Person · 1860 - 1937

Edgar P. Sellew

Born	1860-01-01
Died	1937-10-20 Billerica, MA
Finance Committee
In Office	1917 - 1928
Park Commissioner
In Office	1924 - 1930

Edgar Paine Sellew (1860-1937) was the civil engineer and surveyor who laid out the Riverdale section of Billerica, and Sellew Park, a strip of land on the Shawsheen River that the town accepted in 1945, carried his name. He began buying land between Allen Road and the river in 1893, when he bought from the East Bridgewater Savings Bank the tract from which most of his later lots were cut, and he lived at the corner of Boston Road and Allen Road, where he kept a "Riverdale Office". His first plan, "Farm Plots at Riverdale" of July 1903, divided the land between Allen Road and the river into small farm lots. In the next ten years he added "Camp Lots at Riverdale" (1908), "Camp and Garden Lots at Riverdale" (1910), "Land at Riverdale" (1911), "Garden Lots at Riverdale" (1912) and a last "Plan of Lots at Riverdale" (1913), laying out Riverdale, Sylvan, Hillside, Dell, Garden, Utopia, Evergreen and Intervale roads in the neighborhood still called Riverdale. In 1910 he registered a larger tract between Boston Road and the river in the Land Court and began to divide it along Shawsheen Road, the beginning of Shawsheen Acres.

As a surveyor he drew plans all over town, among them Fannie M. Blanchard's Blanchard Avenue in 1911 and 1915, the estate of Dudley Foster in 1920 and the Pinehurst school lot in 1926, and the town paid him for surveys and plans for decades. He sat on the Finance Committee from 1917 to 1928 and was a Park Commissioner from 1924 to 1930. He served on many town committees: the one that drafted the building by-laws of 1914 and 1915, the Fuel Committee that he chaired in the winter of 1917 to 1918, which found small surplus stocks of coal when North Billerica ran short, the committee on Pine Street in 1919, the committee on drainage near Salem Road, and the 1927 committee on a school building program. He was also a member of the Town Forest Committee, and in 1925 he gave the town some twenty acres of meadow on the Shawsheen between Boston Road and Webb Brook, accepted as Town Forest Area No. 25 and now part of the Shaloo Meadow Town Forest; the committee counted his gift and Nathaniel R. Jones's 75 acres as "the beginning of a Riverside Reservation System".

In his last years some of his land went for taxes: in 1936 the collector took nine parcels for the taxes of 1933 to 1935, among them the two-acre Crosby Meadow he had bought from Frank W. Crosby in 1910. He died on October 20, 1937, aged 77. His registered Riverdale lots passed to Lois K. Sellew, and the town meeting of 1945 accepted from her a parcel bordering the Shawsheen at Riverdale. The town called it Sellew Park and argued for years over making it a playground for Pinehurst, before it built the playground instead at Akeson Field.

