Day & Hall: Littleton Road, Four Miles of Westford History (2022)

Description

In 2001 June Kennedy asked Dick Kenyon to photograph the areas along Littleton Road. She could see the changes that had taken place since she and her husband Charlie moved in to Westford in 1961. Twenty-one years later we’ve built on Mr. Kenyon’s work. Did we doze off? No more flea-market, no more Polly’s Restaurant with the airplane on the roof, no more places to have your saws, mowers and ice skates sharpened. Where were Michelson’s, Burbeck’s, McDonald’s, Toy’s, and Nixon’s farms? Where were Rocky Farms, Sullivan’s bus lot, Cannonball Junction, the East Littleton Station, Mello’s sawmill, Sleeper’s Power Equipment? And where are the Minot Corner Schoolhouse, and the houses that were at 103, 107, and 228 Littleton Road today? 

And just to whet your appetite for an ice cream, what was Kimball Farms charging in 1951 for a Kimball Special? 

There’s an amazing amount of history to be found in just a few years and a few miles along Littleton Road, Westford.

About  the Authors

Marilyn (Green) Day is a New Hampshire native, growing up in Amherst and graduating from Milford High School over sixty years ago. After her marriage to Roger in 1961, they hopped around New England with his job, but in 1972, settled down for 25 years in the Day family homestead at 47 Graniteville Road.

She and Roger, have four children – the eldest a daughter – and three sons. Marilyn returned to the work force and college during the 1980s, obtaining her BS degree in Business Management/Computer Science from Rivier College in Nashua, N.H. while working for Siemens Components right here at 238 Littleton Road in Westford. But, she said, being director at the Westford Historical Society in the early 2000s was “the best job I ever had.” Marilyn says she credits, or blames, her eighth-grade history teacher, Miss Bertha Piper, for igniting her interest in local history. Later it would be those intriguing pages in the middle of the big, old family bibles from her Stearns and Davis maternal side with their handwritten records of past generations that really ignited her genealogical interest, and later still, Day family diaries, glass plate negatives, and other memorabilia. She says, I have been so fortunate to have had access to so much family history and town history and to have been able to share it with others.

Geoffrey D. Hall is a third generation Westfordite. Upon his retirement as a teacher/State representative in 2008 he had been active with the Westford Historical Society serving as President from 2014-2016. He is past president of the Westford academy Alumni Association having been a graduate of WA in 1966. Presently Geoff is serving as president of the Westford Academy Board of Trustees.

His love of history and Westford has drawn him to produce several documentaries involving the town’s history. He says that without the guidance of the many volunteers he has worked with none of these would have been possible.