Historical Commission

The Billerica Historical Commission is the town's official body for identifying, documenting and preserving its historic resources, appointed by the Select Board under Chapter 40 of the General Laws as the local partner of the Massachusetts Historical Commission. The 1967 Town Meeting warrant proposed accepting Chapter 697 of the Acts of 1963, and a study committee reported in 1968 recommending that a commission be appointed; that committee identified about 85 historic sites, and a list of sites compiled for the commission and revised by Robert E. Valyou and Marion E. Potter was printed in the 1969 and 1970 town reports. The Commission itself was first appointed on November 27, 1972 and organized on December 20, 1972, with Dr. Charles E. Stearns as chairman, a post he held for twenty years; Alec Ingraham has chaired it since about 2001.

Its first task was an inventory of historic buildings and sites, filed with the state on standard inventory forms. In the 1970s it tried without success to acquire and save the Solomon Pollard Tavern in Billerica Center (razed in 1977) and, with Community Development funds, restored the central pier and west abutment of the Middlesex Canal's Shawsheen Aqueduct (1977-1978). It prepared the National Register nominations for the Manning Manse (listed 1982) and the Billerica Mills Historic District in North Billerica (listed November 10, 1983), worked on an overall preservation plan with the Northern Middlesex Area Commission (1980-1981), holds hearings under the town's demolition delay by-law, and since the late 1990s has marked historic houses with Circa Signs. Its leaders also formed the Historic District Study Committee of 1974, the forerunner of the separate Historic District Commission.

The Commission has seven members appointed for three-year terms, plus alternates; in the 2010s it often had only three active members. Rows here include alternate members and are taken from the town report officer lists and the Commission's signed annual reports.