Edgar F. Twombly

Edgar F. Twombly was born about October 1869; the town's record of his death gives his age as 61 years, 6 months and 14 days. A local historical inventory says he was a native of Rochester, New Hampshire, who married Jennie Swain in 1887. His wife, Jennie S. Twombly, held the old Cyrus Ham homestead on Treble Cove Road in North Billerica (the house now at 11 Treble Cove Road) under a declaration of trust made on March 11, 1891. She died in 1900, aged 33, and was buried in Billerica, and Edgar held the farm as the executor of her will. Frank S. Ham sued him in 1901 to enforce the trust, but the Superior Court dismissed the suit in 1913. The 1903 jury list names him as a farmer.

In March 1904 he was elected Billerica's Highway Surveyor, defeating Edward Spaulding, and he ran the road gangs himself, paid by the day as superintendent alongside his teamsters and laborers; his account for 1906 to 1907 includes "building new road on Wilson street" in macadam. The office was elected every year and often contested. He lost it to Harry W. Essex in 1908 and won it back in 1914, 1917, 1924 and 1930, five separate terms in all. His reports describe the work: in 1917 he resurfaced roads with cinders, rebuilt the Mayberry and River Street bridges with new timbers and planking, and "thought it wise as well as economy" to buy 400 tons of stone at $1.10 a ton when the price was $1.35. In 1924 he finished the Nashua Road in West Billerica to state specifications, 5,600 feet in all, and posted three-ton limit signs on the weak Hills bridge, urging that it "receive serious consideration at the coming Town Meeting."

Between his terms on the roads he served as a Water Commissioner from 1912 to 1915, signing the 1914 report with Isaac Hopkinson and Josiah C. Evans. He also dealt in real estate. In 1912 he had O. M. Snell lay out the Ham farm as Treble Cove Terrace, with Twombly Avenue, Bond, Hill, Colson and Sprague Streets, and he sold off its lots over the following years, including the two parts of the old Ham house lot in 1924. Town meeting accepted Twombly Avenue as a town way in 1917, put lights and a water main on it, and in 1924 accepted its extension from Bond Street to Sprague Street on the Colson Heights plan. The street still carries his name.

His last years in office were stormy. In 1926 the selectmen, advised by town counsel that the highway surveyor had no authority to make contracts, let the rebuilding of Concord Road, Mount Pleasant Street and River Street by contract, and Twombly and other taxpayers sued to stop them. The Superior Court dismissed the bill in January 1927 with costs against him, and on January 10, 1928 the Supreme Judicial Court ended what the selectmen called "the now famous Billerica Road case," which had held up the work for nearly two years. The 1929 town report records that two selectmen, Highway Surveyor Warren E. Metcalf and Twombly as former surveyor had been summoned into the District Court in Lowell, charged with exceeding town appropriations in 1929 and earlier years. In 1930 the voters elected him surveyor once more.

Edgar F. Twombly died in office on May 1, 1931. The highway appropriation had run out and the department had been shut down just before his death, and the selectmen appointed Fred R. Lewis acting highway surveyor. The 1931 town report printed an "In Memoriam" notice for him, and at the next annual town meeting the voters stood in silence in his memory.

References

1. Billerica Town Report, 1901 (burials in 1900: Jennie S. Twombly, aged 33)
2. Billerica Town Report, 1905 (town officers: Highway Surveyor Edgar F. Twombly)
3. Billerica Town Report, 1907 (highway accounts, new macadam road on Wilson Street, signed as Surveyor)
4. Billerica Town Report, 1914 (water main extensions, signed as Water Commissioner)
5. Billerica Town Report, 1917 (annual town meeting accepts Twombly Avenue as a town way)
6. Billerica Town Report, 1917 (Highway Surveyor report: cinder roads, stone purchase, bridges)
7. Billerica Town Report, 1924 (Highway Surveyor report: Nashua Road completed, Hills bridge posted)
8. Billerica Town Report, 1927 (Billerica Road case: Supreme Judicial Court dismisses Twombly v. Selectmen)
9. Billerica Town Report, 1929 (selectmen and former Highway Surveyor Twombly summoned to District Court)
10. Billerica Town Report, 1931 (deaths: Edgar F. Twombly, May 1, aged 61 years 6 months 14 days)
11. Billerica Town Report, 1931 (Highway Department report on his death and the acting surveyor)