Crossword-Solution: BILLERICA 9 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 13

Solomon Prower, who is called by Bradford both "son" and "servant" of Martin, seems from the fact of his "citation" before the Archdeacon of Chelmsford, etc., to have been something more than a "servant," possibly a kinsman, or foster-son, and probably would more properly have been termed an "employee." He was from Billerica, in Essex, and was, from the fact that he did not sign the Compact, probably under twenty-one or very ill at the time.

Salmon, Shad, and Alewives were formerly abundant here, and taken in weirs by the Indians, who taught this method to the whites, by whom they were used as food and as manure, until the dam, and afterward the canal at Billerica, and the factories at Lowell, put an end to their migrations hitherward; though it is thought that a few more enterprising shad may still occasionally be seen in this part of the river.

Perchance, after a few thousands of years, if the fishes will be patient, and pass their summers elsewhere, meanwhile, nature will have levelled the Billerica dam, and the Lowell factories, and the Grass-ground River run clear again, to be explored by new migratory shoals, even as far as the Hopkinton pond and Westborough swamp.

From Ball’s Hill to Billerica meeting-house, the river was still twice as broad as in Concord, a deep, dark, and dead stream, flowing between gentle hills and sometimes cliffs, and well wooded all the way.

Here was a village not far off behind the woods, Billerica, settled not long ago, and the children still bear the names of the first settlers in this late “howling wilderness”; yet to all intents and purposes it is as old as Fernay or as Mantua, an old gray town where men grow old and sleep already under moss-grown monuments,—outgrow their usefulness.