Meadow Lane

Meadow Lane was a short private lane that left the west side of Concord Road in South Billerica, near the present crossing of Route 3, and ran toward the Concord River through the old Hill farm. The farm had been the homestead of Ralph Hill Jr. in the 17th century and passed down through Deacon Samuel Hill to Deacon Ralph Hill, who built a second house on it, probably between his marriage in 1732/3 and his father's death in 1755. When Deacon Ralph died in 1769 he left the "old house" to his son William and the newer house, with the lands reaching to "the small Island in the River," to his son Solomon. Later writers called the newer house the Solomon Hill House, and it was this house that stood on Meadow Lane.

No laying out of the lane is recorded, and it does not appear among the streets named in 1899, on the list of 57 roads of the 1831 town map accepted in 2016, or in the town's list of accepted streets of 1956; it seems always to have been a private farm way. The earliest record of the name found is the county layout of the Concord Road from the Bedford line made in 1915, whose last sheet marks "Meadow Lane" leaving the road among the lands of the Mace and Nelson families. The name probably comes from the river meadows to which the lane led, the meadow lots that went with the farms along this part of the Concord Road.

The state's limited access Route 3, laid out in 1952 and 1953 along the line of the old Middlesex Turnpike, cut across the land at the east end of the lane, and Concord Road was carried over it on a bridge. In 1960 the Planning Board asked town meeting to rezone land "located on Meadow Lane," bounded by Old Concord Road, the westerly sideline of Route 3, Riverhurst Road and "a Lane," from rural residence to industrial, and the town voted the change unanimously in 1961. The Historical Commission's list of historic houses in 1970 still gave the "Solomon Hill House, 1780, Concord Road at Rt. 3 Meadow Lane." In 1973 the Commission recorded the house as vacant on "Meadow Lane, expected to be 31 Riverhurst Road," awaiting a move that never came, and its report for 1976 regretted the loss of "the Ralph (?) Hill house, formerly of Meadow Lane." The older Hill house was moved in 1973 to 33 Riverhurst Road. With the industrial development of the land the lane disappeared.

Historic Buildings

References

1. Annual Report 1960: warrant article to rezone land on Meadow Lane, by Old Concord Road, Route 3 and Riverhurst Road, to industrial
2. Annual Report 1961: town votes unanimously to rezone the land on Meadow Lane to an industrial district
3. Annual Report 1970: historic houses list, Solomon Hill House, 1780, Concord Road at Route 3, Meadow Lane
4. Annual Report 1976: Historical Commission notes the loss of the Hill house formerly of Meadow Lane
5. Massachusetts state highway layouts in Billerica: Route 3 layouts 3937 (1952) and 4072 (1953)

Deed References Expand all

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