Letter from the
author
Welcome
to the world of Billerica Memorial/Howe High School football
history.
These
pages are records and stats that I have been collecting and keeping for over 15
years. I started my real heavy research into the history of my alma mater’s
football team in 1990 and the task is still on going to retrieve as much
information as possible. I am in need of help looking for the information about
the team prior to 1933. The local papers did not start covering Howe High football games too much until 1935.
The
task is not an easy one; in fact it is very hard work. Going through the back
issues of the local newspapers and relying on several former players to permit
me to take information from their personal scrapbooks and other personal items
is a full time job.
This
letter is a personal thanks to all who helped me with my research and to my
friend Jim Gorman of Melrose, MA (The web site's creator) who dedicated
countless hours to maintaining this web site (SEE UPDATE BELOW). Believe me, Jimmy gets an ear full from me
when something doesn’t go just right or I just can’t get something to
work. Thanks for your patience’s Jimbo!
But
this letter is to especially thank you for coming and visiting us here at
hhsbmhsfootballhistory.com.
In
the eight years that this web page has been up and running we have been able to
include pictures of former players, game action shots, team photos, and other
things that has made this site a nice place to visit, especially during the
football season.
Hopefully
soon we will have a special section dedication to the tradition of the
Thanksgiving Day Game with a year-to-year list of the results of all the turkey
day games and the classic rivalries they hold, especially our own classic with
Chelmsford.
You
will also notice that there is a links to other sites that involve Billerica or
other high school football teams. Please take a moment and visit these sites.
More will be added as time goes on, especially a site on my golf league from my
buddy, Jim from Plymouth.
This
web page is dedicated to all former Howe High School
and Billerica Memorial High School football players, coaches,
cheerleaders, and marching band members. They have made the Saturday afternoons
and Friday nights from Labor Day to Thanksgiving enjoyable to me and the
thousands of Billerica High football fans who have come out to the games year
after year to cheer on the green and white.
If
anyone out there has any ideas or comments on this web site or would like to
supply information about the team’s history, may do so by one of the following.
Email me at jphaines@comcast.net or sign the new guest book or you may
send the information to me at my home address below.
(THE
RETURN OF JIM GORMAN) To my surprise, and I'm sure yours too, the site was
updated by my long lost friend, Jim Gorman back in May (08). I received an
email from him on Mother's Day saying he had gone in and made updates to the
site, which he called an 'Oil Change'. I say he down right overhauled the home
page and he updated his email address so you can feel free to email him with
your thoughts. It was great hearing from Jimmy after quite a few years, I had
thought I had heard the last of him, but hopefully we can get back in touch and
really fix this site up. Time will tell.
The
schedule of 2008 has been posted and it has some interesting things on it. First, Billerica will be taking on only it’s
third out of state team in its history as Bishop Guertin of Nashua, New
Hampshire will come visiting for a non-league game in October. The other two out of state teams that
Billerica has faced, according to the records that I have, are Pinkerton
Academy (Derry, NH) and Exeter (NH).
Billerica is winless against out of state teams as their record stands
at 0-3-1. Bishop Guertin was scheduled
to come here to play back in 1989, but a month before the season began, New
Hampshire moved BG up to a higher division in that state and rearranged their
schedule. This forced them to drop
Billerica, who could not fill the open date.
Also,
for the first time since the 1993 Division 2A Super Bowl Game, Billerica will
travel to our neighbors in the City of Woburn to do battle with the Tanners on
their new synthetic turf field. Woburn
broke it in last Thanksgiving with a big 33-6 victory over their arch-rivals
from Winchester. The will be looking to
get even with Billerica for that 1993 State Title Game loss and for last year’s
defeat at Calabresse Stadium. Also,
there are five straight home games starting with Haverhill on October 10th
and finishing with the last home game of the year with Central Catholic on
November 7th.
With
our Athletic Director, Mike Granfield, now retired, I would like to thank him
for his support and help over the years with getting the schedule and roster to
post here. Mr. Granfield and his wife
Shirley were my class advisors at BMHS.
For
all our visitors not from New England, I have added information about the Town
of Billerica, below from the Wikipedia free on-line encyclopedia. (Most of
which, I wrote.)
Thank
you again for visiting my site and enjoy!
God Bless you all.
