Duncan Drive

Location	Map
Neighborhood	Riverbank Terrace
Laid Out	1956
Right of Way	25 ft
Pavement	20 ft

Duncan Drive is a street in Pinehurst near the Burlington line, in the Riverbank Terrace neighborhood between Boston Road and the Shawsheen River. It leaves the bend of the street Riverbank Terrace and runs east-southeast about 1,250 feet, past the end of Craine Street, to Whitefield Avenue, where Keystone Lane carries the same line on to Adelman Road. Until the early 1990s it was Washington Avenue.

It was laid out as Washington Avenue on the plan "Riverbank Terrace, Billerica, Mass., May 1911," drawn by C. A. Thayer, engineer, and recorded on August 17, 1911 (Plan Book 29, Plan 25). On the plan River Road, now Riverbank Terrace, comes in from Main Street, now Boston Road, and bends west toward the river; Washington Avenue continues east from the bend between block 20 on the north and the blocks of 25-foot lots on the south, past the ends of Craine Street, Whitfield Avenue and Grant Street to Adelman Road. The house lots on Duncan Drive are still described by the 1911 blocks and lots. The 1931 directory lists "Washington Avenue from River rd to Adelman rd (Riverbank Terrace)."

The assessors date the oldest house on the street to about 1956, several others to the 1970s and 1980s, and about half to 1993 to 1998, when the old small lots were combined and built on. The highway department graded Washington Avenue in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979. When the town accepted River Road in 1978 its layout ran "from Boston Road to Washington St."; no acceptance of Washington Avenue itself was found.

The renaming of Washington Avenue to Duncan Drive is not in the printed renaming lists of 1988, and no vote was found in the town reports; Billerica also had a Washington Street. In the registry's property index Washington Avenue is used for deeds on the street through 1990, and Duncan Drive first appears in September 1992. The origin of the name Duncan was not found.

Duncan Drive

Duncan Drive

References