Whipple Road

Whipple Road runs through the far east of Billerica, from the Wilmington line by George Brown Street northwest past Andover Road to the Tewksbury line, where it continues into Tewksbury. Its southeastern part, from George Brown Street to the Wilmington line, is one of the roads drawn on the official town map of 1831, and with George Brown Street it formed an old way from the Salem road toward Wilmington. No laying out of it is recorded in the town records or in Henry A. Hazen's history of 1883.

The name was in use by 1896, when the town's list of guide boards included one "at junction of Salem and Whipple Streets, leading to Salem and Wilmington." Where it came from is not recorded. It is not connected with the Whipple farm of colonial Billerica, Matthew Whipple's share of Job Lane's land by the Concord River, which lay at the other end of town. The street naming committee chosen in 1896 (Martin Conway, John E. Rowell and Coburn S. Smith) proposed a new name, "Patten street, running easterly from Salem street to Tewksbury line, E. Billerica," but the Billerica Historical Society's revised list, accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899, kept the old one: "26. Whipple road, from Salem road running easterly to Tewksbury line." At that time the name evidently covered the connecting piece from the Salem road as well; that piece was later called Brown Street, and in 1988 the selectmen renamed it George Brown Street to end a duplication of names.

The bridge where the road crosses into Wilmington was called Brown's bridge, the Sam Brown bridge or the Joe Brown bridge. In 1928 the highway surveyor reported that "Sam Brown bridge at the junction of Whipple Road and Brown Streets on the Wilmington-Billerica line is in unsafe condition," and in 1929 the town voted $3,000 to be spent with a like sum from Wilmington "to construct a bridge to replace the Joe Brown Bridge and approaches thereto." Whipple Road itself remained a country gravel road. In 1933 the brush was cut and the road widened and scraped "from the Brown bridge to the Tewksbury Town Line," in 1936 it was widened and graveled for its entire length, and in 1937 it was "rolled and tarred for a distance of 5,280 lineal feet, and 18 feet width," its first tarring. The intersection with Andover Road was rebuilt in 2019.

The town's list of streets accepted, printed in 1956, gives "Whipple Rd., From Salem St. east to Tewksbury line" with no date, the wording of the 1899 list. The part on the 1831 map 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 list gives Whipple Road from George Brown Street to the Wilmington town line; George Brown Street itself had been accepted on April 5, 1975.

References

1. Annual report 1896: guide boards "at junction of Salem and Whipple Streets" and "at corner of Andover and Whipple Street" (earliest use of the name found)
2. Annual report 1897: street naming committee proposes "Patten street, running easterly from Salem street to Tewksbury line, E. Billerica"
3. Annual report 1899: Historical Society list, "26. Whipple road, from Salem road running easterly to Tewksbury line"
4. Annual report 1900: street list accepted at the annual town meeting of March 27, 1899
5. Annual report 1928: "Sam Brown bridge at the junction of Whipple Road and Brown Streets on the Wilmington-Billerica line is in unsafe condition"
6. Annual report 1929: vote of ,000 with Wilmington to replace the Joe Brown Bridge on Whipple Road
7. Annual report 1933: Whipple Road widened and scraped from the Brown bridge to the Tewksbury line
8. Annual report 1937: Whipple Road "rolled and tarred for a distance of 5,280 lineal feet, and 18 feet width"
9. Annual report 1956: list of streets accepted, "Whipple Rd., From Salem St. east to Tewksbury line"
10. Annual report 1988: Brown Street (plates 36 and 45) renamed George Brown Street, 1st left off Salem Road beyond Dignon Road
11. Annual report 2017: Article 36 warrant, 1831 list of roads, "Whipple Road, George Brown Street to Wilmington Town Line"
12. Annual report 2017: Fall Town Meeting, October 2016, Article 36 accepts the 1831 roads as public ways (124 to 19)