Structure · Built 1791 · Demolished 1886

Fordway Schoolhouse

Fordway Schoolhouse
Fordway Schoolhouse
Also Known As District Number 4 Schoolhouse
Address Wilson Street
Built 1791
Demolished 1886
Other Lot Structures Old Talbot School (1885 - 1935)


The Fordway Schoolhouse was the district schoolhouse for the neighborhood at the west end of the Fordway, the old river crossing at North Billerica where the Fordway Bridge now carries Pollard Street over the Concord River. Known in the nineteenth century as the District Number 4 schoolhouse, it stood on the northwest side of Wilson Street, at the point where Wilson Street and Talbot Avenue now meet near Treble Cove Road. For most of its life it stood on land the town did not own. It was replaced on the same lot by the Old Talbot School in 1885 and moved away in 1886, and the site is now the house lot at 46 Talbot Avenue.

On September 12, 1791, a town committee reported where each squadron of the town should build its schoolhouse. The house for the part of town "over Concord River" was left "not agreed where", but a schoolhouse "near the Fordway" was standing by 1828, when the first Baptist meetings in Billerica were held in it, before the church was organized that September. John G. Hales's 1831 plan of the town draws a small building at the bend of the Fordway road on the river side, at this spot, with a mark unlike the plain squares he used for houses, though it is not labeled. H. F. Walling's 1853 map of the town labels it "School", on the road marked "Fordway" just north of C. Ham's house.

No deed of the lot to the town or to the school district has been found. The county indexes list deeds to Billerica's districts 1, 3, 7, 8 and 9 but none to District 4. The ground under the schoolhouse was part of the farm that passed from the Richardson family to the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal in 1794, to Nathan Mears in 1819 and to Daniel Wilson in 1831 and 1832, and the district evidently kept its house there by the owners' leave, as many country districts did.

The School Committee's reports follow the District No. 4 school term by term. Miss Caroline A. Colson taught it summer and winter for three years running, and in 1853-54 the committee wrote that it had "become what may well be called a model School." It grew with the mill village, from 30 pupils in the summer of 1853 to 55 in 1861-62 under Miss Sarah D. Jaquith of Wilmington, and to 66 in the summer of 1867. In 1868-69 the committee wrote that "this school suffers more than any other from the want of classification and from being crowded." In 1869-70, after the town took charge of the schools, it "opened badly," and the committee moved some of the younger pupils from it and from No. 6 into a separate primary school. When no room could be found for that school in the winter they came back, and an assistant, Miss Hemphill, was hired to divide her days between Nos. 4 and 6. The North Billerica schools were held as before for the summer of 1870, and that autumn the pupils were graded in a new school-house.

District No. 4 school statistics, from the annual School Committee reports
School yearTermTeacherEnrolledAverage attendanceLength of termTeacher's monthly wageChildren aged 5 to 15 in district
1853-54SummerCaroline A. Colson30234 mo. 6 d.$14*18
WinterCaroline A. Colson28203 mo. 14 d.$20*
1861-62SummerSarah D. Jaquith55435 mo. 12 d.$2572
WinterSarah D. Jaquith47364 mo. 12 d.$25
1867-68SummerMary Ella Wilkins, then Susan Salter66484 mo. 15 d.$2669
WinterEmma J. Marshall67593 mo. 10 d.$32
1868-69SummerEmma J. Marshall, with Helen A. Sheldon (assistant)59452 mo. 10 d.$3072
AutumnEmma J. Marshall65542 mo.n/a
WinterCarrie Hartford64583 mo. 10 d.$34
1869-70SummerM. A. Rust39353 mo. 5 d.$32n/a
AutumnM. A. Rust52431 mo. 15 d.$36
WinterH. E. Hardy, then Samuel Sage, with F. Hemphill (assistant)51422 mo. 15 d.$32 / $28
1870-71Summernot namedn/an/an/an/an/a

* Wages in 1853-54 were reported including board. In 1861-62 Miss Jaquith kept three terms, but the printed table gives only summer and winter. The 1868-69 autumn term is from the committee's text. In the summer of 1869-70 a separate primary school taught by Miss D. Smith drew pupils from Nos. 4 and 6 (34 enrolled, 27 average attendance). No district census was taken after the districts were abolished in 1869, and the 1870-71 report refers to an appended table that is missing from the surviving copy.

The state abolished the school districts in 1869, and the town took over their schoolhouses. That year the School Committee recommended uniting Nos. 4 and 6 in one graded building in the village of North Billerica. In 1870 it proposed instead to keep one of the old houses for a primary school, "moving it to some desirable spot in the village", and to sell the other. The new building opened in the autumn of 1870, and that year a mixed school was also kept "in the house before used by school No. 6".

On February 13, 1873, the town bought the land at the Fordway. Gardner Parker, who had acquired the Wilson homestead farm after Daniel Wilson's death, sold the Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica for $200 "a certain tract of land, situate at North Billerica on Wilson street", 94 1/2 feet on the street and 153 1/2 feet deep, subject to the dower of Wilson's widow. The deed names no buildings, which fits a schoolhouse the town already owned. When Parker sold the rest of the farm in 1882 and 1883, the deeds bounded it by the "School House lot". The town reports for 1872 to 1884 are not among those that survive in digitized form, so whether the town repaired, moved or rebuilt the house at this time is not known.

