The following recollections of growing up in North Billerica were written by Matthew Harvey Kohlrausch, who was born 1859.

When I was a boy, in the North Village, Elm Street only extended to the McCool House, and we went through grain fields by the Field Way to the 4th District School located near the present corner of Wilson Street and Talbot Avenue. This building is now a part of the second story of the meat market. In this school were pine desks painted green.

They had a bottom and a sloping top with a flat place at the upper edge. The backs were extended down to form the backs of pine plank seats. There were settles against the wall that were open underneath and two School Committee chairs. The desks were so much whittled up by the boys that we had to occasionally smooth up a new place for our initials.

The only road, Colson Street, was The Roadway, and there was no bridge at The Fordway (Pollard Street). Mr. Ham’s old house was just like The Manning Manse. It stood at the road bend as it swung around toward the Boston Road. At an earlier date this was the Carleton House from which Henry Carleton went to Sutton, New Hampshire and married a Greeley. Their daughter, Margaret, who was my mother’s own cousin, married Alfred Pillsbury who founded the Minneapolis Flour Mills. It is said that his great success grew out of the purchase of a roller mill devised by one of his operatives that would grind the hard wheat of that region successfully.

Here at the Fordway with rapids and falls near was the only good river crossing for any miles and excellent fishing. Here and at Call’s Hill nearby was a celebrated Indian meeting place where many Indian relics have been found. I saw three skeletons dug up opposite the Talbot School and others have been found nearer the river, and the charcoal of old campfires has been found during road construction.