Depot Warehouse

The Depot Warehouse is a small Greek Revival building at 3 Ruggles Street in North Billerica, on a 50 by 75 foot lot at the southwest corner of Ruggles and Faulkner Streets, beside the railroad station. The 1983 Massachusetts Historical Commission survey dated it to about 1851-1853 and recorded the local tradition that its connected rear section was "originally a storage area for freight" with a ramp on dollies, and that the back part was an old depot building moved when the new depot was built. The survey also noted a post and beam rear section, horsehair plaster, a dirt cellar, and a foundation of fieldstone topped with granite slabs.

The land was part of the homestead farm of Thomas Rogers, whose will of 1784 left it to his widow for life. His executor sold "chief of the Homestead farm" to Samuel Danforth in 1786, and Danforth sold it to Thomas Richardson in 1788. In 1822 Richardson deeded twenty acres of it, "formerly owned by Thomas Rogers", to his daughter Elizabeth, who sold the same twenty acres to William E. Faulkner of the nearby woolen mill in 1831. Faulkner sold the Boston and Lowell Railroad its strip through the land in 1833 and a small piece by the depot in 1842.

On June 4, 1851 Faulkner sold the railroad, for $140, "a certain tract of land situated at Billerica Mills so called", 50 by 75 feet at a corner "on a road to the village", with the railroad to keep fences on the two lines dividing it from his other land. The deed mentions no building, so the building on the lot dates from the railroad's ownership, consistent with the survey's date of about 1852 (the assessor's date of 1809 is not supported by the deeds). The Boston and Lowell, leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1887 and merged into it in 1919, kept the lot for seventy years.

In July 1921 the Boston and Maine directors voted to sell the parcel "with the buildings" to Thomas F. O'Hare, a neighbor who owned the land behind it, for $1,800. The trustees of the railroad's 1919 mortgage released the lot, and the deed of October 3, 1921 conveyed "a certain piece or parcel of land, with the buildings thereon", 3,750 square feet, still subject to the condition in Faulkner's 1851 deed. The plan made for the sale by E. D. Chapman in July 1921 already labels the building a "Dwelling". Thomas O'Hare deeded the lot to his brother John Francis O'Hare and sister Elizabeth O'Hare, who mortgaged it to the Lowell Co-operative Bank for $900. After John's death his heirs released their interests to Elizabeth in 1962, and she sold the house that year, ending 41 years of O'Hare ownership.

The house changed hands several times after 1962, often through foreclosure. Broadway Savings Bank of Lawrence foreclosed a mortgage in 1965 and sold the house to the Veterans Administration, which resold it in 1966 to a family that owned it at the time of the 1983 survey. Later private owners lost it to foreclosure in 1995, when it was bought at auction by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and resold in 1997, and again in 2010, when U.S. Bank National Association took it as trustee. The bank sold it to a private owner in 2011. The building is in the North Billerica National Register district (1983) and the local historic district (1992).

References

1. MACRIS BIL.275
2. Billerica assessor, 3 Ruggles St, parcel 10-51-0: 0.086 acres, current deed Book 25160, Page 148, sales history.

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.