Middlesex Turnpike (Massachusetts)
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The Middlesex Turnpike was an early turnpike between Cambridge and Tyngsborough, Massachusetts and the New Hampshire border, where it connected with the Amherst Turnpike and thence Nashua and Claremont, New Hampshire.
The turnpike was chartered on June 15, 1805, by the Massachusetts legislature. After an extremely contentious argument about its route, it opened about five years later. The road started at Magoun Square in Cambridge where it intersected with the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike, headed roughly northwest along what are now Hampshire and Beacon Streets, passed by the 'Foot of the Rocks' in West Cambridge (now along Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington), and onwards to Lexington by today's Westminster and Lowell Streets. From there, it continued through Burlington, Bedford, and Billerica, the section of which is still called the Middlesex Turnkpike. Finally, it continued northwest to Chelmsford, and finally along the bank of the Merrimack River to Tyngsborough. A small, 1.5 mile stretch of the turnpike remains in Chelmsford, now known as "Turnpike Road." It was about 26 miles in length, with 4 toll gates along the way.
As was the practice of that time, the road was as straight as possible, and thus missed the advantages of passing through economic centers along the way. As its route closely paralleled that of the Middlesex Canal, and later the railroad, it suffered stiff competition for both freight and passenger traffic. The road was thus never particularly profitable. Its charter was repealed in 1841, and it became a free road in 1846. Some sections became disused at some point - there is a section in Billerica at the Concord River that is discontinuous, and a large section missing between Billerica (River Street) and Chelmsford (Mill Road).
U.S. Route 3, largely built in the 1950s, is occasionally referred to as the New Middlesex Turnpike, as it follows the route of the original very closely.
[edit] References
- Frederic James Wood, The Turnpikes of New England and Evolution of the Same Through England, Virginia, and Maryland, Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1919, pages 148-157.
- Rev. Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts : Courier-Citizen Company, 1917, page 439.
- Henry Allen Hazen, History of Billerica, Massachusetts: with a Genealogical register, Boston : A. Williams and Co., 1883, page 274.
- Benjamin and William R. Cutter, History of the Town of Arlington, Massachusetts, Boston : David Clapp and Son, 1880, page 128.
- Charles Hudson, History of the town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts: From Its First Settlement to 1868, Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, Mass, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913, page 473.