Good Luck to the Billerica Indians in 2008.
GO BILLERICA HIGH!
Sincerely,
Jim
Haines
Billerica Memorial High School Class
of 1983
2
Letchworth Avenue
North
Billerica, Massachusetts
01862-1152
General Information about Billerica Memorial
High School
Founded
in 1851 as the Howe School by Dr. Zadok
Howe.
Was
called the Howe School from 1851 to
1916 and run as a private academy by Dr. Howe’s estate.
Was
called Howe High School from 1916 to
1955 and was a public school run by the town.
Became
Billerica Memorial High School in
September of 1955.
School
Colors: Green and White
Nickname:
Indians since 1955, was Warriors prior to that.
Address:
35 River Street
Billerica,
Massachusetts 01821
Schools’
alumni association is the second oldest active high school alumni in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1896 the association is currently in
its 113th year in 2008-2009.
To contact the
alumni association, write to:
Howe High School-Billerica Memorial High School Alumni Association
P. O. Box 8
North
Billerica, Massachusetts
01862-0008
School Fight Song
Boola-Boola,
Boola-Boola
That’s the war
cry of Billerica High.
We will down
them. We will crown them.
‘Til they
holler, Boola-Boola.
Boola-Boola,
Boola-Boola
That’s the war
cry of Howe High.
We will down
them. We will crown them.
‘Til they
holler, Boola-Boola.
RAH, RAH!
(Tuned to
Yale’s Boola-Boola)
Information taken from the Wikipedia free on line
encyclopedia
Billerica is a town in
Middlesex County, Massachusetts,
United
States. The population was 38,981 at the 2000 census. Its name is
pronounced "bill-RICK-ah", rather than rhyming with America.
In the
early 1630s a Praying Indian village named Shawsheen was at the
current site of Billerica.
Billerica
also has a Native American burial site dating back to 1000 B.C.
Billerica
was settled by whites in about 1638 when Massachusetts Bay Governor John
Winthrop and Lt. Governor Thomas
Dudley were granted land along the Concord
River in the wilderness the native Americans called Shawshin (Shawsheen
today; see Shawsheen River.) They called their lands Shawsheen
Plantation and by 1650 families moving inland from Cambridge and Charlestown Village (later Woburn) settled in the area. Most of the
families that settled at Shawsheen Plantation were from the town of Billericay
in Essex, England. The town was incorporated as Billerica in 1655, on the same
day as nearby Chelmsford and Groton. The oldest remaining homestead in the
town is the Manning Manse, built in 1696, and later the residence of William
Manning (1747–1814), the author of "The Key of Libberty," a critique
of Federalist policies. (The unusual spelling of liberty is Manning's own
time.) Other notable
Revolutionary War era residents included Asa Pollard
(1735–1775), the first soldier killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Thomas Ditson
(born 1741), who was tarred and feathered by the British in 1775 while on a
visit to Boston. The song "Yankee
Doodle" was written to honor him. The town now celebrates "Yankee
Doodle Weekend" every September.
The
oldest canal in the United States, the Middlesex
Canal, which flowed through Billerica between 1795 and 1852, was used to
transport goods between Lowell and Boston. In the 1840s, the Boston
and Lowell Railroad's main line was built and passed through the town's
villages of North Billerica and East Billerica. Stations were built in both
locations and North Billerica Station is still an active Commuter Rail Station. Trains stopped taking
passengers at East Billerica in 1965 and the station was remodeled and is now a
private home.
In
1876 a man named George Mansfield came to Billerica to pitch the idea of
building a two-foot gauge railroad from North Billerica Station to the new
Bedford Station on the Middlesex Central Line in neighboring Bedford. That year the Billerica and Bedford Railroad was
formed and the line was built. It was opened in August of 1877 and was 8.6
miles in length. Cost overruns killed the line after one year and the railroad
went bankrupt and was sold.
Billerica
is located about 22 miles north-northwest of Boston along Route 3,
positioning it a short distance from both the Route 128/Interstate 95 high-technology
belt around Boston to the south, and the city of Lowell, 6 miles to the north. This has
established Billerica as the border between Greater
Lowell and the much larger Greater
Boston region.
Billerica has several small neighborhoods that form
nine villages (or sections) of town. Those villages are North Billerica, South Billerica,
East Billerica, West Billerica, Billerica Village, Pinehurst, Riverdale, Nuttings Lake, and
River Pines.
