Shane Lane

Shane Lane is the main street of the Shane Lane neighborhood in East Billerica. It leaves Allen Road opposite Rolling Hill Road and runs northeast for about 2,250 feet to the north end of Lois Lane, where Ichabod Lane comes in from the northwest, and continues a short way beyond. Jobe Lane, Blossom Drive and Courtland Lane branch from it. Its name is older than most of the street. The "Definitive Plan of Sugar Maple Estates," drawn by Emmons and Fleming, Inc. for Elm Realty Trust in February 1964 and recorded on April 17, 1964 (Plan Book 99, Plan 172), ends Lois Lane at a fifty-foot cross street already marked "Shane Lane," with corner lots on it.

The long western part was laid out on registered land, Land Court case 8039, first registered in 1921. Emmons, Fleming and Bienvenu drew the "Subdivision Plan of Land in Billerica" for Graham Builders, Inc. in May 1976 (Plan 8039-C), with lots of about an acre on Shane Lane and on Jon Lane, now Jobe Lane, and further plans followed in 1977 and 1980. The assessors date the houses on the lane to 1975 through 1979. The state inventory of historic buildings places at 2 Shane Lane, by Allen Road, the site of the William French house, a low Colonial farmhouse of about 1735 that the Historical Commission recorded in February 1974 as the oldest French family house still standing in town; William French Jr. sold it as his homestead to Nehemiah Kittredge in 1766, Si Kittredge sold it to Daniel Shed in 1823, and Shed sold it to Lyman Haynes, Dudley Foster and Edward Mansfield in 1845. A note on the 1974 form records that the house was "demolished - April 1976," a month before the subdivision plan was drawn. The town laid a ten-inch water main in Shane Lane in 1976, a main that would "help reinforce the eastern section" of the system.

The town meeting was asked to accept the lane in 1981, but on June 2, 1981 the article was dismissed for Shane Lane "as there are no plans on file," and a 1983 article was dismissed as well. On May 17, 1984 the annual town meeting accepted Shane Lane "as a public way in accordance with a plan on file with the Town Clerk, a way 50 feet wide and 2,200 feet, more or less long." The lane lies in the Jones Brook basin, and in 1986 the town replaced its culverts with larger pipes and headwalls. The origin of the name Shane was not found.

References

1. Billerica town report 1976: ten-inch water main extension on Shane Lane
2. Billerica town report 1977: 10-inch main on Shane Lane completed
3. Billerica town report 1981: Art. 33 warrant street list including Shane Lane
4. Billerica town report 1981: June 2, 1981 session, Shane Lane dismissed, "no plans on file"
5. Billerica town report 1984: Art. 27 warrant, streets to be accepted including Shane Lane
6. Billerica town report 1984: May 17, 1984 session opens (sixth session)
7. Billerica town report 1984: Shane Lane accepted as a public way, 50 ft wide, 2,200 ft
8. Billerica town report 1986: Jones Brook basin drainage and culverts on Ichabod Lane and Shane Lane

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.