Billerica

About Billerica

Billerica is a town of about 42,000 people in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, roughly 20 miles northwest of Boston between the Concord and Shawsheen rivers. Settled in the 1650s, it began as a farming community and grew into a mill and canal town before becoming a modern suburb with technology companies along Route 3.

The town's most important historic feature is the Middlesex Canal, which opened in the early 1800s to link the Merrimack River with Boston and drew its water from the Concord River at North Billerica. A small museum tells the canal story near the old mills of North Billerica, and the town center keeps a classic New England common surrounded by historic homes and churches, including the colonial Manning Manse.

Visitors come mostly for quiet outdoor time: walking and cross-country skiing in Warren H. Manning State Forest and Billerica State Forest, paddling the Concord River, or swimming at Nutting Lake. Each September the town celebrates its colonial roots with the Yankee Doodle Homecoming weekend, and Lowell, Concord and Lexington are all short drives away.