Some of the neighborhoods that form these sections
of town are Garden City (North Billerica); The Pines (Pinehurst); Indian Hill
(Nuttings Lake); Rio Vista (West Billerica); Pattenville (East Billerica); Fox
Hill (East Billerica); Riverhurst (South Billerica); Pinedale (Pinehurst);
Riverside (West Billerica); Webb Brook (Riverdale) and Glad Valley (Billerica
Village).
Billerica borders the following towns: Chelmsford, Lowell, Tewksbury, Wilmington, Burlington, Bedford, and Carlisle.
The border with Lowell is at a point in the middle of the Concord River
where Billerica, Chelmsford, Lowell and Tewksbury all meet.
The Billerica Public Schools are made up of six
elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school.
The high school colors are green and white and the
athletics teams play in the highly competitive Merrimack Valley Conference.
Their nickname is "Indians". Some of Billerica's big rivals are the
Tewksbury Redmen and the Dracut Middies, their bigggest rival is the Chelmsford
Lions whom the football team plays on Thanksgiving
every year. The rivalry began in 1927 and became a turkey day rivalry in 1938.
Billerica
is also home to the Shawsheen Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School
(Cook Street). This vocational school serves Billerica and four of its
neighboring towns (Bedford, Burlington, Tewksbury & Wilmington). Shawsheen
Tech's colors are purple, black, and white
and they compete with several other voc-tech schools and a few smaller town
schools in the Commonwealth Athletic Conference. Their mascot is the Ram and
their archrival is the Greater Lowell Technical High School of Tyngsboro. Shawsheen is known to be one
of the best vocational schools in the United
States. The school is home to over 18 technical-vocational shops. Many of
these shops compete in the national "tournament", Skills USA.
Shawsheen is home to a bakery, salon, restaurant, and multiple automotive
garages, which are all available for use (space permitting) to the public.
Billerica is twinned
with Billericay, England
VILLAGES OF NORTH BILLERICA & PINEHURST
North
Billerica is an unincorporated village of
the town of Billerica, Massachusetts,
United
States, one of nine villages (sections) that make up the Town of Billerica.
It is the home to Faulkner and Talbot mills and the North Billerica Train
Depot. The Middlesex Canal was built through the village in
1783 and the Boston and Lowell Railroad was put
through in the 1840s.
North
Billerica has its own zip code and post office (01862), this also takes in the
village of West Billerica and parts of River Pines.
The Concord
River flows through North Billerica, and at the old Talbot and Faulkner
Mills is the Mill Pond and Dam marking the area where the old Middlesex Canal
crossed over the river. The Middlesex Canal Museum is located inside the old
Faulkner Mills and plans are underway to build a Middlesex Canal Park along the
Mill Pond from the Dam around to Canal bridge on Rogers Street.
North
Billerica is also home to the oldest remaining homestead in Billerica, the
Manning Manse, built in 1696. The Manse is located on Chelmsford Road (MA Rte 129) about a
quarter mile east of US Route 3 and the Chelmsford Town Line. It is the place
where Minutemen
from New
Hampshire stayed before and after the Battles of Lexington and Concord
in April 1775. It was nearly destroyed by a fire in 1994. Today this tavern is
a private business operating a restaurant and lounge.
North
Billerica also has the Forum Ice Rink on Rte 129 at the Chelmsford Town Line
that is actually owned by the Town of Chelmsford. It was privately owned when
first built in the 1960s and was owned by the University of Lowell from the
late 1970s to the early 1990s when the school changed venues to the new Tsongas
Arena in Lowell. The school played its hockey games at
the rink while still allowing high school and youth hockey teams to use the
facilities. It was sold to Chelmsford after the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
okayed a bill to allow a city or town to own land in another city or town.
Pinehurst is an unincorporated village and a census-designated place (CDP) in the town
of Billerica, Middlesex County, Massachusetts,
United
States. The population was 6,941 at the 2000 census. It is located in the
southeastern part of town along Route 3A between the Shawsheen River and the
Burlington town line. Pinehurst's zip
code is 01866 and is for mail delivery to the Pinehurst PO Station only. Home
and office mail delivery in Pinehurst must use the Billerica, MA zip code
(01821).