A Middlesex County town named for Billericay in England, where the falls of the Concord at North Billerica fed the Middlesex Canal and the Faulkner and Talbot woolen mills, and where Thomas Ditson's tarring in 1775 gave Yankee Doodle a new meaning.

Middlesex County · Record checked October 12, 2026

42,119Population2020 census1
1655Became a townthe same day as Chelmsford and Groton1
27 milesThe canalMiddlesex Canal, begun at the Billerica Mills2
2 feetThe railroadbetween the rails of the 1877 Billerica and Bedford line2
10National Registerplaces, all still standing3

Then and now

The same town 139 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

Bird's-eye view map of North Billerica, Massachusetts from 1887 by Lucien R. Burleigh, restored by KNOWOL

1887

North Billerica in 1887

By Lucien R. Burleigh

A bird's-eye view of North Billerica, the mill village in the north of the town, with the Talbot Mills, the Faulkner Manufacturing Company, Talbot Dye Wood, St. Andrew's Catholic Church, the Boston and Lowell Railroad station and ex-Governor Talbot's residence.4

See the 1887 printMore about this map
Map of Billerica, Massachusetts in 2026 by KNOWOL, with the Concord and Shawsheen rivers, Nutting Lake and the town's roads

2026

Billerica today

By KNOWOL

The whole town with its two rivers, the Concord and the Shawsheen, shaded from USGS elevation data, with Boston Road, Salem Road, Floyd Street, Nashua Road, Chelmsford Road and Concord Road, Nutting Lake, College Pond, Richardson Pond and Fox Hill.5

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Billerica

Yankee Doodle comes to Billerica

On March 8, 1775, Thomas Ditson Jr., a Billerica minute-man, was in Boston trying to get a gun when British soldiers seized him, saying he'd tempted one of them to desert. The next day they tarred and feathered him and dragged him through the streets to the music of Yankee Doodle, and the town's histories say the song's mocking words were first sung that day. Billerica protested to General Gage and voted to look up the old bayonets. It also voted that nobody kill lambs for market until August, to save the wool. On April 19, while Billerica's minute-men marched for Concord, John Hancock and Samuel Adams spent the day at Amos Wyman's house near the Burlington line. Two months later Asa Pollard was the first man killed at Bunker Hill, struck by a cannon ball from the ship Somerset.26

Boats, stages and a two-foot railroad

The town's 1883 history calls the Middlesex Canal the first important canal in America, and it ran through Billerica, taking its water from the Concord at North Billerica. A packet boat carried passengers at four miles an hour, fifty cents from Lowell to Boston. On the roads, Joseph Wheat's two-horse stage started stopping overnight in Billerica about 1795 on its weekly run from Amherst, New Hampshire, and before the railroad came, twelve to sixteen stages a day rolled through, keeping the taverns busy. In 1877 the center got a railroad of its own, the Billerica and Bedford, with rails just two feet apart. No line that narrow had ever been built in this country, and people came out to watch the little engines Ariel and Puck. It ran only a few months before money troubles shut it down.26

The mills at the falls

The falls of the Concord at North Billerica have been put to work since the early 1700s, when Christopher Osgood was granted the water there on condition that he keep a corn mill. The Middlesex Canal company bought the mill privilege in the 1790s. In 1811 Francis Faulkner came from Acton and began making woolen goods, only the second such business in New England, and the old Faulkner Mills now hold the Middlesex Canal Museum. The Talbot brothers bought the canal company's land by the falls in 1851 and built their woolen mill in 1857. By the 1920s the company rented about 150 houses to its workers and kept a library of 5,000 books, and the Talbot family had built Memorial Hall for the village in 1891. Other shops made cabinet furniture at Pattenville and a famous leather-splitting machine.2675

Through the years

25 moments from 1638 to today.

