John E. Rowell

John E. Rowell (about 1838-1920) was a North Billerica farmer who served on the town's boards for more than a dozen years and was one of its surveyors of wood and lumber for a quarter century. According to the town's death record he died on May 31, 1920, aged 82 years, 4 months and 4 days, which puts his birth at the end of January 1838. The jury lists of 1899 to 1903 call him a farmer. The town reports show him pasturing cattle, hiring out his horse and team, and selling cows, pigs and gravel to the town, and he owned woodland in North Billerica, where a fire broke out at "Rowell's woods" in April 1900.

He was elected an assessor in 1888 and an overseer of the poor in 1890, and in 1892 he joined the Select Board, which also made him a member of the Board of Health and one of the fence viewers. At the town meeting of March 1894 he and George F. Colson each had 172 votes for assessor, just ahead of Edward B. Haskell and Sears J. Cook. By March 1895 he was chairman of the selectmen and called that year's annual meeting to order. He left the board in 1900. The selectmen's report for that year noted that John E. Rowell, "after many years of faithful service as a Selectman of Billerica, declined re-election." He was an assessor again from 1901 to 1903, and in 1910 town meeting named him and the town clerk as a committee to report on the Elliott Fund. From 1894 until his death town meeting named him every year among the surveyors, or measurers, of wood and lumber, usually first on the list.

Rowell joined Warren H. Manning in opening trails on Gilson Hill to the public. The warrant for the town meeting of 1911 asked the town to accept as a private way "the Jacob and Lydia Trails, so-called, through the hilltop reservation on Gilson Hill, as deeded by Warren H. Manning and John E. Rowell to Appalachian Mountain Club for the use and benefit of the public." In 1912, when the horticulturist F. W. Barclay surveyed Billerica soils and crops for the monthly magazine Billerica, Rowell was one of the four farmers he interviewed. Barclay reported that drained muck land treated with a ton of lime gave Rowell six tons of hay to the acre, and that he grew cabbages on the same ground four or five years running with a ton of lime an acre each year. The magazine also named him, with Fred Mason, among the local men who found apple growing profitable.

His household was part of the life of the North Billerica Baptist Church. In 1912 and 1913 Mrs. John E. Rowell of North Billerica hosted the church's Women's Mission Circle and the Rowell Girls, a class of young women in the Baptist society who had recently placed a memorial window in the church. John E. Rowell was still on the town's list of lumber surveyors in 1920 when he died that May, at the age of 82.

References

1. Town meeting of March 18, 1895, called to order by John E. Rowell as chairman of the selectmen (Town Report 1896)
2. Jury list with occupations, 1899 (Town Report 1899)
3. Report of the Selectmen, 1901 (Rowell declined re-election)
4. Warrant, Article 22: Jacob and Lydia Trails on Gilson Hill (Town Report 1911)
5. 'Billerica' magazine, July 1912 (Billerica Soil and Crop Yields)
6. 'Billerica' magazine, 1912 (Rowell Girls memorial window, North Billerica Baptist Church)
7. 'Billerica' magazine, 1913 (apple growing)
8. Deaths recorded in Billerica during 1920 (Town Report)