Arthur R. Hallenborg

Arthur Raymond Hallenborg (1903-1980) served on the Billerica Select Board from 1932 to 1959 and was twice its chairman. He was also for many years a game warden and a state fire warden. He was born in Lowell on April 5, 1903, and according to his obituary he lived in Billerica for seventy years. He graduated from Howe High School with the class of 1920, which received its diplomas on June 29, 1920, and he belonged to the school's alumni association for sixty years. His brothers were Charles O. Hallenborg, Ralph I. Hallenborg and George E. Hallenborg, and he had a son, Arthur B. Hallenborg.

He started in town office young. He was elected to the School Committee in 1930 and served as an election officer in 1930 and 1931. By 1930 he was the town's Fish and Game Warden, an office he held until 1943. His report for 1930 counted 469 licenses inspected, 17 minors warned and 26 illegal traps seized. He had obtained adult pheasants and trout from the State Department of Conservation to release in the town's covers and brooks, and had moved 1,715 pond fish and 461 trout out of dried-up ponds and brooks. He wrote that "the natural game is getting more and more scarce as the years pass and Nature must be assisted through the introduction of man-raised game."

In 1932 he joined Maurice A. Buck and George S. Gracie on the Select Board. The selectmen of those years also sat as the Board of Public Works, which his memorial lists him on from 1932 to 1950, and as the town's fence viewers. When the chairman, Frank A. Kelley, died on June 6, 1945, the board reported that his place was being filled by Hallenborg, "Vice-Chairman of the Board for many years." He remained chairman through 1947 and led the board again from 1956 to 1958. In the March 1959 election he finished third for the two open seats, behind George E. Lewis and Raymond F. McColough, which ended his service on the board. He was also a special police officer from 1947 to 1950, a member of the Tercentenary Committee in 1954 and 1955, and by 1959 a district fire warden in the town's civil defense organization.

After leaving the Select Board he served on the North Billerica Fire Station Committee from 1962 to 1966 and on the Board of Public Welfare from 1966 to 1968, and from 1957 he was an elected Town Meeting member. In 1973 he joined the Town By-Laws Study Committee and resigned from it in September 1974. His obituary adds that he retired as a state fire warden, was a trustee of the Tewksbury Hospital and belonged to the Billerica lodge of Elks for fifty years. He died on January 18, 1980, at the age of 76, at Tewksbury State Hospital, and was buried in Fox Hill Cemetery.

References

1. Arthur R Hallenborg (1903-1980), Find a Grave (with Boston Globe obituary, January 21, 1980)
2. Howe High School graduates, 1920
3. Report of the Fish and Game Warden, 1930
4. Town Officers, 1932
5. Report of the Board of Selectmen, 1945
6. Report of the Board of Selectmen, 1956
7. Vote for Town Officers, March 1959
8. In Memoriam, 1980