Mitchell Boys' School
Mitchell Boys' School
| Buildings | 3, built 1879 to 1888
420 Boston Rd |
Professor Moses Campbell Mitchell founded the Mitchell Military Boys School on Martha's Vineyard, but moved to Billerica at the corner of Boston and Andover Roads in 1879, upon the site of a hotel which had burned down. In 1888, this school building also burned down. Mitchell had previously bought a large tract of land along Concord Road between Charnstaffe and French Street, and was able to build an even larger school on these grounds.
Fire struck again in 1935, destroying the main building and gymnasium. Classes were moved to other buildings, but the enrollment declined over the next few years. By 1943, the school closed. The town purchased the sports fields in 1948. The high school football team used it as "Memorial Field", which later became the Chuck Lampson Memorial Field. That's now part of the Peggy Hannon-Rizza Recreation Complex. The "Sunnyside" building became the St. Theresa's Rectory before demolition in the early 2000s, and Moses Campbell Hall still exists as Sweeney Funeral Home. Finally, the stone entrance arches for the main building still stand at the ends of two residential driveways.
References
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Recorded |
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| April 10, 1880 | Warranty Deed | Albert R. Richardson of Billerica (Caroline E. Richardson releasing dower and homestead) | Mary Hanson Mitchell of Billerica, wife of Moses Campbell Mitchell | 1880: Mary Hanson Mitchell buys the corner for the Mitchell school | 138/488 |
Dated April 7, 1880. For $7,500, the same one and a half acres "with the buildings thereon ... in the centre of said Billerica nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", the Blanchard and Bruce lots, "Also the large street lantern at the corner of the house on the premises", being the premises conveyed to Richardson by Joseph Warren Green on April 1, 1879. The buildings are the Mitchell Boys' School, which the Mitchells had moved to Billerica.
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| April 10, 1880 | Mortgage | Moses Campbell Mitchell and Mary Hanson Mitchell his wife, in her right | Albert R. Richardson of Billerica | 1880: purchase-money mortgage on the school property | 138/489 |
Dated April 7, 1880. Purchase-money mortgage for $5,000 on the same one and a half acres in the centre of Billerica "nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", the Bruce lot and "the large street lantern at the corner of the house", "this mortgage being given to secure a portion of the purchase money of said premises". Discharged in the margin by Richardson at Lowell, March 1888.
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| September 1, 1888 | Warranty Deed | Mary Hanson Mitchell and Moses Campbell Mitchell her husband, of Billerica | Dr. Albert C. Lane of Billerica | 1888: after the school fire the Mitchells sell the corner | 199/442 |
Dated Aug. 28, 1888. For $3,000, "a certain parcel of land situate in said Billerica containing one and one half acres more or less located in the centre of said Billerica nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", bounded north by the Andover and Tewksbury road, east by land formerly of Lyman Haynes, later Matthew Carey "and now by said Moses C. Mitchell", south by land formerly of Samuel W. Baldwin "and at present by J. F. Bruce", and west by the Boston and Lowell road, the Blanchard and Bruce lots, "being the same premises conveyed to Mary Hanson Mitchell by Albert R. Richardson by his deed dated April 7th 1880". No buildings are mentioned: the school had burned earlier in 1888. Lane built his house and office here.
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Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.