Winning Brook

Winning Brook is the old name of the brook that runs out of Winning Pond in West Billerica, carrying the pond's water east through the low ground of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park, past the beaver pond (see Beaver Pond), toward the Concord River. It is not drawn separately on the town's map; the stream that flows into the pond from the northwest, which present maps also label Winning Brook, is recorded here as Dolly Brook.

The family that gave the pond its name gave it to the brook as well. Alexander Winning, on the tax list in 1738, "settled near the fine pond which bears his name, and had a mill on the brook running from it," and Henry A. Hazen wrote in 1883 that "for many years the Winnings maintained a saw-mill on the brook running from Winning's Pond." The site of the mill has not been found.

In 1914 the warrant for the annual town meeting asked the town to extend the water main from the hydrant on Bridge Street "along said Bridge Street to Bridle Road, and along said Bridle Road to Winnings Brook," about 3,000 feet, and the article was dismissed. Bridle Road runs on the west bank of the Concord between Bridge Street and River Street, and 3,000 feet from Bridge Street is where the stream now called Rogers Brook crosses it, so the name was then applied to that brook, or the two were thought of as one Winning brook country running down to the river. Which stream the town meant is not certain.

Winning Brook

Winning Brook

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