Ellingwood Avenue

Ellingwood Avenue is a street of Pinehurst running north from Pinedale Avenue across Chesterfield, Pinehurst and Cardington Avenues toward McHugh Avenue, in the grid of streets laid out east of Boston Road. It first appears on "Pinehurst Manor, Billerica, Mass., owned by Frank W. Coughlin," drawn by H. A. Millhouse, civil engineer, and dated at Boston in September 1910 (Plan Book 27, Plan 95), with Allandale Avenue on one side and Glenside Avenue on the other. Millhouse's plan of Park View for Bernard F. McHugh, April 1917 (Plan Book 34, Plan 79), carried it north across McHugh Avenue, and the 1925 plan of electric light poles on the unaccepted streets of Pinehurst Manor (Plan Book 47, Plan 64) shows it unchanged. The directory of 1916 lists "Ellingwood Avenue from Pinehurst ave n Boston rd."

The name was chosen by the developer with the other English sounding names of the plan, such as Glenside, Allandale, Cardington and Chesterfield. Ellingwood is an English surname, but no Billerica person or family of that name is known and no record explains the choice.

A water main was laid on "Cardington & Ellingwood Ave." by 1926, and further mains on Glenside, Chesterfield and Ellingwood Avenues in 1928. The street remained a private way for decades. In 1956 residents petitioned the town to accept it from Pinehurst Avenue to Cardington Avenue and from Pinehurst Avenue to Chesterfield Avenue, and the Street Acceptance Committee put the same articles in the 1957 warrant; the printed reports do not give the votes. At the annual meeting of 1958 the town voted $14,295 to improve about 1,309 feet of Ellingwood Avenue under the Betterment Act, and the work was paid for in 1958 to 1960; the 1959 warrant also asked for paving 24 feet wide "with drainage and curbs between Cardington Avenue and Chesterfield Avenue." An 8-inch water main replaced the old pipe from Cardington to Chesterfield Avenue in 1973.

The northern piece, from McHugh Avenue south to its dead end, was accepted as a public way at the annual town meeting of May 8, 2018, by a vote of 164 to 11, as shown on an as built plan of 2016. Ellingwood Avenue is not among the roads of the 1831 town map accepted in 2016.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1926: water main cost table, Cardington and Ellingwood Avenues
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1955: warrant articles to accept and improve Ellingwood Avenue, submitted by residents
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1956: warrant articles of the Street Acceptance Committee to accept Ellingwood Avenue
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1957: warrant article to improve Ellingwood Avenue about 1,309 feet under the Betterment Act
5. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1958: streets voted under betterments, Ellingwood Avenue $14,295
6. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 2018: warrant Article 34, Ellingwood Avenue from McHugh Avenue to the south dead end, 425 feet
7. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 2018: May 8, 2018 town meeting accepts the listed roads as public ways, 164 to 11