Cyrus Ham

Cyrus Ham (1818 to 1891) was a Lowell machinist who bought a farm in North Billerica in 1847 and lived on it for the rest of his life, at the house on Treble Cove Road now known as the Samuel C. Oliver House. The road beside his farm was called Ham Street until 1899, when it was renamed Sprague Street. He was born on October 6, 1818, in Rochester, New Hampshire. His wife, Julia Ann, was born in Chelmsford on March 12, 1821.

On September 10, 1847 he paid Abbot Russell $1,621.50 for two lots on the old Sprake farm west of the Fordway over the Concord River: about eight acres north of "the road leading to the Canal Mills", now Treble Cove Road, "with the dwelling house and buildings thereon", and a field of twenty-nine acres between the road and the river. He mortgaged both back to Russell for $1,000. The maps of 1853, 1875 and 1889 mark the house "C. Ham", and the agricultural census of 1870 valued his farm at about $5,000. In 1887 he bought the town's old engine house for $85. In 1888 he and Julia sold the northern six acres of the river field to Savill D. Metcalf for $1,800. In 1890 the highway surveyor graveled the road "Ham's to Smith's", and when the town's street committee drew up its list in 1896 it was "Ham street, running easterly from Main to Corliss street, No. Billerica". At the request of a citizens' meeting in 1898 the town renamed it Sprague Street in 1899.

Cyrus Ham died on March 21, 1891, aged 72, and he and Julia are buried in the North Cemetery. Through Mrs. Ham's influence her uncle, Joseph Stearns, gave generously to the Baptist church at North Billerica. In January 1892 Foster Ham, executor of his will and trustee under it, sold the remaining twenty-three acres of the river field to James Ellis for $3,000. The homestead itself passed to Jennie S. Twombly, under a declaration of trust she signed on March 11, 1891 that was never recorded. In 1901 Frank S. Ham of Lowell sued her widower, Edgar F. Twombly, to enforce the trust, but the Superior Court dismissed the suit in 1913. Twombly mortgaged the property in 1905 as "the Cyrus Ham Estate", with three dwelling houses on it, and in 1912 laid out the farm as Treble Cove Terrace.

References

1. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, births p. 94 (HAM: Cyrus, Oct. 6, 1818, in Rochester, N.H., and Julia Ann his wife, gravestones, North Cemetery)
2. Billerica Town Report 1892, deaths in 1891 (Cyrus Ham, March 21, aged 72 years 5 months 15 days)
3. Billerica Town Report 1887, treasurer's receipts (Cyrus Ham, for old engine house, $85)
4. Billerica Town Report 1897, street names list (Ham street, running easterly from Main to Corliss street, No. Billerica)
5. 'Billerica' magazine, 1912, vol. 1 no. 3 (gifts to the churches: through the influence of Mrs. Cyrus Ham her uncle Joseph Stearns remembered the church)

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.