Livingston Cider Mill

The Livingston Cider Mill was the cider and vinegar works that the Livingston family ran for some sixty years on the back land off Andover Road in Billerica Centre, behind the house lots now numbered 27 and 29 Andover Road and against the east side of the Pollard School land. Everett W. Livingston had pressed cider behind his house on Mill Lane in North Billerica in the 1880s; in 1891 he sold that place back to John O. Richardson and built a new mill at the Centre. The street laid out over the site in 1969, Cider Mill Way, is named for it.

The land was part of the farm of Ichabod G. Kimball, which he made over to George W. Searles in 1875 in return for his support. In August 1891 Searles sold J. Nelson Parker three and a half acres for the new Centre school, bounded on the east "by land of said Baker and my other land on said wall," and Parker passed the tract to the town. On June 18, 1892 Searles sold Sarah J. Damon of Malden, for $300, about an acre and a quarter of that "other land": 14 rods 14 1/2 feet along the backs of the William B. Stearns and John H. Baker house lots, 14 rods 6 feet "by town land," and "a right of way from Andover Street through my land to said premises, with the buildings thereon." The buildings were Livingston's new mill; the town had already paid "E. W. Livingstone, making cider" in its accounts for 1891-92. On July 5, 1892 Mrs. Damon deeded the lot to Everett W. Livingston for one dollar, although the deed was not recorded until September 1897, when he mortgaged the mill to John E. Rowell for $250.

Livingston was for many years a constable, truant officer, fire engineer and janitor of the town hall, and lived at the corner of Andover and Pond Streets (the Livingston House). The 1901 directory lists him with a saw mill "off Andover n. Pollard school," where his son Henry D. Livingston, lumber dealer, teamster and furniture mover, also made cider and ran a planing mill. The town paid "E. W. Livingston & Son, making cider" in 1906, and the 1912 directory has "E. W. Livingston & Son (Everett W. and Henry D.), cider and vinegar mnfrs., Andover back Pollard school." Everett died before December 1914, when his widow Anna M. Livingston died, and the business went on as The Livingston Co., Henry D. and William E. Livingston, "cider and vinegar mnfrs off Andover n Pond." Henry lived on the mill lot, in the house the directories place "off Andover n Pollard school." In 1925 the heirs, Henry, William and their sister Jennie M. Perry, deeded the lot "with the buildings thereon" through Gladys V. Ingram of Lowell to Henry D. and Maude W. Livingston, subject to a $550 mortgage.

The Sanborn insurance map of December 1923 labels the place "The Livingston Co. Cider & Vinegar Mill." The main mill, of one and two stories with open-sided wings, had a gas-engine room on its west side; six vinegar vats stood in the yard west of it, and nearer the entrance were platform scales, a gasoline tank, a story-and-a-half garage with an office, and a smaller garage. Along the west edge of the yard, on the school land, stood the long two-story town stable and engine house of 1894, the Centre Engine House, later the Town Barn, and a one-story shed. The mill deeds from 1892 to 1969 always bound the lot on that side "by Town land," and the town never acquired any part of it, so the barn's site was school land; when the town voted in 1946 to dispose of the barn, "the real estate there" went to the School Committee.

After Henry's death Maude W. Livingston, then of Nashua, New Hampshire, deeded the mill in April 1941 to Percy D. Livingston of New Gloucester, Maine, subject to a lease held by Arthur E. Rowse; directories of 1941 and 1942 list the company under Mrs. Maude Livingston, with Chester F. Livingston as manager. In November 1944 Percy D. and Margaret C. Livingston sold the lot "with the buildings thereon" to Thomas S. and Grace M. Taylor of Billerica, who kept the old name: the Howe High School yearbook of 1947 carries an advertisement for "The Livingstone Cider Mill" and that of 1949 for "The Livingston Co. & Thomas S. Taylor," and the Lowell directory lists "Livingston Co (Thos S Taylor) cider and vinegar mfrs Andover rd" as late as 1951. The mill is gone from the 1957 directory.

The Taylors sold the lot in 1953, and it passed through two private owners before Romolo E. Capobianco, Inc., which had bought the adjoining Messer land and the house at 29 Andover Road in 1968, bought it in August 1969. The company's Pollard Estates plan of that year joined the mill lot to the Messer land as Lot 2, 4.72 acres, on a new street, Cider Mill Way, which follows the old right of way in from Andover Road. The 1969 deed still conveyed the lot "together with the buildings thereon," but none of the mill buildings stands today. The town took Lot 2 for unpaid taxes in 1990, and in 2013 the Land Court foreclosed the right of redemption, leaving the mill site in the town's hands. Cider Mill Way, about 410 feet long, was put before the 2018 town meeting for acceptance as a public way, the town bought the neighboring Lot 3 in 2021, and the Select Board's report for that year lists work on "the Bay Circuit Trail at Cider Mill."

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1892: "E. W. Livingstone, making cider, $5.36"
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1906: "E. W. Livingston & Son, making cider"; "Livingston & Co., making cider"
3. Lowell Suburban Directory, 1916: "Livingston Co (The) (Henry D and William E Livingston) cider and vinegar mnfrs off Andover n Pond"
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1946: Feb. 9, 1946 meeting, Art. 14, the Town Barn next to the Pollard School yard and "the real estate there" to the School Committee
5. Billerica assessor, parcel 51-74-0, Cider Mill Way: Pollard Estates Lot 2, 4.72 acres, Town of Billerica since Dec. 13, 2013

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.