Old Concord Road

Old Concord Road is the short piece of the ancient road from Billerica to Bedford and Concord that was left beside the new highway when Route 3 was built through South Billerica in 1953. It leaves the present Concord Road just west of the Concord Road Bridge over Route 3, runs north past the end of Riverhurst Road and turns northeast to end at the westerly line of Route 3. Until 1953 it was simply part of Concord Road, the "Concord country road" laid out by the committees of Billerica and Concord in 1660/61, which the town's street list of 1899 described as "Concord road, running from the junction of River street and Boston road southerly to Bedford line." Surveyors of the time also called it the main road: the 1921 "Plan of Riverhurst" shows Riverhurst Road leaving the "Main Road Bedford to Billerica," and the Land Court plan drawn for the Route 3 taking in 1953 labels it "Concord Road (formerly Main Road)."

The present line of this piece dates from the county work of 1915 and 1916. By a return of January 16, 1915 the Middlesex County Commissioners altered Concord Road from the Bedford line to Meadow Lane (Plan Book 910, Plan 13), taking strips of land to straighten it, and in 1916 they altered it again at the sharp bend by the Riverhurst land. Their "Plan of Concord Road, Billerica, as altered by the County Commissioners, 1916" (Plan Book 910, Plan 14) carries the road around the bend on a flatter curve and marks the outside of the old curve "This portion of street discontinued." The abutters were Charles W. Williamson, Eugene A. Stilwell as trustee, Katherine A. Dugan, the Town of Billerica, and Fred B. and A. Mabel Bartlett, owners of the Riverhurst summer colony. The road had been oiled "as far as Riverhurst" in 1915, and in 1916 the town finished the macadam on Concord Road that it had begun in 1913, with the Commonwealth and the county each paying a third. A rezoning article of 1968 still called this piece "the old Concord Road (1915 Layout)."

When the state laid out Route 3 as a limited access relocation of the Middlesex Turnpike (Layout No. 4072, Sept. 15, 1953), it cut across the old road just beyond the Riverhurst bend. The order of taking provided for "a relocation of Concord Road beginning about 1700 feet from 'The Maples, Inc.' at the junction of Riverhurst and Concord Roads," and the new line was carried southeast of the old one and over the highway on a bridge. The old road from the new junction to the bend, with the end of Riverhurst Road, was left to end at the westerly line of Route 3. The part of the old road east of the highway, between Route 3 and the Old Middlesex Turnpike, stayed on the books until the annual town meeting of March 1965, which voted unanimously to "discontinue and abandon that portion of the old Concord Road" lying between the easterly location line of Route 3 and "the Old Middlesex Turnpike, so called," both inside and outside the new location.

The name is descriptive: this is the old line of Concord Road, left behind by the relocation. It first appears in the town records in the warrant of 1960, when the Planning Board proposed to rezone land on Meadow Lane "starting at a stone wall located on Old Concord Road; thence running Northeast 116 feet more or less, by Old Concord Road to Westerly sideline of Route 3," which the town meeting voted unanimously in 1961. Rezoning articles of 1961 to 1967 for the land of The Maples, Inc. describe it as bounded "by Riverhurst Road and Old Concord Road," and in 1967 the town voted to carry the fire alarm wires "into Riverhurst from Old Concord Road along Riverhurst Road." The words had been used loosely before: a building contract of 1920 placed the Lyons farm, the Jonathan Hill House on the present Concord Road, "on the old Concord Road South Billerica," meaning only the ancient road, and in 1972 Graham Builders took the name for the Villas at Old Concord, laid out on Meadow Lane on part of the old Deacon Samuel Hill farm.

Old Concord Road has no acceptance vote of its own. As part of Concord Road it was a public way laid out and altered by the county, and the 1953 relocation was, in the words of the 1965 discontinuance, "laid out on behalf of the Town of Billerica" in the state's order of taking. It does not appear in the town's 1956 list of accepted streets, which gives only "Concord Rd., Jct. Boston Rd. & River St. south to Bedford line," nor among the 57 roads of the 1831 town map accepted at the Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, where Concord Road is listed from the Bedford town line to Boston Road. The town maintains it as a town street, and it was among the roads crack sealed under the town's road program in 2014.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 89: the 1660/61 laying out of the "Concord country road," of which Old Concord Road is a surviving piece
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1899: Historical Society's street list, "Concord road ... southerly to Bedford line"
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1915: highway surveyor resurfaces Concord Road "as far as Riverhurst" with Taxo oil
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1916: macadam road on Concord Road completed with State and County aid
5. Massachusetts state highway layouts in Billerica: Route 3 Layout No. 4072 (Sept. 15, 1953) and the 1996 alteration at Concord Road
6. Annual Report 1956: list of streets accepted, "Concord Rd., Jct. Boston Rd. & River St. south to Bedford line"; no separate Old Concord Road
7. Annual Report 1960: Article 60, land on Meadow Lane "by Old Concord Road to Westerly sideline of Route 3," first use of the name in the town records
8. Annual Report 1961: town meeting votes unanimously the Meadow Lane rezoning bounded by Old Concord Road
9. Annual Report 1961: rezoning article for land bounded "by Riverhurst Road and Old Concord Road"
10. Annual Report 1964: Article 73, to discontinue the old Concord Road between Route 3 and the Old Middlesex Turnpike
11. Annual Report 1965: annual town meeting votes unanimously to accept Article 73, discontinuing the old Concord Road east of Route 3
12. Annual Report 1967: town votes $637 for fire alarm wires "into Riverhurst from Old Concord Road along Riverhurst Road"
13. Annual Report 1968: rezoning article bounded "by the 1953 layout of Concord Road" and "the old Concord Road (1915 Layout)"
14. Annual Report 2017: warrant for Article 36, the 1831 list of roads, which includes Concord Road but not Old Concord Road
15. Annual Report 2017: Fall Town Meeting, October 2016, Article 36 accepts the 1831-map roads as public ways (124 to 19)

Deed References Expand all

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