Talbot Textile Mill Worker Housing at 17-19 Wilson St

The double house at 17-19 Wilson Street in North Billerica is one of the row of matching duplexes that C. P. Talbot and Company built for workers at the Talbot Mills along the west side of Wilson Street. It stands on Lot 29 of "Plan A" of the Talbot Mills property (Plan Book 60, Plan 25), a lot of 9,412 square feet with about 86 feet on the street, between 13-15 Wilson Street (Lot 30) to the north and 21-23 Wilson Street (Lot 28) to the south. A right of way that the deeds require to be "forever kept open" runs along the back of the lot from Elm Street to Wilson Street.

The land was part of the farm beside the old Richardson's Mills, which Thomas Richardson sold with the mills to the committee of the Middlesex Canal proprietors in 1794. In 1819 the proprietors sold 27 acres of it, between the road to the Canal Mills and the Concord River, to Nathan Mears. After Mears died in 1828 his homestead was surveyed into lots, and in 1832 Daniel Wilson bought lots 3 to 5, on the west side of the passage way that became Wilson Street. Wilson kept the land as part of his farm until his death in 1861. His administrator, Gardner Parker, sold the homestead farm at auction in 1863 to James Faulkner, who deeded it back to Parker in 1864. On January 19, 1869 Parker sold Charles P. Talbot and Thomas Talbot "ten acres and thirty nine rods", "being a part of the homestead of the late Daniel Wilson", a tract that took in the west side of Wilson Street where Lot 29 lies; the widow Mary Wilson released her dower.

No buildings were named in 1869, and the house appears on the 1875 map, so it was built between 1869 and 1875; the June 1881 plan of the property of C. P. Talbot and Company (Plan Book 4, Plan 59) shows the row of double houses on the west side of the street. On October 15, 1884 the Talbot heirs conveyed the mills and the village to the new corporation, The Talbot Mills, and Lot 29 was part of the "third parcel" of those deeds. For more than fifty years the company rented the two halves to mill families. City directories list loom fixer Robert T. Emmett and weaver William J. Emmett at 17 Wilson Street in 1901, spinner George Grindrod there in 1912, the widow Bridget Duffy and her daughters Annie and Mary, both weavers, in 1916 and 1919, and textile worker William F. Nuttall in 1931; at number 19 they list Joseph A. Scanlon in 1901, dresser George W. Chambers with weaver William B. Chambers and spooler Isabella M. Chambers in 1912, and machinist Ralph A. Knight in 1931.

In 1936 the company had J. C. and W. T. Monahan divide the village into lots and began selling the houses to their tenants and other local buyers. On May 29, 1937 its treasurer, Thomas T. Clark, sold Lot 29 "with the buildings thereon" to Margaret McGrath of Billerica, the widow of John McGrath, a mill hand; the family had lived at 33 Wilson Street since at least 1912. The deed reserved to the company "the common sewer and all connections thereto running through or under the granted premises". She financed the purchase with a $650 mortgage from the Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank, payable in quarterly instalments of $12.50. On October 16, 1939 she deeded the house, signing with her mark, to "my children Elizabeth T. McGrath, Frederick McGrath and George R. McGrath, as joint tenants", giving Elizabeth, a nurse, "the right to collect any rents" without accounting for them. The family lived in number 19 and rented number 17 to other tenants, among them clerk William Timulty in 1941 and Boston and Maine Railroad watchman William Swanton about 1949 to 1951. Margaret McGrath died on September 21, 1947, aged 77.

Frederick McGrath, a chauffeur and later a furniture salesman, died on January 2, 1962, and on July 20, 1962 his heirs, Margaret A. Monty of Norwich, Connecticut, and Margaret M. Bowen of Somerville, deeded their interest to his brother George A. McGrath and sister Elizabeth T. McGrath as joint tenants. (The 1939 deed calls the brother George R. McGrath, the name the directories use for the salesman who lived at number 19; the 1962 and 1978 deeds call him George A. McGrath.) Elizabeth McGrath died on September 1, 1975, and on November 17, 1978 George A. McGrath sold the house for $17,000 to private owners, ending 41 years of ownership by the McGrath family. It was resold in 1980 for $40,000.

In April 2004 the owner converted the house into the 17-19 Wilson Street Condominium, "one (1) Building" containing "two (2) residential town-house style units", described as "of wood-frame construction" on a "field-stone" foundation, with vinyl siding. The architect's site plan (Plan Book 214, Plan 11) shows the two-story double house close to the street with two small rear ells and a shed at the back of the lot. The two units have been sold separately since 2004; both were foreclosed in 2015 and 2016 and resold. The MACRIS inventory form of 1981 describes the house as clad in wooden clapboards on a granite foundation, about ten feet from the street, and dates it from the 1875 map. In 2024 the Town accepted Wilson Street as a public way.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.106
2. Billerica assessor record for 17 Wilson St (Unit 1, parcel 15-223-1): condominium unit built about 1873; master deed Book 17106 Page 106, Plan A Lot 29, plans Plan Book 214 Plans 11-12

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.