Treble Cove Road

Location	Map
Neighborhood	River Pines Rio Vista Treble Cove Terrace Treble Cove Manor Meadowglen Estates
Laid Out	1660
Right of Way	35 - 40 ft
Pavement	20 - 28 ft

Treble Cove Road runs from The Fordway at North Billerica south and southwest along the west side of the Concord River, past Winning Pond, to the Carlisle line. Henry A. Hazen considered it the oldest road west of the river. Most of the land on that side stayed common until the great division of 1708, so the early roads there "only incidentally appear in the Records," but "the earliest was, no doubt, the 'treble-cove' road, beginning at the Fordway and running southwest on the line, substantially, of the present highway east of Gilson's Hill and northwest of Winning's Pond, and so towards Concord." It began at the "great bridge" over the river at the Fordway, which stood from about 1658 until a flood carried it away in the late 1690s, and it was "often called the 'road to John Hill's,' who doubtless lived near it."

The name is that of a place. Hazen wrote that the road "derived its name from the 'treble-cove,' a locality often named in the Records, and situated near the Carlisle line," and his map of ancient Billerica marks both the Treble Cove and the Treble Cove Road. He used the name in his notes to the 1776 tax list, placing Jacob Manning at "Jesse Manning's place, Treble-Cove Road," but the road had other names as well. Hazen also called its southern part "the Carlisle road," where Henry B. Judkins lived "beyond Winning's pond," and when Middlesex County took land for its House of Correction in 1929 the road was described as "known as Treble Cove Road, formerly called Concord Road." The street naming committee chosen in 1896 divided it: the north end, from the Fordway bridge southwest, was to be "Corliss street," and the rest, with the present Bridge Street, "Winning street," the name of the Winning family, long settled by Winning's Pond. A citizens' meeting at the Historical Society in March 1898 asked that both be changed to "Triple Cove Road." The Billerica Historical Society's list, accepted at town meeting on March 27, 1899, restored the old form: "Treble Cove road, from Fordway bridge running southeast to Carlisle line."

After the first bridge was lost the crossing moved upstream to the Corner, and there was no bridge at the Fordway for nearly two hundred years, until a new iron bridge was built there in 1893 for road and street railway traffic; it was replaced by the present concrete bridge in 1912. Farther south the road passed the Winning Farm, which Middlesex County took in 1929 for the Middlesex County House of Correction, opened at the end of 1931.

For most of its length Treble Cove Road remained a gravel road into the 1930s. It was graveled near the corner of River Street in 1901 and for 1,150 feet near C. L. Smith's in 1902; the north end from Boston Road to McGrath Square was treated with Tarvia B in 1927, and in 1931 the road was oiled and tarred from the Nashua Road to River Street. With county aid the town then rebuilt it in stages: 4,000 feet graveled and oiled 25 feet wide in 1932, new construction "built through a section of ledge" in 1933 and 1934 under a Middlesex County layout of 1934, and in 1935 "a new full length tarred travelway was opened between the West section of the town and the North section," widened to 24 feet, completing five years of work under the state engineer Frederick Sabin's plan. In 1953 the road was carried over the new Route 3 on a bridge built that year, under a town layout of that year, and in 1959, after meetings with the county commissioners, it was reconstructed again under Chapter 90. In 1963 the town surfaced it with bituminous concrete from Boston Road to and including McGrath Square.

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 the Carlisle town line to Pollard Street.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Demolished
John Wallis House	Isaac Sprague House	11 Treble Cove Rd	1718	1829
Winning Farm	Dr. John M. Bailey House	269 Treble Cove Rd	1820
Samuel C. Oliver House		11 Treble Cove Rd	1830
A. Manning House		148 Treble Cove Rd	1852	1939
B. Lynch House		89 Treble Cove Rd	1852	1962
C. Cutler House		210 Treble Cove Rd	1852	2009
G. L. Whitney House		104 Treble Cove Rd	1852	1959
L. H. Foster House		331 Treble Cove Rd	1852	1972
Widow R. Winning House		359 Treble Cove Rd	1852	1974
Saint Anne's Episcopal Church		14 Treble Cove Rd	1890
Edward F. Carley House		47 Treble Cove Rd	1900
House of Correction - Dormitory		269 Treble Cove Rd	1930
House of Correction		269 Treble Cove Rd	1931
Warden's House		269 Treble Cove Rd	1931
House of Correction - Inmate Shelter		269 Treble Cove Rd	2005
House of Correction - Visitor Center		269 Treble Cove Rd	2005
House of Correction - Warehouse		269 Treble Cove Rd	2005

Treble Cove Road

Treble Cove Road

Historic Buildings

References