Billerica Avenue

Billerica Avenue runs north from Mt. Pleasant Street in North Billerica, past the Thomas Talbot Memorial Hall and the old town farm, to the town line at South Lowell. Since 1989 the name has also covered the short street south of Mt. Pleasant Street to Corthell Road and Talbot Boulevard, which until then was Billerica Avenue Extension.

The road is a town way of 1888. The selectmen's accounts for the year ending in February 1889 carry a separate heading, "New Road. Billerica Street, North Billerica," with an appropriation of $800 spent on the labor of Coburn S. Smith, A. O. Dane and others, and the next year's accounts show $300 more, with $25 each paid to Amos Cray and James Whittemore for land damages. The Cray and Whittemore lands lay at the Mt. Pleasant Street end, where the county's plan of 1897 still shows the "Amos Cray Estate" and the land "formerly Whittemore." In 1892 a warrant article asked the town to extend "the road known as Billerica street through land of Mrs. Quinlan and town farm, so as to form a conjunction with road running in the same direction in the Town of Tewksbury." The town farm was the old Rogers farm, which the town had bought from Jacob Osgood Rogers.

The extension came in 1897 and 1898. The warrant of 1897 asked "if the town will extend Billerica Avenue to the Tewksbury line," and the County Commissioners laid the avenue out that year; their plan, "Plan of Billerica Ave., Billerica, as ordered by the County Commissioners, 1897," runs in four sheets from Mt. Pleasant Street, there called the "Road to Lawrence," past Memorial Hall and the lands of Fannie L. Murphy, Benjamin Walker and the Talbot estate, to the Billerica and Tewksbury line beside the "Billerica Poor Farm." The town paid $1,755.06 "for extension of Billerica Avenue" on its 1897 accounts and spent a further appropriation of $3,000 on the work in 1898, partly under a contract with B. W. Kearney, borrowing money to "Extend Billerica Avenue."

The name Billerica Street was soon replaced. The street naming committee chosen in 1896 listed "Billerica avenue, running north from Mt. Pleasant street to South Lowell, No. Billerica," and the Billerica Historical Society's revised list, accepted by the town on March 27, 1899, gave "Billerica avenue, from Mt. Pleasant street to South Lowell line, No. Billerica." The records do not explain the name. A Billerica road named for its own town is unusual, and the likeliest reading is that it was the road to Billerica from South Lowell and the Tewksbury side, which the 1892 article meant to join. In 1901 the selectmen reported assurances from the Lowell and Boston Street Railway that its line would be extended "to Tewksbury via Billerica avenue," but a 1912 study of the town was still proposing the "continuation of the electric line from South Lowell down Billerica Avenue to Mt. Pleasant Street."

The avenue stayed a gravel road for forty years. In 1928 the town voted $2,500 "to gravel and tar the surface of Billerica Avenue from the corner of Billerica Avenue and Mt. Pleasant Street to Town Farm Lane," and the surveyor reported it tarred from Mt. Pleasant Street "to Soutter's residence." Another $2,500 in 1929 carried the work "northerly," and in 1930 and 1931 it was a tar and oil project with equal shares from the state and county; in 1931 the surveyor reported 950 feet "excavated, widened, graveled and treated with one coat of Tarvia B," and the road "tarred from Station 12 to Tewksbury Line." In 1933 it was "tarred and sanded the full length from Mount Pleasant Street to the Tewksbury town line," and fire alarm wires were run three miles out the avenue to the plant of the Consolidated Rendering Company.

As a county layout of 1897 Billerica Avenue has been a public way since then, and it was not among the roads of the 1831 map accepted by town meeting in 2016. In 1978 a 12 inch water main was laid for 2,400 feet from Mt. Pleasant Street. On November 14, 1988 the selectmen, renaming streets with duplicate or confusing names, changed "Billerica Avenue Extension," running "from Mt. Pleasant Street southeasterly to intersection of Corthell Rd. & Talbot Blvd.," to Billerica Avenue, effective January 2, 1989. The old name has stayed in use there: the assessors still list addresses such as "8 Billerica Ave Ex," and a condominium master deed of 2006 and a public works memorandum of 2015 recorded at the registry speak of "Billerica Ave. Ext." The avenue was repaved, with new sidewalks, in 2014. The Rogers family burial plot, with a tomb built in 1803, is listed in the town's inventory under Billerica Avenue.

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
John Rogers Homestead		31 Billerica Av	1667		1695
Town Farm		95 Billerica Av	1824		1945
Amos Gray House		2 Billerica Av	1883
James Haulton House		10 Billerica Av	1884
Benjamin Walker House		30 Billerica Av	1887
James Barrington House		31 Billerica Av	1887
Roger Barrington House		43 Billerica Av	1887
Thomas Talbot Memorial Hall		0 Billerica Ave	1891		1974
Christopher C. Walker House		46 Billerica Av	1893
Roger Barrington House #2		45 Billerica Av	1896		2017

References

1. Billerica annual report 1889: "New Road. Billerica Street, North Billerica," appropriation $800 and labor accounts
2. Billerica annual report 1890: Billerica Street, North Billerica, land damages to Amos Cray and James Whittemore
3. Billerica annual report 1892: Art. 29, extend Billerica street through land of Mrs. Quinlan and the town farm to join the road in Tewksbury
4. Billerica annual report 1897: street naming committee, "Billerica avenue, running north from Mt. Pleasant street to South Lowell"
5. Billerica annual report 1897: warrant Art. 18, extend Billerica Avenue to the Tewksbury line
6. Billerica annual report 1899: paid $1,755.06 for extension of Billerica Avenue (1897 accounts)
7. Billerica annual report 1899: Billerica Avenue account, appropriation $3,000, 1898
8. Billerica annual report 1899: Historical Society street list, "Billerica avenue, from Mt. Pleasant street to South Lowell line"
9. Billerica annual report 1900: street names accepted at the town meeting of March 27, 1899
10. Billerica annual report 1901: street railway assurances of an extension to Tewksbury via Billerica avenue
11. Billerica annual report 1928: vote of $2,500 to gravel and tar Billerica Avenue from Mt. Pleasant Street to Town Farm Lane
12. Billerica annual report 1928: roads treated with tar, Billerica Ave. from Mt. Pleasant St. to Soutter's residence
13. Billerica annual report 1929: vote of $2,500 to gravel and tar Billerica Ave. northerly
14. Billerica annual report 1930: Billerica Avenue tar and oil project with state and county shares
15. Billerica annual report 1931: 950 feet excavated, widened, graveled and treated with Tarvia
16. Billerica annual report 1933: tarred and sanded the full length from Mount Pleasant Street to the Tewksbury line
17. Billerica annual report 1956: streets accepted by the town, "Billerica Ave. From Mt. Pleasant St. to So. Lowell line"
18. Billerica annual report 1978: 2,400 feet of 12 inch water main on Billerica Avenue from Mt. Pleasant Street
19. Billerica annual report 1988: Billerica Avenue Extension renamed Billerica Avenue, voted Nov. 14, 1988, effective Jan. 2, 1989
20. Billerica annual report 2014: Billerica Avenue repaved and new sidewalks built