Oak Street

Oak Street runs southeast from Sheldon Street in North Billerica to Pond Street near the Tewksbury line, a little under a mile through what was long open farm and swamp land north of the Middlesex Canal. No laying out of it has been found. It is one of the old ways that the town said in 2016 were shown on the official town map of 1831.

The road's older name was Frost. The street naming committee chosen in 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) listed "Frost street, running southeast from Sheldon street to Tewksbury line, No. Billerica," and an article in the Billerica News of June 12, 1930, quoted in the town's survey of the North Billerica smallpox cemetery, directed readers down Pond Street past the railroad bridge to "the first left on what was formerly Johnny Frost Road," the site of the pest house of the smallpox epidemic of 1811. The Frosts lived nearby: Asa Frost, who came from Chelmsford about 1806 and died of smallpox in 1811, had married Rhoda Trull, whose father Samuel Trull's farm lay on the south side of Sheldon Street near the corner of Oak Street, and the family name stayed with the road through the nineteenth century.

The Billerica Historical Society did not keep the committee's name. Its revised list, accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, gave "Oak street, from Sheldon street running southeast to Tewksbury line, No. Billerica," and the directories from 1901 on call it "Oak, from Sheldon to Pond at Tewksbury line." The report does not explain the new name, which presumably described the woods along it. It should not be confused with the later Oak Street in the Pinedale section near Boston Road, which the directory of 1919 also lists.

Oak Street remained a gravel road into the 1930s. In 1923 residents asked the town to improve "Oak and Pond Streets, from the Tewksbury town line to Sheldon Street" and to cut back "the excessive growth of brush," and the finance committee thought slight patching would put them in satisfactory condition. Street lights were requested in 1929 and 1930. The road was "scraped, rolled and oiled entire length" in 1940, and in 1941 it was oiled for 1,600 feet and tarred for 3,150 feet, 24 feet wide. A tar seal coat was applied to its whole length in 1944.

The town's list of accepted streets printed in 1956 gave "Oak St. From Sheldon southeast to Tewksbury line" without a date. Oak Street was formally accepted as a public way at the Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, which voted, 124 to 19, under Chapter 82, sections 21 to 24, of the General Laws, to accept the old roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." The list gives Oak Street from Sheldon Street to Pond Street.

References

1. Annual Report 1897: street naming committee, "Frost street, running southeast from Sheldon street to Tewksbury line, No. Billerica"
2. Annual Report 1899: Historical Society street list, "19. Oak street, from Sheldon street running southeast to Tewksbury line"
3. Annual Report 1900: street list accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899
4. Annual Report 1923: article to improve Oak and Pond Streets from the Tewksbury town line to Sheldon Street
5. Annual Report 1940: Oak Street scraped, rolled and oiled entire length
6. Annual Report 1941: Oak Street oiled 1,600 feet and tarred 3,150 feet, 24 feet wide
7. Annual Report 1956: list of streets accepted, "Oak St. From Sheldon southeast to Tewksbury line"
8. Annual Report 2017: Article 36, 1831 list of roads, "Oak Street, Sheldon Street, Pond Street"
9. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, Article 36 accepts the 1831 roads as public ways (124 to 19)