Person
Charles L. Burton
Charles L. Burton
Charles L. Burton, named in his deeds as Charlie L. Burton, was a blacksmith on Boston Road just south of Billerica Centre for about a quarter of a century. The 1901 directory lists him as a blacksmith and bicycle dealer on Boston Road near the common, and from 1899 through the 1900s the town reports pay C. L. Burton for blacksmithing, horseshoeing and repairs for the highways and other departments, including repairs to the town pump and the town clock. He was on the town's list of jurors in 1909, entered as a blacksmith.
On January 15, 1903 Susan U. Phillips quitclaimed to him Lot 3 of the old Bowers land, with the house now at 435-437 Boston Road, the Lund T. Eastman House, and the L.T. Eastman Blacksmith Shop at its south corner, where William H. Sexton had worked before him. Burton owned much of the land on both sides of this stretch of the road. By 1919 he was working as a blacksmith at the Boston and Maine Railroad repair shops.
On April 21, 1923 he sold the shop and the southeasterly corner of the lot, 57 feet on the road, to Archie J. Vondal, who opened Vondal's Battery Service Station there. After Vondal's bankruptcy Burton entered to foreclose his mortgage in 1927, and the lot was sold to Edward Thommen for Thommen's Garage. Burton kept the house and the rest of Lot 3 until August 1945, when he sold it to Harlie G. and Florence D. Bohannan. The directories from 1931 into the 1950s list him on Boston Road as a seed and poultry dealer and poultryman.