Cunningham Lane

Cunningham Lane is a narrow lane running off Boston Road at the south edge of Billerica Centre, near 461 Boston Road. Until the early 1990s it was Mitchell's Lane, or Mitchell Lane. A plan of two house lots on Boston Road surveyed for the Lowell Co-operative Bank, recorded on March 14, 1941 (Plan Book 63, Plan 69), shows "Mitchell's Lane," 18 feet wide, along their side and a third house lot on it, and the directory of 1941 lists Mitchell Lane, running "From Boston rd southerly." The assessors date the oldest house on the lane, on that third lot, to about 1941. The origin of the name Mitchell was not found.

The lane was twice refused as a town way. At the annual town meeting of 1973 the Street Acceptance Committee described it as "500' x 18', from Boston Road westerly to dead end, gravel way 12' wide," and on April 12, 1973 the motion to accept it lost, 62 to 70. In 1975 a motion to accept "Mitchell Lane 80 feet west of Orchard Circle a way 18 feet more or less wide and 450 feet long" also lost: the committee would not recommend it unless $9,600 was appropriated, as "it is a narrow gravel road with no hydrant, needs a plan and drainage culvert," and members asked whether it would become an entrance to new apartments. The highway department graded it in 1981.

The town also had a Mitchell Road in Mitchell Estates, and the lane was renamed Cunningham Lane; the registry index uses Mitchell Lane until 1992 and Cunningham Lane from November 1994, and no vote on the change was found. The reason for the new name is not recorded; a deed of April 18, 1950 had given Clarence W. Cunningham a right of way over the lane, and land of Clarence W. Cunningham is named as an abutter in later descriptions. At the fall town meeting, on October 7, 2004, the land at 10 Cunningham Lane, Lot A on a 1948 plan of 73,625 square feet (Plan Book 77, Plan 55A), was rezoned from general business to multi-family residence by a vote of 125 to 1, and a condominium of townhouses was built there in 2006.

References

1. Annual Report 1973: Mitchell Lane (Billerica Center), 500 x 18 ft gravel way, not accepted, 62 to 70
2. Annual Report 1975: warrant list of streets to be accepted, Mitchell Lane (450 ft. from Boston Road)
3. Annual Report 1975: motion to accept Mitchell Lane, 18 ft x 450 ft, lost; Street Acceptance Committee report
4. Annual Report 1981: Highway Department, streets graded incl. Mitchell Lane
5. Annual Report 2005: Oct. 7, 2004 Art. 26, 10 Cunningham Lane rezoned to multi-family, right of way deed of 1950 to Clarence W. Cunningham