Wilfred K. Pheeney House

This brick house on the northeast side of Salem Road (State Highway Route 129), just southeast of George Brown Street, was the farmhouse of the Dickerman Poultry Farm, which advertised in 1939 at "the corner of Shawsheen Ave and Salem Rd" in East Billerica. The farm was a wedge of about eighteen acres between two roads, the river and the railroad: in the deeds it runs from "the junction of the Salem Road and the Wilmington Road" southeasterly along the Wilmington Road, "a continuation of Shawsheen Avenue in the Town of Wilmington" (now the east end of Salem Road), toward the Shawsheen River, along the river to the Boston and Maine Railroad "at or near the stone approach over said river," and back by "the Salem Road, sometimes called Brown Street," now George Brown Street.

The land was part of the Middlesex Canal, which crossed the Shawsheen here on an aqueduct whose stone piers still stand. After the canal closed, its Proprietors sold their land around the aqueduct, with the old dock at its western end and seven eighths of the Beard's Mills privilege, to Theophilus Manning of Billerica for $250 in deeds dated January 1852 and recorded in 1860. Manning died in 1868, leaving his estate to his widow Polly, who in 1869 conveyed the land south of Salem Road to their son William Manning. In 1914 Manning's heirs released "the bed and tow-paths of said Middlesex Canal and the bed of the old dock" to Mary A. Hopkinson, wife of Isaac Hopkinson, who farmed the old Patten and Manning land across the road, keeping for themselves everything east of a line 20 feet west of "the most westerly stone pier or abutment of the old aqueduct." The Hopkinsons passed it the same year to Caroline A. Pheeney of Malden, and a confirming deed of 1921, which mentions only trees and fire damage from the railroad, fixed the bounds that every later deed repeats.

Caroline Pheeney sold the land in 1924 to Wilfred K. Pheeney of Malden. The assessors date the house to about 1926, in his ownership, although none of the deeds before 1956 mentions buildings. In 1933 Pheeney sold the land to Samuel Dickerman of Arlington, and in 1939 Samuel conveyed it to Fannie Dickerman of Billerica, wife of Louis Dickerman. The Dickermans raised poultry here: in 1941 Louis and Fannie lived on the Wilmington Road with their son Howard, a poultryman, and by 1949 Harold Dickerman ran Dickerman's Turkey Farm on the same land. Town meeting articles of 1945 and 1946 asked for a fire alarm box on Salem Road in the Shore Acres section "opposite Dickerman Farm," and in 1951 the town rezoned Fannie Dickerman's land, described by the deed bounds, for business. Howard Dickerman chaired the committees that ran the Middlesex Turkey Fryer Trials in 1952 and 1953.

After Louis Dickerman's death Fannie conveyed the farm in 1956, "17.55 acres, with the buildings," to herself and Howard. Two small lots at the George Brown Street corner went to Howard and his wife in 1954 and 1958, and in May 1959 Fannie and Howard conveyed the rest to Bessie Polin of Linden, New Jersey, a member of the family. Within weeks a Lowell grain dealer, Palm Grain Co., Inc., attached the property in a $25,000 suit against "Dickerman Poultry Farms," and Bessie Polin deeded it to the company in June 1959. In 1960 the company sold the land "with the buildings thereon" to a builder, whose plan of that year shows this house as No. 334 on a lot of 25,000 square feet. The rest of the farm became house lots on Salem Road and Garnet Road in the 1960s. The house has since had private owners.

References

1. Billerica assessor, 334 Salem Rd, parcel 45-19-1: brick house of 10 rooms, built about 1926; Plan 92-152A Lot 1

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.