William H. Hutchins

William H. Hutchins (about 1857 to 1936) was a Billerica farmer who for some twenty years was the town's inspector of cattle and, for most of the years from 1899 to 1918, one of its assessors. The record of his death gives his age as 79 years, 5 months and 1 day, which places his birth at the end of February 1857. The town's jury lists of 1899 to 1902 give his occupation as farmer, and in 1902 he was drawn as a petit juror for the Superior Court; the town paid him over the years for pasturing cows and cattle, and in 1912 the directory placed his home on Boston Road.

He was paid as Inspector of Animals from 1894, when the town first appropriated a salary for a cattle inspector, and he held the post into the 1910s. His reports record the work the State's campaign against bovine tuberculosis and glanders laid on a farming town. For the year ending March 1, 1900, he made 1,356 examinations and found 52 cattle diseased, which were killed by the State, the owners receiving $1,347, "an average of $29.90 per head, while the average for the entire State was $22.00"; two horses were quarantined for glanders, and he counted 132 cows, 382 calves and 63 hogs killed at the slaughter houses in town. By 1910 his reports also listed his visits to the slaughter houses by order of the Board of Health, 193 that year and 202 the next, with the cattle, calves and hogs he stamped or condemned, and in 1911 he reported 166 cattle brought in from outside the State and tested with tuberculin, of which three reacted and were killed.

He was first elected an assessor in 1899, serving with Josiah Wright and George E. Simonds, and after an absence he returned to the board in 1904. Over the next fifteen years he signed the assessors' annual reports with, among others, Albert H. Jones and John J. Nuttall, Frank H. Alexander and Edward A. King, and William H. Sexton, through years in which the town's valuation more than doubled, from about $2.5 million in 1910 to $5.7 million in 1916. He was re-elected in 1914 with 353 votes and in 1917 with 241, but in the election of 1919 he ran third, with 179 votes, behind Ralph L. Dodge and Charles H. Kemp.

In his later years he served the Board of Health as meat inspector, paid by the visit from 1913, and as milk inspector. His report for 1919 records 41 visits to slaughter houses and 18 to private places between June and December, with 97 calves, 66 hogs and four cows inspected, and 89 places in town where milk was sold visited, most of them "in good condition," and 38 dealers' permits granted. He died on July 29, 1936, aged 79.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1896, accounts: Cattle Inspector, William H. Hutchins, salary
2. Billerica Town Report 1900, report of the Cattle Inspector, William H. Hutchins: 1,356 examinations, 52 cattle diseased, year ending March 1, 1900
3. Billerica Town Report 1902, jurors drawn: William H. Hutchins, farmer, petit juror
4. Billerica Town Report 1910, report of the Inspector of Animals, signed Wm. H. Hutchins
5. Billerica Town Report 1911, report of the Inspector of Animals (tuberculin tests of cattle brought into the State), signed William H. Hutchins
6. Billerica Town Report 1914, Assessors' report signed by Frank H. Alexander, E. A. King and Wm. H. Hutchins
7. Billerica Town Report 1919, annual election: Assessor, Ralph L. Dodge 213, Charles H. Kemp 194, William H. Hutchins 179
8. Billerica Town Report 1919, reports of the Meat Inspector and Milk Inspector, Wm. H. Hutchins
9. Billerica Town Report 1936, deaths: William H. Hutchins, July 29, aged 79 years 5 months 1 day