Devonshire Drive

Location	Map
Laid Out	1909
Right of Way	24 ft
Pavement	14 ft

Devonshire Drive runs north from Allen Road in the Riverdale section to Marshbrook Road, with Intervale Road branching off it to the east. It was laid out as Evergreen Road, one of the streets of Riverdale, the development of the civil engineer Edgar P. Sellew, who lived at the corner of Boston Road and Allen Road. His "Plan of Lots at Riverdale, Billerica, Mass.," dated March 10, 1913 (Plan Book 32, Plan 1), shows Evergreen Road leaving Allen Road and curving north between lots 324 to 338 to meet Intervale Road and Hillside Road, now Marshbrook Road, with the "Riverdale Office" marked on Boston Road. The name was one of Sellew's descriptive names, like Sylvan, Hillside, Intervale, Arcadia and Utopia. The Lowell suburban directory of 1916 lists "Evergreen Road from Arcadia rd to Allen rd easterly."

A water main was laid in 1928, and at the annual town meeting of February 9, 1929 it was "Moved and so voted that the Town accept as a Town way Evergreen Road for its entire length," the warrant having described it as running "from Allen Road to Hillside Road a distance of about 800 feet." The town's list of accepted streets printed in 1956 gives "Evergreen Road, Entire length," with the 1929 date. In 1937 the town voted to instruct the Selectmen "to immediately make Evergreen Road (Northeast of Allen Road) safe for two-way automobile travel." The road was graveled in part in 1929, and in 1943 it was scarified, graded and rolled, its shoulders ditched, and a "Tar prime-coat applied entire length"; an asphalt seal followed in 1945.

The Street Renaming Committee of 1988 to 1991, set up to remove duplicate and similar street names, changed the name to Devonshire Drive, since the town also had an Evergreen Avenue off Boston Road near the Burlington line. The change is not in the printed lists of 1988; the name Evergreen Road was still in use in 1989, and an easement on "Devonshire Rd" was recorded in February 1994. No explanation of the new name, that of the English county, has been found. The street was not on the official town map of 1831 and was not among the roads accepted in 2016. Intervale Road, "from Devonshire Road to dead end," was accepted as a public way in October 2019.

Devonshire Drive

Devonshire Drive

References