Fenner Street

Fenner Street is a short street of Nuttings Lake Park, north of Nutting's Lake, running about 500 feet north from the end of Stewart Street, with Rocky Ledge Lane branching from it. It was laid out on "Nuttings Lake Park Annex (Area of Lake Over 100 Acres), Billerica, Mass.," Plan C, drawn in April 1910 by C. A. Thayer, engineer, of Providence, Rhode Island, and recorded on May 6, 1910 (Plan Book 27, Plan 35). On that plan Fenner Street runs along the northern edge of the annex beyond Everett Street (now Rocky Ledge Lane), lined with small cottage lots, most of about 2,500 square feet. The assessors still describe the lot at 1 Fenner Street as lots 357 to 359 and 370 to 372 of Plan C. The plan does not explain the name, and its origin was not found.

The Lowell directory of 1931 lists "Fenner (north side Nuttings lake) from Stewart northerly," with a resident, and the directories of 1941 to 1957 describe it the same way and list several households on it. The warrant for the annual town meeting of 1954 asked the town to "accept the laying out of Fenner Street about 500 feet as a town way" and to appropriate $800 to improve it. The meeting of March 13, 1954 accepted it: the $800 appears among that year's article appropriations, the highway department spent $362.50 on Fenner Street in 1954, and the town's list of accepted streets gives "Fenner St. -- 500 ft."

The paper streets around it were later trimmed. On May 12, 1987 town meeting discontinued about 107 feet of Stewart Street from Pine Street toward Fenner Street, keeping an easement for drainage and utilities, and in October 1991 it discontinued the 71-foot piece of Friendship Street between Rocky Ledge Lane and Fenner Street. None of the early cottages survives: the assessors date the present houses on the street from about 1984 to 2017.

References

1. Warrant for the 1954 annual town meeting, Articles 109-110: accept Fenner Street about 500 feet as a town way, $800 to improve it
2. 1954 article appropriations: Article 110, Fenner Street, $800
3. 1954 highway accounts: Fenner Street, $362.50
4. Streets accepted by the town (1956 list): Fenner St., 500 ft., March 13, 1954
5. Town meeting May 12, 1987, Article 41: part of Stewart Street between Pine Street and Fenner Street discontinued
6. Fall town meeting 1991, Article 29: part of Friendship Street between Rocky Ledge Lane and Fenner Street discontinued