The Corner

The Corner is the old crossroads village of North Billerica at the east end of the Corner Bridge over the Concord River, where Salem Road, Pollard Street, Darby Avenue and Boston Road meet. Henry A. Hazen used the name for "the locality at the foot of the hill, on Long Street, near the Concord River bridge," and parts of it were also called Jones' Corner and Preston's Corner.

The first road to Chelmsford crossed the river farther north, at The Fordway. After the Fordway bridge was carried away by a flood, Billerica, Chelmsford, Groton and Dunstable met in December 1698 about a new one, which was built upstream at the Corner; on March 20, 1699 the General Court spoke of "the bridge lately erected in Bilrica." The lane to the bridge met the old country road north to the Fordway, now Pollard Street. On April 4, 1707, when the common land east of that road was divided, a burying ground five poles by twenty was set aside beside William Patten's house lot. This is the Old Corner Burying Ground, which families of the north part of town used regularly until the North Cemetery was opened farther east in 1816.

The Patten family farmed west of the crossroads, and Deacon William Patten "lived near the corner." In 1756 the eighteen acres north of the Bridge Lane, set off from the estate of his son Thomas Patten, were sold to Isaac Foster, a joiner, who built the great farmhouse now known as the Tavern at the Corner. Reuben Duren, a housewright from Bedford, bought it in 1793 and lodged the surveyors of the Middlesex Canal, and in 1795 sold it to Thomas Richardson. As "Richardson's Tavern" it stood where the roads from Boston and from Salem to Amherst, New Hampshire, joined to cross the river. Hazen counted "one or two" taverns at the Corner in the staging days, and in 1821 Richardson "sent a hack Mondays and Saturdays to accommodate gentlemen who wished to connect with the Amherst stage at that point." His son-in-law Josiah Stevens also kept a tavern here, and Josiah B. Richardson was a blacksmith at the Corner. In 1836 Anthony Jones bought the tavern farm, and the crossing became Jones's Corner.

A small business center grew up across the road. In 1797 Stephen Barrett and Ephraim Kidder Jr. bought an acre at the corner, and in 1800 Kidder, Samuel Parker and Jonathan M. Dexter bought the eight acres beside it, dividing them in 1801 with a common passway that is now Darby Avenue. Barrett built the Stephen Barrett House and sold shop lots; his store, later the "Tim Davis store," is the Barker House, moved about 1848 to High Street. Kidder built a house and store at the water's edge, the Ephraim Kidder Jr. House, Dexter had a hatter's shop, and the Parker brothers built the Samuel Parker House in 1804. Samuel Parker kept a tannery by the river and, Hazen wrote, "patented a machine for splitting leather," later made at the Hill machine shop in South Billerica. The venture failed: Kidder's house was divided among his creditors in 1805, and by 1815 all the partners were in difficulty.

In 1830 Richardson's daughters sold the First Baptist Society a lot from the tavern farm, where its meeting house was dedicated in 1831; members were baptized in the river, and the 1973 survey calls the site "Holy Hill." The building was moved to the village center in 1844. By 1842 a new line of Boston Road had been cut through the Patten farm to Brown's Corner, past the William D. Mason House, but traffic for Lowell still came down the old road, now Darby Avenue, to the bridge, where the Preston family kept a boat livery.

In 1920 and 1921 a concrete bridge was built a short distance south, carrying Boston Road (Route 3A) straight across the river and leaving the old crossing on a side road. After 1950 a business strip grew up along Boston Road, with the Brown's Corner shopping plaza and the Food Basket supermarket, later the offices of Purity Supreme. In 1973 the Billerica Historical Commission survey found that it had "encroached somewhat on the older community," but nine nineteenth century buildings survived, and the tavern, the Samuel Parker House and the burying ground are now in the local historic district of 1990.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Tavern at the Corner		24 Salem Rd	1759
Jones Schoolhouse	District Number 2 Schoolhouse	Pollard Street	1791		1870
Stephen Barrett House		201 Pollard St	1800
Barker House		25 Salem Rd	1801	1848
Ephraim Kidder Jr. House		1 Darby Av	1801
Samuel Parker House	Silas Cragin House	16 Salem Rd	1804
First Baptist Church		Salem Rd	1830	1844
William D. Mason House	Alfred Brown House	314 Boston Rd	1842		1986
E. Cowdry House		308 Boston Rd	1852		1977
Barnard McCann House		5 Salem Rd	1853
Monarch Diner	Ridgewood Diner	312 Boston Rd	1940		1958
Brown's Corner (Shopping Plaza)	Billerica Pharmacy	306 Boston Rd	1952		1988
Food Basket	Purity Foods	312 Boston Rd	1954	1967	1991
Wendy's		312 Boston Rd	1992

Points of Interest

• Old Corner Burying Ground (1707)
• Jones' Corner (1750)
• Preston's Corner (1875)

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), on bridges: the Fordway bridge lost to a flood, the new bridge built at the Corner in 1698-99, rebuilt 1737, iron bridge 1873
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), on the early roads: the Chelmsford Road first crossed the river at the Fordway, "and not as now at the Corner"
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): the division of common land of 1707, with the old Corner Burying Ground reserved on April 4, 1707
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): "the Corner" defined as the locality at the foot of the hill on Long Street near the Concord River bridge
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): the First Baptist Church, its meeting house by the river framed 1830, dedicated 1831, moved to the village in 1844
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): stages and taverns, one or two taverns at the Corner, Mr. Richardson's hotel at the Corner and his hack to the Amherst stage (1821)
7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), genealogical register: Samuel Parker (1772-1841) lived near the corner bridge and patented a machine for splitting leather
8. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), genealogical register: Thomas Richardson kept a tavern at the corner; Josiah B. Richardson a blacksmith at the corner
9. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica for 1921: the new Concord River bridge on Boston Road opened in the spring of 1921