Kelly's Store

Kelly's Store was a small grocery and variety store at The Pines, the summer-cottage neighborhood laid out in 1912 between Cook Street and the Shawsheen River near the Burlington line. It stood at the southwest corner of Pines Road and Montrose Street, on lots 267 to 270 of the plan of The Pines, where Montrose Street is now McGinness Way; the lot was later numbered 15 Pines Road and is now 2 McGinness Way. Mrs. Annie J. (Anna J.) Kelly kept the store and lived in the same building from the mid-1920s until 1941. It was not the Kelly's Store of F. A. Kelly at Pollard and High Streets in North Billerica.

The land was part of a 70-acre wood lot on the Shawsheen River that the Bennett family had held since the 1840s. Edwin A. Bennett sold it on May 18, 1912 to James E. Burke of Medford, who passed it the same day to Frank W. Coughlin of Brookline. In June 1912 H. A. Millhouse, civil engineer, drew "The Pines, Billerica, Mass., owned by Frank W. Coughlin" (Plan Book 30, Plan 13), with lots of 2,500 square feet. Coughlin and Burke traded the unsold lots back and forth that year, and in February 1914 Coughlin deeded them to Burke as trustee under a declaration of trust. On September 18, 1914 Burke, as trustee, sold twelve lots, 237 to 240 and 263 to 270, to Edward C. Townsend of Billerica. Townsend mortgaged them to the Woburn Co-operative Bank in April 1915 "with the buildings thereon", the bank foreclosed and bought them at auction on February 12, 1916 for $470, and that April it sold them to William H. McManus of Woburn for $477.13.

Annie J. Kelly first came to The Pines in 1919, while living in Cambridge, when she bought a lot fifty feet square on Pines Road "and buildings thereon" from Mary A. McCormick. On August 31, 1921 McManus, then living in Donora, Pennsylvania, sold her lots 263 to 270 for $650: the whole frontage on the south side of Montrose Street between Kenilworth Street and Pines Road, 83 feet on Pines Road. No buildings were mentioned. By June 1924 she was "of Billerica". That month she sold the four western lots, 263 to 266 on Kenilworth Street, to Edward Kelly Fuller, keeping the corner on Pines Road, and in October 1924 she sold her first lot of 1919. In April 1926 she mortgaged the corner, "the land in said Billerica, with the buildings thereon, being Lots numbered 267, 268, 269 and 270", to the Woburn Co-operative Bank for $1,000, and in February 1927 for $500 more. These deeds show that the building went up between 1921 and 1926, most likely about 1924, when she gave up the older lot. Her deeds of the 1920s cite a decree of the Middlesex Probate Court (case 142528), "probate records of separation", which let her convey as if single.

In June 1929 the store advertised in The Torch, the Howe High School yearbook: "Compliments of KELLY'S STORE, Groceries and Provisions, The Pines." The Lowell directory of 1931 lists "Kelly Anna J Mrs, variety, Pines rd, R D 1, Woburn, h same", the shop and her home in one building, and the suburban directory of 1932 has her among the variety stores, with Joseph L. O'Brien, who had kept a grocery on Pines Road near Cook Street since about 1917; Toometh's Community Store, also on Pines Road, was listed under general merchandise. In 1934 she refinanced the corner with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, as "Anna J. Kelley, sometimes called Annie J. Kelly". The store is not listed after 1932, and by 1941 she was the widow of Edward Kelly, working as a seamstress and still living on Pines Road.

On April 5, 1941 Anna J. Kelley sold the corner, "with all buildings and structures thereon", to Jennie C. Fuller of Somerville, subject to the Home Owners' Loan mortgage. After Mrs. Fuller's death the Probate Court in 1946 gave her small estate to her husband, Edward K. Fuller, the buyer of the next lots in 1924, and he sold the property in 1956. In 1963 it passed through the Reading Co-operative Bank to new owners. The deeds describe the land "with the buildings thereon" as late as 1976, but a deed of March 1984 conveys only "the land". The Kasher Corporation of Billerica bought the corner that April and resold it in June 1984 with a new house, the one standing at 2 McGinness Way today.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 2 McGinness Way, parcel 82-36-1: Pines lots 267-270, combines 82-36 and 82-37; house built about 1984

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.