Billerica, Massachusetts in the 1710s

Work

Farms, mills, town jobs

The basic economy is farming: subsistence and market farms⁷ with older river-powered saw and grist mill⁷ work. Town-paid labor appears in small sums, such as 29 shillings to clean the meetinghouse¹ and 18 pence for a grave¹.

Faith

Meetinghouse at the center

Public religion is Congregational, with Samuel Ruggles as pastor¹ and town votes shaping the building. The Half-Way Covenant matters because it decides who can own the covenant and have their children baptized¹.

Law & power

Town meeting rules life

The governing arena is the general town meeting^1,3, where rates, pews, schools, and church arrangements are decided. Military authority is both local and provincial: in 1689 the company chose officers, but provincial authorities overrode⁴ part of the choice.

In the air

Covenant and order

Argument centers less on party politics than on godly order, church membership, and public obligation. The local religious settlement rests on the Half-Way Covenant¹, a compromise that tied family baptism to church discipline.

What people feared

War close in memory

The fear is not abstract: Billerica remembers that fifteen people were killed or taken⁶ in the 1695 attack. During the 1710s, Queen Anne’s War keeps frontier violence in conversation until the 1713 peace.

Home & table

School follows the children

Children learn reading and writing under town arrangements: Joseph Tompson³ had taught for decades, and later masters were hired. By 1718 the school is not fixed in one building all year but moves among several quarters of town³.

Money

Rates and small payments

Town money is raised and spent by votes: Billerica set aside land-sale proceeds for a bell costing no more than £60¹. Smaller payments show everyday values, including 18 pence for grave digging¹ and £1 to the schoolmaster³.

Roads & news

Roads carry everything

News and strangers arrive by roads to neighboring towns: the Woburn road², the Concord highway², and the Andover highway² all run from or near the meetinghouse area. There is no railroad or canal⁷ here yet.

Year by year

1. 1710Port Royal in Acadia fell to a British colonial expedition during Queen Anne’s War, news that would have mattered in Massachusetts towns tied to the war effort. the country
2. 1710Joseph Tompson received £1 in Billerica’s town accounts as schoolmaster. here³
3. 1711Billerica voted to allow pews to be built in vacant spaces in the meetinghouse. here¹
4. 1711A British expedition against Quebec failed after transports wrecked in the St. Lawrence, a major wartime disappointment for New England. the country
5. 1712Billerica contracted with William Haile to clean the meetinghouse and dig graves for set payments. here¹
6. 1713The Peace of Utrecht ended Queen Anne’s War for Britain and France, changing the wartime world Billerica had lived in since 1702. the world
7. 1714Billerica arranged the hanging of its meetinghouse bell, with woodwork, stairs, platform, door, and ironwork. here¹
8. 1718Billerica voted to move its school among the town’s quarters for part of the year and keep it in the center for the rest. here³

What the sources say

• Billerica had an established Congregational meetinghouse before the 1710s, and Samuel Ruggles was its pastor through the decade after succeeding Samuel Whiting. from the sources¹
• Billerica in the colonial period was primarily an agricultural village of subsistence and market farms. from the sources⁷
• The town’s industrial activity began with water-powered mills in the 1660s, including a first saw and grist mill attributed to John Parker in 1660. from the sources⁷
• Important town decisions in Billerica were made in general town meetings, including church seating, school hiring, and expenditure votes. from the sources^1,3
• In 1712 the town employed William Haile to keep the meetinghouse clean for 29 shillings a year and to dig graves for 18 pence each, or more if the digging required it. from the sources¹
• On November 16, 1711, Billerica voted to allow pews to be built in vacant places in the meetinghouse, even cutting two or three feet from the deacon’s seat. from the sources¹
• On March 9, 1710/11, Billerica voted to use money from land sold west of Concord River to buy a meetinghouse bell costing no more than £60, and in January 1713/14 arranged for its hanging for £4 plus help raising it. from the sources¹
• Joseph Tompson had been Billerica’s schoolmaster for more than thirty years, and in 1710 and 1711 he received £1 as schoolmaster in the town accounts. from the sources³
• In 1718 Billerica voted that the school should move among several quarters of town for about five months and stay in the middle of town for the rest of the year. from the sources³
• The old country road from Billerica to Woburn ran through Shawshin farm, over swamp and high land, and was laid out seven poles wide in one described section. from the sources²
• The highway from Billerica to Concord began at the country road in Long Street and passed near the meetinghouse before running toward Concord swamp and Concord meetinghouse. from the sources²
• The Andover highway began near Billerica meetinghouse and ran by Fox Hill, Content meadow, Strongwater brook, and Shawshin bridge near William Ballard’s house. from the sources²
• A 1685 Indian deed described Billerica as land on both sides of the Shawshin River and both sides of the Concord River, bounded north by Merrimac River, northeast by Andover, south by Woburn, and west by Concord. from the sources⁴
• The 1685 deed paid £13 sterling in New England silver to Indigenous claimants connected with Weymesitt and Natick for Indian right and claim to Billerica lands. from the sources⁴
• The 1695 attack in northern Billerica killed or captured fifteen people from several families, and ten of them were killed. from the sources⁶
• After the 1695 attack, about 300 armed men from Middlesex towns came to Billerica, guarded Merrimack fords, and ranged the woods and great swamp without finding the attackers. from the sources⁶
• Queen Anne’s War, the North American part of the War of the Spanish Succession, lasted from 1702 until the 1713 peace, so Billerica lived most of the decade under wartime news and militia obligations. inferred
• Billerica men or their heirs later appeared among those rewarded for King Philip’s War service, showing that town families had a living memory of earlier military service and frontier fear. from the sources⁴
• In 1689 Billerica’s military company voted only by men aged twenty-one and older when choosing officers, though provincial authorities overrode part of the company’s choice. from the sources⁴
• The town’s church practice rested on the Half-Way Covenant, under which baptized but not fully communicant members could own the covenant and have their children baptized. from the sources¹
• No surviving online source found here gives a full house-by-house description of Billerica dwellings in the 1710s. not known
• No local online source found here gives ordinary farm wages or food prices in Billerica in the 1710s beyond town payments such as school, bell, sexton, and grave digging charges. not known
• Slavery existed in rural Billerica in the eighteenth century, and later records show several leading Billerica selectmen and General Court representatives came from families connected with slaveholding. from the sources⁵
• Billerica had no railroad or canal in the 1710s; those later transportation changes belonged to the nineteenth century. from the sources⁷

Sources

1. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, Part 5. Henry Allen Hazen / Blockbefore transcription, 1883
2. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, Part 10. Henry Allen Hazen / LDSGenealogy transcription, 1883
3. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, Part 7. Henry Allen Hazen / Blockbefore transcription, 1883
4. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, Part 13. Henry Allen Hazen / LDSGenealogy transcription, 1883
5. The Lost History of Slaves and Slave Owners in Billerica, Massachusetts, 1655–1790. Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 2014
6. History of Billerica, Massachusetts, with a Genealogical Register, Part 14. Henry Allen Hazen / LDSGenealogy transcription, 1883
7. Billerica Open Space and Recreation Plan: History of the Community. Town of Billerica, 2025

Billerica in other decades

Nearby, about the same time