Paul Drujetis House

The house at 80 Allen Road in East Billerica stands on a three-acre field that the deeds describe the same way for seventy years: beginning on Allen Road "by land of one Putney", running northeasterly on a stone wall to a cross wall, then by stone walls along "land of heirs of Asa Holden" and back to the road, "Containing three acres more or less." The Holden heirs were the family of Asa Holden, whose place on the East Road Henry A. Hazen used in 1883 as a landmark for the old Rangeway of the town's Second Division.

The field first appears as a separate parcel in 1901, when George C. Crosby of Billerica sold it to George E. Rock for $120, bounding it on the south by the Holden land "and other land of said grantor." That deed recites no title, but the abutters point to the farm Crosby had bought in 1883 from Mary Cutter of Arlington, the former Josiah Richardson place, whose home lot was bounded "by land of said Marshall and Asa Holden's heirs." No buildings are mentioned in 1901 or in any later deed of the field before 1922.

The land then changed hands quickly. Rock sold it in 1904 to Lewis W. Holden of Otisfield, Maine, who sold it in 1905 to John B. Rosatto of Boston. Rosatto mortgaged it for $1000 to Angelo Ghirardini and John Da Prato of Boston, and when he defaulted they sold it at auction in 1910 to Thomas F. Donohue of Boston for $1400. Donohue put the title in his wife Catherine's name through a straw deed the same year, and in 1921 she sold it to John Bartnsziwc of Billerica, taking back a mortgage of $1850. In the summer of 1922 the field passed in quick succession from Bartnsziwc to Maurice S. Rogers, to Elenore Saukulis, to Varter Esperian and to Victoria Balaszaitis, all of Boston, each deed made subject to Catherine Donohue's mortgage.

On October 4, 1922 Victoria Baluszaitis conveyed the field to Paul Drujetis and his wife Frances of Boston. The family moved to Billerica: Paul Drujetis was paying a dog tax in the town in 1923, and the 1931 directory lists him, a laborer, at his house "Allen rd nr Baldwin"; by 1951 he worked at the Billerica Glue Company. Because every deed before 1922 describes bare land, the house appears to have been built by the Drujetis family about 1923, not about 1820 as the assessor's records state.

The Drujetis family kept the land for 45 years. In 1967 Frances Drujetis, then a widow, had it surveyed into four house lots by Walter E. Sampson and Associates (Plan Book 105, Plan 119), with the house marked "No. 80" near the line of Lots 2 and 3 and old foundations near the corner of Baldwin Road. She sold Lot 2, 36,100 square feet, with the house in 1967 and the neighboring Lot 3 in 1969, both to private owners. The house was used for a time as a rooming house without a kitchen; the assessor returned it to single-family use in 2013. It has remained in private hands, with later transfers in 1973, 1974, 2002 and 2024.

References

1. Billerica assessors, parcel 62-200-0, 80 Allen Rd: 0.829 acres, Plan 105-119 Lot 2; formerly a rooming house (no kitchen) until FY2013

Deed References Expand all

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