Marshall Middle School

The Marshall Middle School, formally the Dr. Orland S. Marshall Middle School, is the town's middle school at 15 Floyd Street, on the south side of the street just east of the old Bedford branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad. It stands on a 37.16 acre lot that the town bought in 1968, opened in September 1972 for 1,500 pupils in grades six, seven and eight, and since 2020 has taught grades five, six and seven. The athletic field and track behind it are Calabrese Stadium.

The school lot was made of the back parts of two old farms on the Boston Road. The southern part was the back land of the farm that Edward Farmer gave his son Oliver Farmer in 1711, the farm of the Oliver Farmer House. It passed in 1796 and 1798 to Oliver's son Jeremiah Farmer, was sold after his death in 1836, and as a 25 acre farm on "the County road from Boston to Lowell" changed hands many times, from Benjamin Beard 2d and the Rices to Henry Sperry, John H. Keyes, Eben Haskell, the Phelps family, Frederick Dickson, Charles H. Stackpole and in 1879 John M. Bailey. In 1885 Bailey gave the Boston and Lowell Railroad a right of way across the farm for its new Bedford and Billerica branch, which cut off the back land. After Bailey's widow Phebe J. Bailey died, her executor sold the farm in 1921 to Cassius W. and Mabel S. White, and in October 1941 the widowed Mabel S. White sold Edward T. Murphy of Medford "a certain parcel of land containing twenty-three (23) acres, more or less, on the easterly side of the B. & M. Railroad tracks."

The northern part was a farm of 25 acres "with the buildings thereon" that ran east from the Boston Road about 148 rods along the land of John D. Dickerman. Daniel Floyd, for whom Floyd Street is named, owned it and the land around it by 1851, when a neighbor's deed called it "land of one Floyd formerly Hamlin"; no deed to him has been found. On May 12, 1886 Floyd sold the 25 acres, with the five acre "Alanson Stewart lot" on the old Salem Road, to Henry M. Hutchins for $3,000, "except the rights of the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation through said farm as conveyed to them by me." Hutchins sold the farm in 1891 to Robert Robertson of Cambridge, who deeded it back in 1893, and in 1898 to Charles H. Frost of Lowell, who gave him a mortgage of $2,800 for it. When Frost fell behind, Hutchins sold the farm at auction in Billerica and bought it in himself for $2,400 in June 1903. It stayed in the Hutchins family until 1939, when his daughter Mary L. Stowers of Falmouth sold it to Edward T. and Annie T. Murphy. After Edward T. Murphy's death his widow deeded both pieces to their children in 1953.

By the late 1960s Billerica's school population was rising toward 10,000 pupils. A 1967 school site study listed as its first choice "Land of Murphy, east of the B.&M. Railroad, south of Floyd Street ... less frontage on Floyd Street of 200 feet; approximately 37 acres," and on March 26, 1968 the annual town meeting voted unanimously under Articles 90 and 91 to spend $70,000 "for acquiring the following described land for school building purposes," with power to take it by eminent domain if need be. The Murphy family first placed the land in a family trust, and Emmons, Fleming and Bienvenu of Billerica surveyed it for the Permanent School Building Committee in July 1968, leaving out a row of seven house lots along Floyd Street. In September 1968 the trustee deeded the town "Parcel A," 37.16 acres running "one thousand one hundred thirty-five and 08/100 (1135.08) feet" along the east side of the railroad from Floyd Street and bounded on its other sides largely by old stone walls, for $70,000; the deed was recorded on October 25, 1968 with the plan (Plan Book 107, Plan 147). It was subject to a thirty-foot sewer easement that the town had taken along the railroad in April 1966.

The 1968 town meeting also voted $165,000 for plans "with reference to building a Middle School on Floyd Street," and the School Committee presented educational specifications in the fall of 1969. A special town meeting on February 10, 1970 lost its quorum before voting the $5,750,000 asked for the building, but a new special town meeting that spring voted to build, and the town borrowed $5,950,000 for the "Floyd Street School." Construction began at once. On September 30, 1970 the Permanent School Building Committee, chaired by John T. Glavine, voted "to name the Middle School for Dr. Orland S. Marshall, retired School Physician," and Dr. Marshall took part in the ground breaking. Orland S. Marshall had examined the town's schoolchildren as school physician from 1926 until 1967, had been one of the first members of the Planning Board, led the wartime draft board and was the first chairman of the Board of Appeals; he died on September 29, 1971, a year before the school was finished. The building was planned for 1,200 pupils, with an area left unfinished for future classrooms. While it was being built the Marshall Middle School began in September 1971 on a curtailed schedule in double sessions, and it opened in its own building in September 1972 with 1,500 pupils, followed by a formal dedication attended by Dr. Marshall's family and friends.

The school soon outgrew its design: in 1975 it held more than 1,500 pupils in a building "built for twelve hundred." Its auditorium became the regular meeting place of the town meeting and a polling place from 1973. The high school football team played its home games on the Marshall field from 1973 until 2019, and in 2006 the field and track were named the Dr. Robert J. Calabrese Track and Field Stadium. Later work included the removal of asbestos from the boiler room in 1984, a new roof under a $1,200,000 appropriation of 1993, new baseball and softball fields in 1997 and 1998, the renovation of the auditorium, named in 1986 for the town official Howard J. Ralston, whose stage was dedicated in 2017 to the music educator Dr. Paul Cox, new floors and the replacement of asbestos tile in the wings in 2017 to 2019, and heating and ventilation work from 2020. When the eighth grade moved to the new Billerica Memorial High School in 2020, the Marshall changed from grades six to eight to grades five to seven, taking all the pupils of the Dutile, Hajjar and Parker schools. It remains a public school of the town, which still owns the 37.16 acre lot under its 1968 deed.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 15 Floyd St (parcel 32-127-0): Town of Billerica, Marshall School, 37.160 acres, school built about 1972, Plan 107-147 Parcel A, deed Book 1863 Page 636
2. Annual Report 1967: school site study, "Parcel #1: Land of Murphy, east of the B.&M. Railroad, south of Floyd Street ... approximately 37 acres"
3. Annual Report 1968: March 26, 1968 town meeting, Articles 90 and 91, $70,000 for the Murphy land for school building purposes
4. Annual Report 1970: Permanent School Building Committee, middle school voted in spring 1970, named Sept. 30, 1970 for Dr. Orland S. Marshall, ground breaking
5. Annual Report 1971: In Memoriam Orland Smith Marshall, school physician 1926-1967, died Sept. 29, 1971; Marshall Middle School on double sessions
6. Annual Report 1972: Permanent School Building Committee, opening of the Dr. Orland S. Marshall Middle School in September 1972 with 1500 pupils, dedication
7. Annual Report 1993: $1,200,000 for replacing the roofs of the Marshall School and the Memorial High School
8. Annual Report 2017: renovated Marshall Middle School auditorium dedicated to Dr. Paul Cox
9. Annual Report 2020: Marshall Middle School changes from grades 6-8 to grades 5-7

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.