Riverhurst Road

Location	Map
Neighborhood	Riverhurst
Laid Out	1899
Right of Way	34 ft
Pavement	20 ft

Riverhurst Road leaves the old line of Concord Road in South Billerica and winds west to the Concord River through Riverhurst, a summer colony of the early 20th century. Its eastern part began as a farm lane. The 40 acres that became Riverhurst were the western, riverside part of the old Bacon homestead, later the Roby farm, which Charles E. and Sarah E. Hosmer sold to Jacob F. Hobbs of Arlington in August 1900 together with "a right of way from said granted premises to the highway through said land now or formerly of Janet Nelson along a certain lane." Older deeds of the same farm also reserved a way through it for the Marshall farm to the south, "the usual way to his field," which went back to the will of Deacon Ralph Hill.

Jacob Hobbs's heirs released the land in 1902 to Rolland A. Hobbs, another heir, and under Rolland and Frances W. Hobbs it became a riverside resort, with a boat house, a ball field and camp sites let on leases. When Rolland Hobbs's executrix sold the property in March 1915, a small parcel was set off at the junction of the roadways "leading to the boat house" and "to the ball field," and the 40 acres passed to Fred B., A. Mabel and Claude B. Bartlett of Bedford. The town highway report of the same year speaks of oiling Concord Road "as far as Riverhurst," and the street directory of 1916 lists "Riverhurst off Concord rd byd Old Middlesex Turnpike." In January 1921 Whitman and Howard, civil engineers of Boston, laid out the Bartletts' land as the "Plan of Riverhurst" (Plan Book 38, Plan 85), which shows Riverhurst Road running from the "Main Road Bedford to Billerica" past Keneson Road and Bartlett Road to a loop near the river, with Ossipee Road, Roosevelt Road and Spring Lane.

The name is a coined resort name, "river" joined to "hurst," an old word for a wooded hill, in the fashion of the time; the Pinehurst colony on the Shawsheen bore a name of the same kind. No record names the person who chose it. The Riverhurst Boat House on the river, with its canoes and launches, was photographed by the Boston firm of Thomson and Thomson.

Riverhurst Road remained a private way for half a century. At the annual meeting of March 12, 1955 the town accepted "the laying out of Riverhurst Road about 3,500 feet as a town way," voted $3,000 to improve it, and voted five street lights; the repairs that year cost $2,797.50. It was oil and sand sealed in 1958, water mains were extended along it in 1959, and in 1967 the town voted to carry the fire alarm wires "into Riverhurst from Old Concord Road along Riverhurst Road" for about half a mile. When the state laid out Route 3 through this part of town (Layout No. 4072, Sept. 15, 1953) it relocated Concord Road near its junction with Riverhurst Road and took abutters' rights in Riverhurst Road, then still a private way; the road now begins at Old Concord Road. In 1973 the first period Deacon Samuel Hill House was moved from Concord Road to a new lot at 33 Riverhurst Road.

Riverhurst Road is not among the roads of the 1831 town map that the town accepted in October 2016, and it does not appear in the street lists of 1897 and 1899.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Deacon Samuel Hill House	Galehurst Guest House	33 Riverhurst Rd	1656	1973
Idlewild Cottage		50 Riverhurst Rd	1914		1999

Riverhurst Road

Riverhurst Road

Historic Buildings

References