Salem Road

Location	Map
Neighborhood	King's Pines Fox Hill Terrace Central Park Billerica Highlands
Laid Out	1664
Right of Way	30 - 50 ft
Pavement	22 ft

Salem Road runs from Boston Road at the Corner in North Billerica east and southeast past Pond Street, Gray Street, Andover Road and Pattenville to the Shawsheen River at the Wilmington line. It is made of two old roads. The west end, from the Concord River to Pollard Street, was the "Bridge Lane" to the Corner Bridge, built about 1699; deeds of the Tavern at the Corner from 1756 on bound it on "the road to Chelmsford," since the way from Boston to Chelmsford turned here from the old Fordway road (now Pollard Street) to cross the river. The east part is older. Hazen wrote that "the road which run east from the 'Pollard' place, to and beyond Mr. Nason's place, existed very early and was known as the road to Jeft's Cove, or Trull's Cove," and that the road north of Fox Hill, "leading east from Long Street at Abot's bridge, to the Davis place, was in early use, and doubtless continued as far as the Andover Road." No laying out of either part is recorded. The Historical Commission's survey of the Corner suggests that the Bridge Lane was carried east from Pollard Street to join the older road probably after the Revolution.

The road took its name from Salem, the old shire town of Essex County, toward which it led by way of Wilmington and Reading. The land the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal bought of Reuben Kendall in 1800 began at "the road that leads to Salem over Logging Bridge, so called," an administrator's deed of the Patten Place in 1840 names "the road from the Corner Bridge to Salem," and from the 1860s deeds call it "the Salem Road so called." The Historical Commission described the Corner as the place where "roads from Boston and from Salem to Amherst, N.H." joined to cross the Concord. The name was not always this road's alone: in the 1820s to 1850s deeds also called the Andover Road at the Center "the Salem road" and "the road leading from Billerica Common to Salem." The east end, through East Billerica, was usually "the Wilmington road," as Hazen called it and as deeds have it from 1853 to 1898, and a deed of 1953 still describes land on "Salem Road, formerly Wilmington Road." The street naming committee of 1897 proposed "Salem street, running southeast from Corner bridge to Wilmington line"; the Historical Society changed "Street" to "Road," and "Salem road, from Boston road at corner bridge running southeast to Wilmington line" was accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899.

The road was a gravel road into the 1930s, graveled in patches from 1899 on, with a short stretch of macadam near the Corner that was tarred in 1920 "from Jones Corner to Preston's Bridge." After the new concrete bridge on Boston Road opened in 1921 the old Corner Bridge was left at the west end of Salem Road; in 1929 the town meeting dismissed an article for "the repair and maintenance of the Old Corner Bridge on Salem Road," and in 1931 the bridge was posted "Closed." In 1935 the road was widened to 24 feet from Pond Street to Gray Street, in 1936 from Pond Street to Andover Road, "a distance of 1 mile and 1 tenth," and in 1937 it was tarred for 11,588 feet.

Salem Road became part of Route 129 when that route was extended west to Chelmsford in 1939. In 1950 the selectmen began rebuilding Floyd Street and Salem Road under the state's Chapter 90 program "in order that the heavy traffic on Route 129 can be taken out of the center of the town," and the reconstruction "of Salem Road from Floyd Street to Andover Road" was finished in 1953. Since then Route 129 has used Floyd Street and the part of Salem Road east of it, and the short west end of Salem Road between Boston Road and Floyd Street has been a local street.

It was formally accepted as a public way at the Fall Town Meeting of October 2016, which voted, 124 to 19, under Chapter 82, sections 21 to 24, of the General Laws, to accept the 57 old roads "the layout of which is shown on the official Town of Billerica Map of 1831." The town manager explained that the state already treated these roads as public ways, but the town had no record of accepting them and so could not spend money to maintain them. The list gives it from its dead end to the Wilmington town line.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Patten Homestead		308 Salem Rd	1700
Tavern at the Corner		24 Salem Rd	1759
Brown Family Homestead		248 Salem Rd	1765
Richardson School	District Number 7 Schoolhouse / Pattenville School	Salem Road	1791	1854	1973
Barker House		25 Salem Rd	1801	1848
Samuel Parker House	Silas Cragin House	16 Salem Rd	1804
First Baptist Church		Salem Rd	1830	1844
A. Needham House		128 Salem Rd	1852		1961
D. Sherman House		118 Salem Rd	1852		1975
J. F. Baldwin House		286 Salem Rd	1852		1929
Barnard McCann House		5 Salem Rd	1853

Salem Road

Salem Road

Historic Buildings

References