References

Deed References

Date	Type	Grantor	Grantee	Summary	Recorded
July 17, 1908	Warranty	Edgar P. Sellew	Olga L. Greenwood of Boston	Details	421/543
	Lot A on "Camp Lots at Riverdale, Billerica, Mass.," E. P. Sellew, C.E., Sept. 26, 1907, about 21,400 square feet, part of the land conveyed to Sellew by the East Bridgewater Savings Bank (Book 248 Page 113). Restrictions: no dwelling costing less than $250 or within 20 feet of the road, and no slaughterhouse, piggery or offensive trade. Signed April 7, 1908.
January 4, 1909	Deed	Edgar P. Sellew	Olga L. Greenwood	Details	428/520
	Riverdale, corner of Hillside and Allen Roads, Lots 79 and 80, Plan Book 25, Plan 12 (from the grantee index; deed not yet read).
September 7, 1910	Warranty Deed	Frank W. Crosby of Billerica (Henrietta E. Crosby releasing dower and homestead)	Edgar P. Sellew of Billerica	Details	457/168
	Signed September 7, 1910, "in consideration of One Dollar and other valuable considerations." "A certain tract of meadow land in the southeasterly part of said Billerica, containing two acres more or less," bounded from the northwest corner at the upland easterly by land formerly of the heirs of John Skilton and now or late of Baker to land formerly of James Bennett and more recently of George H. Bennett, southeasterly by Bennett to land formerly of Skilton and more recently of Baker, westerly by that land to the upland, and northerly by the upland. "Being the same premises conveyed to Jeremiah Crosby by Abner Wheeler by deed dated March 14, 1823. For my title see probate of Leander Crosby." The 1823 deed, Abner Wheeler (Mary releasing dower) to Jeremiah Crosby, was recorded just before it, October 7, 1913, on the same page. This is the "Crosby Meadow" the town took for Sellew's unpaid taxes in 1936. Title passed to: October 16, 1936 Collector's Deed (tax title): Edgar P. Sellew, by Patrick J. Mahoney, Collector of Taxes to Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica (889/471) ("For further description see deed recorded ... Book 457 Page 168")
February 15, 1911	Warranty	Edgar P. Sellew	Olga L. Greenwood of Boston	Details	463/247
	Lot 171 at Riverdale on Sellew's plan of November 1, 1910: northerly by land of Moore and Bartlett by a stone wall 632 ft; easterly by a road, Lots 181 and 178, and Lots 170 and 169 (Plan Book 28, Plan 5); southwesterly by land of Pasho by a stone wall 912 ft; westerly by land of Mason and Moore 673 ft; 13.85 acres, with the same restrictions as Sellew's other Riverdale deeds.
1925	Deed of Gift	Edgar P. Sellew of Billerica	Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica (Town Forest Committee)	Details	?/?
	Accepted by the annual town meeting of 1925 (unanimous vote under G.L. c.45, ss.19-23) as Billerica Town Forest Area No. 25: "Edgar P. Sellew to Town of Billerica. Meadow land on Shawsheen River. The Southerly line is 200 feet from, and parallel to the Boston Road. The Easterly line is on the center of the Shawsheen River to Webb's Brook. The Northeasterly line is on the center of Webb's Brook. The Northwesterly line is 200 feet from Hillside Road and parallel to it. The Westerly line follows the Westerly side of Intervale Road to the line first described, from which the road is extended to the width of 75 feet to the Boston Road." The committee's 1925 report: "Mr. Edgar P. Sellew has deeded 20 acres ... on the Shawsheen River". Its 1926 report says the deeds were recorded, but no deed from Sellew to the town appears in the Sellew grantor indexes for 1916-1925 (p.215) or 1926-1940 (pp.174-175).
October 16, 1936	Collector's Deed (tax title)	Edgar P. Sellew, by Patrick J. Mahoney, Collector of Taxes	Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica	Details	889/471
	Signed October 5, 1936, recorded October 16, 1936. For the taxes of 1933, 1934 and 1935 assessed to Edgar P. Sellew, $4.32, demanded September 16, 1936; no one bid at the auction of October 2 or the adjournment of October 5, and the collector bought it for the town for $10.30: "2 Acres of land more or less, known as Crosby Meadow. For further description see deed recorded in Middlesex North District Registry of Deeds Book 457 Page 168," subject to the right of redemption. One of nine tax deeds of Sellew land (Book 889 Pages 471 to 494). Title from: September 7, 1910 Warranty Deed: Frank W. Crosby of Billerica (Henrietta E. Crosby releasing dower and homestead) to Edgar P. Sellew of Billerica (457/168) ("For further description see deed recorded ... Book 457 Page 168")
October 16, 1936	Collector's Deed (tax title)	Edgar P. Sellew, by Patrick J. Mahoney, Collector of Taxes	Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica	Details	889/473
	Signed October 5, 1936, recorded October 16, 1936. For the taxes of 1933 to 1935 assessed to Edgar P. Sellew, $16.20, bought in for the town at the adjourned auction for $23.40: "21,990 square feet of land, more or less, being lot numbered 302 and part of lot numbered 301 on a plan of land entitled Riverdale and recorded in Middlesex North District Registry of Deeds Plan Book 28, Plan 91," subject to the right of redemption.

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

Edgar P. Sellew

Edgar P. Sellew

References

Deed References Expand all

Deed References