A History of Billerica
Through a 21st century lens
I was poking around archives.com and discovered a gem. It’s a town-generated historical account of Billerica. A committee was formed and evidently hired Reverand Henry A Hazan, A.M., a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Not sure what “Had he foreseen some of the consequences, he would have hesitated…” means but it sounds interesting.
This sounds so typical of life today. I can immediately empathize!
Not where I would start but he wrote this in 1882.
The first landmark in Billerica still exists today. I’ve been thanks to Marlies Henderson.
I have to interject with a bit of historical context. Before the arrival of European colonists, the area around Massachusetts Bay was the territory of several Algonquian-speaking peoples, including the Massachusetts, Nausets, and Wampanoags. The Pennacooks occupied the Merrimack River valley to the north, and the Nipmucs, Pocumtucs, and Mahicans occupied the western lands of Massachusetts, although some of those tribes were under tribute to the Mohawks, from upstate New York. Chroniclers interviewed Indigenous people who described a major pestilence that killed as many as two-thirds of the population prior to 1616. The total Indigenous population in 1620 has been estimated to be 7,000.
Early redlining
Most of the families came from Cambridge or Woburn
The author and I disagree on the benefits of a homogenous society.
That’s the first two chapters. More to come