The house was still in use as the Fordway School in 1884-85, when G. P. Elliot was paid for "repairs at Fordway School", for labor and materials, and for "repairing windows on Fordway School". In 1885 the town built the Talbot School on the same lot under W. D. Cheney's contract, and in the year to February 1887 it paid Josiah Wright $166.50 for "moving schoolhouse, &c." and sold C. H. Kohlrausch the "old school house shed" for $10. Local tradition holds that the old schoolhouse was moved up Wilson Street and became the Lawrence B. Gannon Store. The 1886 move fits that account, but no record found so far says where the house went. The old name lingered: in 1889 the treasurer paid $30 for "insurance of Fordway school house", which may mean the new building on the old site.

On April 6, 1886, the town and Talbot Mills exchanged land to square up the school grounds. The town gave the mills "a certain triangular piece of land, the same being a part of the School House lot", at its northeast corner, and for $150 the mills gave the town an 81-foot strip on the southwest side. The town sold the Old Talbot School and its lot to Talbot Mills at auction in 1902. The empty ground became Lots 18 and 19 of the mills' 1936 house-lot plan, passed to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston in 1946 and 1947, and was sold in 2005 for the house now at 46 Talbot Avenue.



Fordway Schoolhouse
Talbot Mills Housing, 1936 (Plan 60/25)


References

  1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): p. 256 (1791 report on squadron school-houses), p. 314 (1708 Osgood grant reserving "ten pole from the fordway"), Baptist meetings in the school-house near the Fordway, 1828
  2. Walling, Map of the Town of Billerica (1853): "School" on the Fordway road north of C. Ham, North Billerica


Title References

Date Type Grantor Grantee Summary Recorded
March 31, 1794 Deed Solomon, Moses and Nathan Carleton, Jesse Manning, Thomas Todd, Thomas Laws and Thomas Mears, heirs of John Carleton, with their wives Thomas Richardson of Billerica, gentleman 115/271 (South)
April 21, 1794 Deed Thomas Richardson of Billerica, gentleman (Judith Richardson releasing dower) Ebenezer Hall of Medford and Samuel Jaques of Wilmington, a committee for the Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal 115/259 (South)
September 23, 1820 Deed Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal, by John L. Sullivan, agent Nathan Mears of Billerica, yeoman 235/64 (South)
June 24, 1828 Administration Estate of Nathan Mears of Billerica, yeoman His minor children Edwin, Charles, Nathan, Lucy Ann and Elbert Mears; Marshall Preston, administrator Probate #14955
April 21, 1832 Deed Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal (Peter O. Thacher, president) Daniel Wilson of Billerica 313/21 (South)
April 21, 1832 Guardian's Deed John Baldwin of Billerica, Esq., guardian of Lucy Ann, Nathan and Elbert Mears, minor children of Nathan Mears Daniel Wilson of Billerica 313/22 (South)
April 21, 1832 Guardian's Deed Nathaniel Stearns of Billerica, yeoman, guardian of Edwin and Charles Mears, minor children of Nathan Mears Daniel Wilson of Billerica, yeoman 313/24 (South)
1861 Administration Estate of Daniel Wilson of Billerica, who died November 29, 1861 intestate Gardner Parker of Billerica, administrator; widow Mary Wilson and eight children Probate #44864
April 6, 1864 Administrator's Deed Gardner Parker of Billerica, administrator of the estate of Daniel Wilson James Faulkner of Billerica 37/357
April 6, 1864 Quitclaim James Faulkner of Billerica (Fanny A. Faulkner releasing dower and homestead) Gardner Parker of Billerica 37/358
March 24, 1873 Deed Gardner Parker of Billerica (Adeline M. Parker releasing dower and homestead) Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica 92/151
June 21, 1886 Deed The Talbot Mills (Solomon Lincoln, president; Frederic S. Clark, treasurer) Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica 182/222
July 1, 1886 Deed Inhabitants of the Town of Billerica, by Selectmen Ebenezer Baker, Edwin S. Smith and George F. Odlin The Talbot Mills 182/366
August 20, 1902 Deed Inhabitants of Billerica, by Selectmen Charles H. Kohlrausch Jr., Josiah Wright and Richard T. Perry The Talbot Mills 345/268
November 2, 1939 Quitclaim Deed The Talbot Mills (Thomas T. Clark, treasurer) Frank A. Kelley of Billerica 935/557
July 9, 1947 Quitclaim Deed Heirs of Frank A. Kelley, late of Billerica (John, Joseph, Edward J. and Honor G. Kelley, Margaret Nicholson, Ruth McCaffrey, Louise M. Kelliher) Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, a corporation sole 1065/522
July 9, 1947 Quitclaim Deed Heirs of Frank A. Kelley, late of Billerica (Margaret Nicholson, Joseph Kelley, John H. Kelley, Edward J. Kelley, Honor Kelley, Louise M. Kelliher, Ruth Gertrude McCaffrey) Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, a corporation sole 1065/520
1947 Confirmatory Deed Heirs of Frank A. Kelley, late of Billerica, deceased Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, a corporation sole 1075/344
January 28, 2005 Quitclaim Deed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, a corporation sole (Most Rev. Sean Patrick O'Malley) A private buyer (a Billerica builder) 18349/123

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.