Miscellany Mondays: Lupine Road Reservation
Recreation at the Shawsheen River
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Andover has always been connected to its river, the Shawsheen. In a letter from English investor Matthew Craddock to Governor John Winthrop in 1636, Craddock asked for a grant of land “at a place called Shawe Shynn.”1 Andover wasn’t settled until 1642 nor incorporated until 1646.
Since the early days of European settlement, the river powered mills and provided nutrient-rich soil for agriculture. Mixed in is a long history of recreation, and few sites exemplify that history like the Lupine Road Reservation.
Located near the Ballard-Foster House and north of Central Street, the Lupine Road Reservation is close to downtown and former industrial areas up and downstream.
Early users of the river included students at nearby schools. Kids at Master William Foster’s School regularly bathed near the Lupine Reservation.2 Boys from Phillips Academy did the same. Oliver Wendell reminisced on local landmarks, including the Shawsheen, in his poem “The School Boy.” Here is an excerpt from the poem, describing his observations as a boy:
“Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine
Do the young bathers splash and think they’re clean?”3
Europeans weren’t the first to recognize the Shawsheen River’s aesthetic qualities. Shawsheen means “Beauty’s Pathway” in the indigenous, likely Abenaki language.4 Sarah Bailey, author of the definitive town history, says it means “Great Spring.”5
In the late 1800s, James and son Hartwell B. Abbott maintained the riverbank as a meadow. Hartwell gave his land to his newly-wed daughter Elizabeth in 1878. The town built Lupine Road, originally called Railroad Street for its proximity to the Boston and Maine, in 1880.6
The road received its current name in 1911. Lupine Road takes its name from the blue lupine, a once common plant of the adjacent meadows.7
Elizabeth was the last to own the larger piece of land originally maintained by her grandfather. After her husband died in 1908, she subdivided the property.
In 1910, a new hobby took root at Lupine: canoeing. That year, Horace Hale Smith founded the Andover Canoe Club. He purchased a tract of land owned by Elizabeth Abbott Pratt and built a home at 54 Lupine Road. His land included the riverbank where he built a boathouse and boat launch for his club, designed by John Broderick.
The Andover Canoe Club had 50 canoes by 1916 and rented them to its members for 10 cents per hour. With a canal they dug, paddlers could travel from their boathouse to Pomps Pond. They had annual meetings, elected officers, and hosted regattas.
The Andover Canoe Club was the largest of its kind north of Boston.
The club expanded its breadth beyond canoes. Also in 1916, they launched a motorized boat called the “William Ballard” to take people on river tours. It held up to 30 passengers at a time.
The club’s heyday was short. In 1921, founder Horace Smith and wife Bessie left Andover for Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Along with the remaining interests held by Elizabeth Pratt, they divided their properties into 50-59 Lupine Road.
Each parcel was either an upland lot with a house or a vacant, riverside lot. All were less than an acre each. The boathouse was in limited use until 1938 and demolished in the 1940s. Only the foundation remained.
The future seemed bleak for Lupine until the 1960s when a new demand for recreational areas brought the Andover Village Improvement Society (AVIS) to the site.
From 1961 to 1970, AVIS purchased each small, less-than-an-acre piece of land with river frontage from their respective owners. While much smaller than the neighboring Shawsheen River Reservation, purchased by AVIS in 1963, it still protected a valuable part of the river and brought recreational activities back to Lupine.8
Today the only evidence of the Andover Canoe Club is the boathouse’s foundation and a plaque installed by AVIS at the site. The small reservation sits below the road, level with the river, and is popular with fishermen/women. If fishing doesn’t catch your fancy, visitors can admire the stone arched train bridge across the river.
Shawsheen River Watershed Association, “The Shawsheen and Merrimack Rivers,” Shawsheen River Watershed Association, Shawsheen River Watershed Association, accessed April 16, 2021, https://shawsheenriver.net/the-shawsheen-river/.
David Lee Child and William Person, Life and Letters, together with Poetical and Miscellaneous Pieces of the Late William Person, a student of Harvard University (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1820), 79, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Life_and_Letters/7PRBAAAAYAAJ.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The School-boy (Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879), 57-61, https://archive.org/details/schoolboy00holmrich.
Gail Ralston, “Legends and Ghosts of the Shawsheen River,” Andover Center for History and Culture, August 3, 2016, https://www.andoverhistoryandculture.org/andover-stories/legends-and-ghosts-of-the-shawsheen-river.
Sarah Loring Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover (Comprising the Present Towns of North Andover and Andover), Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1880), 2, https://archive.org/details/historicalsketch00bail.
James S. Batchelder, “55 - 57 - 59 Lupine Road,” Andover Historic Preservation, Andover Preservation Committee, March 29, 2014, https://preservation.mhl.org/55-57-59-lupine-road.
Juliet Haines Mofford, AVIS: A History in Conservation (Andover, MA, Andover Village Improvement Society, 1980), 77.
Batchelder, “55 - 57 - 59 Lupine Road.”
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with this interesting history of Lupine. It really brings the history of this preserved reservation to life. Articles like these foster in all of us a deeper connection and appreciation of the land that we have left.
It's a beautiful place. I drive past it on my way to work.