Person
Eliza Lyons Mahoney
Eliza Lyons Mahoney
Eliza Mahoney, born Elizabeth Lyons, was a widow of North Billerica who built the house now at 24-26 Wilson Street, the Mahoney House, and owned the land on the river side of the street around it for more than thirty years. She and her husband, Daniel Mahoney, had nine children recorded in Billerica between 1853 and 1870.
On April 3, 1872 the storekeepers Anthony Jones and Dudley Foster sold Mrs. Mahoney, for $400, a lot four rods wide on Wilson Street running back to the Concord River, part of the old homestead of Joel Dix, "conveyed for the purpose of erecting a dwelling house." She was a widow by 1875, when she added a five-foot strip on the north, and in November 1881 she bought another 8 1/4 feet from Elizabeth Auty, who owned the land beyond and built the North Billerica Market. Her house is marked "Mrs. E. Mahoney" on the maps of 1875 and 1889. In 1882 Mrs. Auty sold the next two rods to the town for its North Billerica engine house, and the town's accounts for 1885 record $4.00 from "Mrs. Mahoney, use of engine land." Between 1889 and 1905 she put up a second house at the south end of her land, now 28-28 1/2 Wilson Street, apparently to rent.
On August 7, 1905 she sold the land "with the buildings thereon" to The Talbot Mills, and her neighbor Lawrence B. Gannon quitclaimed the boundary lines the same week. The mill rented both houses to its workers until it sold them in 1939 (see Talbot Textile Mills Worker Housing at 24-26 Wilson St and Talbot Textile Mills Worker Housing at 28-28 1/2 Wilson St).