  1. 1638Governor Winthrop and Deputy Governor Dudley name two great stones on the Concord the Two Brothers and divide their farms there.2
  2. 1652About a dozen families from Cambridge and Charlestown have settled at Shawshin.1
  3. 1655Billerica is incorporated as a town, on the same day as Chelmsford and Groton.1
  4. 1659The town agrees to build its first meeting house, with board walls and a thatched roof.2
  5. 1659A mining company is granted the mineral rights on the south end of Fox Hill; the mine is never developed.2
  6. 1666Chelmsford refuses to help keep up the Great Bridge, and Billerica pulls up some of its planks.8
  7. 1696Samuel Manning builds the Manning Manse, believed to be the first house west of the Concord River.5
  8. 1708Christopher Osgood is granted the water at the falls of the Concord, the start of the North Billerica mills.6
  9. 1729Bedford is incorporated, partly from Billerica land, and five years later Tewksbury is taken almost wholly from Billerica.6
  10. 1775On March 8 Thomas Ditson Jr. is seized in Boston and then tarred and feathered to the music of Yankee Doodle.2
  11. 1775On April 19 John Hancock and Samuel Adams spend the day at Amos Wyman's house near the Burlington line.6
  12. 1775Asa Pollard of Billerica is the first man killed at Bunker Hill, by a cannon ball from the ship Somerset.6
  13. 1793The Middlesex Canal company is incorporated; its water will come from the Concord at the Billerica Mills.2
  14. 1795About now the first stagecoach, Joseph Wheat's weekly run from Amherst, New Hampshire, to Boston, starts stopping overnight in Billerica.2
  15. 1797The First Church is built near the common, facing north.9
  16. 1811Francis Faulkner begins making woolen goods at the falls, the second such business in New England.2
  17. 1835The Boston and Lowell Railroad opens and soon takes the canal's business.6
  18. 1842The meeting-house bell from England, remembered as inscribed Billericay, cracks from violent ringing on the Fourth of July.2
  19. 1844The First Church is moved and turned halfway round to face east.9
  20. 1845Deacon Aaron H. Patten begins making cabinet-work on Content Brook, and Pattenville gets its name.2
  21. 1852The Howe School opens, built with a bequest from Dr. Zadok Howe.10
  22. 1857The Talbot brothers build their woolen mill at North Billerica.2
  23. 1877The Billerica and Bedford Railroad opens on track two feet wide, the first so narrow in the country.2
  24. 1891The Talbot family builds Memorial Hall at North Billerica in memory of Governor Thomas Talbot.7
  25. 1956The Talbot company closes after 100 years at the falls.11

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Billerica today.

  • Billerica Town CommonBillerica Center. Set aside in 1655, first meeting house site.
  • Manning Manse56 Chelmsford Road. House of about 1696, once a tavern.
  • Warren H. Manning State ForestChelmsford Road. Woods around the Manning Manse.
  • Middlesex Canal MuseumFaulkner Mills, North Billerica. Canal history in the old Faulkner Mills.Visit their website
  • Billerica Mills Historic DistrictNorth Billerica. Talbot brick mill with its clock tower.
  • Mill Pond and damNorth Billerica. Where the canal drew its water.
  • North Billerica stationNorth Billerica. Station of 1867, still on the line.
  • Nutting LakeNutting Lake. Public beach, canoeing and sailing.
  • Thomas Ditson Elementary SchoolPinehurst. Where Thomas Ditson's home stood.
  • Concord RiverWest side and North Billerica. Crossed by the canal's floating towpath.

On the National Register

All 10 places in Billerica on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.3

  • Two Brothers Rocks-Dudley Road Historic District

    Listed 2010 · Dudley Road between Chestnut Lane and Emery Road, Bedford, and Timbercreek Lane, Billerica, from Route 4 to the Concord River

    Rural land along winding Dudley Road, laid out in colonial days, running down to the Concord River and the Two Brothers Rocks, the boulders that marked the line between the 1638 grants to John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley. The rocks are reached through Bedford's Altmann Conservation Area.12

  • Billerica Town Common District

    Listed 1973 · Bounded by Cummings St., Concord Rd., and Boston Rd.

    What remains of the town common of 1655, with the site of the first meeting house, two churches and the town hall. Part of it became a militia training ground in 1694, and the local militia mustered here when the Revolution began in 1775.13

  • Manning Manse

    Built about 1696 · Listed 1982 · 56 Chelmsford Rd.

