Ossamequin Road

Ossamequin Road runs north through Ranlett Grove and into Riverhurst, the two early twentieth century riverside colonies on the east bank of the Concord River in South Billerica. It was first laid out on paper on the plan "Ranlett Grove on shore of Concord River, Billerica Mass.," drawn in May 1909 by Ernest W. Branch, civil engineer, for Atwood and Pattee, auctioneers and real estate dealers of Boston, and recorded on Aug. 7, 1909 (Plan Book 26, Plan 47). There Ossamequin Road runs east from Riverside Road along the back of the riverside lots, with Cardinal Lane and Lupine Lane turning south from it toward Osceola Lane. Ranlett Grove took its name from the estate of Captain Charles A. Ranlett, whose land lay between the Bedford road and the river.

The road carries the native name of Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem who made the treaty of 1621 with the Plymouth colonists and whose own name is usually written Ousamequin or Ossamequin. The plan does not explain it, but the same plan gives other native names (Osceola Lane, Satuckett Lane) beside names of wildflowers and birds (Lupine, Laurel, Cardinal and Robin's Lanes). When the Bartletts' Riverhurst land to the north was laid out in January 1921 (Plan Book 38, Plan 85), the Whitman and Howard plan showed "Ossemequin Rd." entering at its southwest corner and meeting Bartlett Road, and the Riverhurst plan continued the theme with Ossipee Road.

Ossamequin Road has remained a private way. Water mains were extended along it in 1959, it was one of the town's drainage projects with Bartlett Road in 1972, and the Ranlett Grove section was sewered in 1995 and 1996. In fiscal 2021 the six inch cast iron main of 1959 was replaced with 590 feet of eight inch pipe "from Morgan Road to Lupine Lane." No vote accepting it as a public way has been found, and it is not among the roads of the 1831 town map accepted by town meeting in October 2016.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1959: water mains extended on Riverhurst Road, Keneson Road, Osceola Lane and Ossamequin Road
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1995: gravity sewer designed and built for the Ranlett Grove area
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register: Capt. Charles A. Ranlett, for whose estate Ranlett Grove was named
4. Wikipedia: Massasoit (Ousamequin), the Wampanoag sachem whose name the road carries