 and 1955; the article was dismissed in 1953, and in 1957 the Public Works Department resurfaced Cummings Street and rebuilt its curb and sidewalk.

Cummings Street appears without a date of acceptance in the town's list of accepted streets printed in 1956, "From Boston Rd. west to Concord Rd.," like the other old ways named in 1899. It was formally accepted as a public way at the Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, which voted, 124 to 19, under Chapter 82, sections 21 to 24, of the General Laws, to accept the 57 roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." The list gives it as "Cummings Street, Concord Road to Boston Road."

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Edward Dickinson House		1 Cummings St	1850
Jackson Wright House		6 Cummings St	1850
Fannie Blanchard House		8 Cummings St	1890

References

1. Annual Report 1897: street-naming committee proposes "Common street, running west from Main street to Bedford street"
2. Annual Report 1899: Historical Society street list, "36. Common street, from Boston road running west to Concord road"
3. Annual Report 1900: March 27, 1899 town meeting votes on E. F. Dickinson's motion to change "Common street" to "Cummings street"
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): death of Rev. Henry Cumings, Sept. 6, 1823, after a pastorate of nearly sixty-one years
5. Annual Report 1909: macadam on Concord Road, Cummings Street (8,010 sq. ft.) and Boston Road
6. Annual Report 1909: highway surveyor's list, "Macadam, Cummings Street, Boston Road, Bedford Road"
7. Walking Tour of Billerica Center: first and second meetinghouses at Cumings Street; Rev. Henry Cumings and his house
8. Annual Report 2017: Article 36 list of 1831-map roads, Cummings Street from Concord Road to Boston Road
9. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting, October 2016, Article 36 accepts the roads on the 1831 map as public ways (124 to 19)