    Built about 1696 by Samuel Manning and believed to be the first house west of the Concord River, it held a family tavern from 1752 to 1800 and was home to William Manning, author of The Key of Liberty. Warren H. Manning restored it in 1899, an early example of historic preservation.14

  • Deacon Samuel Hill House

    Built about 1725 · Listed 1990 · 33 Riverhurst Rd.

    A First Period saltbox built about 1725, probably by Deacon Samuel Hill on land he inherited from the early settler Ralph Hill. An upper chamber keeps rare paneling painted to look like marble; the house was moved a short way in the 1970s.15

  • Dutton-Holden Homestead

    Built between 1750 and 1770 · Listed 2001 · 28 Pond St.

    A Georgian five-bay farmhouse with a central chimney, dated to 1750 to 1770 by structural analysis, though tradition says Jonathan Dutton built it about 1720. It keeps much early interior finish and stayed with Dutton relatives for over 200 years.16

  • Sabbath Day House

    Built about 1765 · Listed 1973 · 20 Andover Rd.

    Built in the mid-1760s so churchgoers could warm themselves between the morning and afternoon services at the meeting house next door. A caretaker kept it until 1818, when it was no longer needed and became a private home.17

  • Middlesex Canal

    Built 1793 to 1803 · Listed 1972 · Running southeast between the towns of Lowell and Medford

    Remnants of the 27-mile barge canal that drew its water from the Concord River at North Billerica and crossed it on a floating towpath. It carried goods between the Merrimack and Boston until 1851.18

  • Middlesex Canal Historic and Archaeological District

    Built 1793 to 1803 · Listed 2009 · Along the route of the old Middlesex Canal

    A 2009 listing that covers the canal's whole route through eight towns, including stretches that have since been built over.19

  • Billerica Mills Historic District

    Built mid-1800s to 1920s · Listed 1983 · Roughly bounded by Concord River, Treble Cove Terr., Kohlrausch Ave., Indian Rd., Holt Ruggles, and Rogers Sts.

    The Talbot brothers' company village at the falls of the Concord, which they bought from the defunct Middlesex Canal company in 1851. Their brick mill with its clock tower stands at the center, with the workers' housing on Wilson Street and Talbot Avenue; the company ran here for 100 years, until 1956.11

  • Howe School

    Built 1852 · Listed 2002 · 390 Boston Rd.

    Built in 1852 with a bequest from Dr. Zadok Howe and designed by Daniel G. Bean of Lowell, with an early system for warm, fresh air in the classrooms. It was a private academy, then the town's high school from 1896, and reopened in 2022 for local access television and community meetings.10

In their words

“Billerica is endowed with the fairest gifts which Nature can bestow: grassy roads, beguiling trout-brooks, crystal ponds, and two sweet, reflective streams, the Concord and the town's especial love, Shawshine, the meandering.”

Old paths and legends of New England, 190320

“There is but one Billericay in England, and but one Billerica in the United States. While other names have been repeated in newer States, this remains our own.”

Henry A. Hazen, History of Billerica, 18832

“[The purpose] of this magazine is to make every citizen of Billerica feel with a thrill and a tingle that he has a chance to live in the most beautiful town in the United States.”

Billerica, the town's own magazine, 191221

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Billerica, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
  2. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, by Henry A. Hazen (1883)
  3. National Register of Historic Places list, Wikipedia
  4. Beautifully restored map of North Billerica, MA from 1887, restored by KNOWOL
  5. Map of Billerica, Massachusetts in 2026, KNOWOL
  6. History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880), chapter on Billerica by Frederick P. Hill
  7. Middlesex County and its people; a history (1927)
  8. History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts (1917)
  9. Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1908)
  10. Howe School, Wikipedia
  11. Billerica Mills Historic District, Wikipedia
  12. Two Brothers Rocks-Dudley Road Historic District, Wikipedia
  13. Billerica Town Common District, Wikipedia
  14. Manning Manse, Wikipedia
  15. Deacon Samuel Hill House, Wikipedia
  16. Dutton-Holden Homestead, Wikipedia
  17. Sabbath Day House, Wikipedia
  18. Middlesex Canal, Wikipedia
  19. Middlesex Canal Historic and Archaeological District, Wikipedia
  20. Old paths and legends of New England (1903)
  21. Billerica, the town magazine (1912)