Patrick J. Mahoney

Patrick J. Mahoney was a North Billerica man, a manager for a Lowell business, who served Billerica as its elected Tax Collector from 1927 until he retired on July 1, 1946, after ten years on the Finance Committee, and who was one of the first members of the Planning Board. The Lowell directories from 1912 on describe him as a manager in Lowell living on the Boston Road; the 1919 directory names his wife as Mollie and places their home on the Boston Road near Floyd Street, and the 1931 directory lists him there as manager in Lowell and tax collector. In 1941 he and Mollie A. Mahoney still lived on the Boston Road, and M. Charlotte Mahoney, a supervisor of teachers in Fitchburg, lived with them.

Town meeting first put him on committees during the First World War. In 1917 he was named with Charles H. Williams and Everett S. Bull to work with the Lowell Gas Light Company to bring its gas mains to Billerica, and in 1918 he was one of the committee of seven that drafted a bill for a town manager form of government and petitioned the legislature to enact it. The moderator appointed him to the Finance Committee every year from 1919 to 1928. In 1921 he was one of five, under Philip Scott, chosen to find a site for a school in the Shawsheen district. The committee found 58 young children being carried from Pinehurst to the lower grades at the Centre, bought a lot on the south side of the Boston Road just west of the Shawsheen post office from Josiah Hardwick for $800, and had plans drawn for a three-room brick school, designed to be enlarged to six rooms, at an estimated cost of $27,625. In 1922 the same committee was named to build it, and the Pinehurst School on the Boston Road was built in 1923.

He was elected collector of taxes in 1927 with 532 votes, ahead of Elizabeth A. Mills with 486 and Ellis F. Colgate with 293, succeeding John J. Ritchie. He was re-elected every year after that, defeating Chester E. Sweatt 1,135 to 555 in 1928 and Arthur R. Hallenborg 1,128 to 629 in 1929, and running without opposition from 1930 on. At the end of 1929 he wrote, with Thomas F. Sheridan and Roland G. Wright, the town officers' resolutions on the death of Everett S. Bull, who had been collector of taxes and town accountant for more than twenty years. In 1930 he was one of the building committee, with Albert H. Richardson, Lillian W. Schmidt, Maurice A. Buck and Arthur S. Cook, for a new grade school in the Pinehurst district, for which the town voted $56,000.

In 1931 town meeting named him, with Thomas T. Clark, Lucy B. Collier, Orland Smith Marshall and George R. Dyer, to serve as a planning board until the election of 1932, when he was elected to the board with 1,470 votes; he remained a member until 1936. In 1945 he served with James E. O'Brien and Thomas F. Murphy on a committee to confer with the Billerica Masonic Association about an exchange of land next to the Town Hall. He was re-elected collector in 1946 with 2,175 votes but retired on July 1 of that year, when Lawrence E. Desmond was appointed in his place and the uncollected taxes were recommitted to the new collector.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1917, committee to induce extension (of the Lowell Gas Light Company mains) to Billerica: Charles H. Williams, Everett S. Bull, Patrick J. Mahoney
2. Billerica Town Report 1918, committee to draft a town manager bill, including Patrick J. Mahoney
3. Billerica Town Report 1921, committees: Finance Committee, and Article 25 committee (Shawsheen district school site): Scott, Rodgers, Dunlap, Mahoney, Smith
4. Billerica Town Report 1921, report of the committee on a new Shawsheen district school: site bought from Josiah Hardwick, plans for a three-room brick school
5. Billerica Town Report 1922, town meeting: original committee appointed to build the school house under Article 26
6. Billerica Town Report 1927, annual election: collector of taxes, Patrick J. Mahoney 532, Elizabeth A. Mills 486
7. Billerica Town Report 1928, annual election: collector of taxes, Patrick J. Mahoney 1135, Chester E. Sweatt 555
8. Billerica Town Report 1929, town officers resolutions on the death of Everett S. Bull, committee Sheridan, Wright, Mahoney
9. Billerica Town Report 1930, special town meeting: building committee for the new Pinehurst grade school, including Patrick J. Mahoney
10. Billerica Town Report 1931, committee to serve as Planning Board until 1932: Clark, Collier, Marshall, Dyer, Mahoney
11. Billerica Town Report 1946, report of Patrick J. Mahoney, collector of taxes: balances recommitted to the new collector July 1, 1946