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Stone Cottage 

      
       
                               
           
     
    
Somewhere in the midst of woods near the Middlesex Canals is this little interesting specimen.
It looks to be like a little stone cottage made up of only one room with a fireplace at one end
and the door opening at another.  The door is completely ripped off but the nails that held it
are still there, rusting.  There is no furniture, no evidence of a wooden or stone flooring as I 
can see - the floor's completely of earth.  The cottage lies near the canals hidden from view.

Whoever made it must have had something to do with the mills.  It has stood the test of
time - it still stands while the houses of Asa Pollard and Amos Wyman have completely
disappeared.  Which makes it all the more intriguing.  Who built it and when?  I cannot find the 
answers in any of the sources I have on Billerica.  It's just there hidden against time.

Top left is a picture of part of the canals.  This item was used to anchor the tow rope
for the floating tow bridge across the mill pond. When the barges got to the Concord River the 
horses or oxen would stand on a floating raft while being pulled across. 

The other 3 pictures are of the little stone structure I call the stone cottage.  You can see the 
fireplace in the bottom left picture which looks like a dark hole.

I would like to say special thanks to Joe LaPlante of the Billerica Historical Society (who
first found the stone cottage structure before we did and who knew what the top left picture
was of) and of course to the photographer, K. T. Cutler.

-Binny                       
  
  

All photographs by K. T. Cutler 
copyright 2003