Ward House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. 7 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1899.

From the record

“Ward House, also known as the William Allen House, is a historic home located at Westfield in Chautauqua County, New York. It is a 2-story, L-shaped brick Italian Villa-style residence built in the late 1860s.”
Wikipedia article Ward House (Westfield, New York), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 50 National Register listings published here for Chautauqua County · listed in 1983 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. 118 W. Main St., Westfield, 14787
When was it listed? September 1983
Category. building
Also known as. Westfield Village MRA
Town. Westfield town
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 83001657 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

76 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 76 fires within 5 miles of Ward House between 2002 and 2020, burning about 40 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 17 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	32
Arson/incendiarism	17
Debris and open burning	9
Natural	6
Recreation and ceremony	5
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Smoking	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
28 September 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
25 September 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
21 September 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
21 September 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
12 September 2007	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
5 August 2016	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
4 August 2007	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Chautauqua County

Storms near this property

24 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Westfield, the town this property stands in, in 24 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 19 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2010	Tornado (EF2)	Westfield	$5,000,000	An NWS ground and aerial survey confirmed an EF2 tornado.
November 2011	Tornado (EF2)	Westfield	$350,000	A NWS storm survey confirmed a tornado touched down.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$25,000	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$20,000	no account filed
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$18,000	Thunderstorms with damaging winds, downpours and lightning moved onshore from Lake Erie resulting in damage over parts of extreme western Chautauqua County. The thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines. The downed tree limbs damaged three cars in Westfield.
September 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$15,000	Law enforcement reported trees down by thunderstorm winds along Route 20 in Westfield.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$15,000	Law enforcement reported a tree down on a house.
February 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$15,000	no account filed
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$15,000	no account filed
January 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$12,000	Law enforcement reported trees and power lines down.
September 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	Law enforcement reported trees and power lines downed by thunderstorm winds.
November 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	Reports of trees down in Westfield were received from the general public.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	no account filed
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	no account filed
September 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$10,000	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Westfield	$8,000	no account filed
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$7,000	Thunderstorms with damaging winds, downpours and lightning moved onshore from Lake Erie resulting in damage over parts of extreme western Chautauqua County. The thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines. The downed tree limbs damaged three cars in Westfield.
May 2013	Hail	Westfield	$5,000	no account filed
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$2,000	Trees fell and took down power lines.
September 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$2,000	Multiple trees and wires were reported down.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$500	A tree was downed on Union Street.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Westfield	$500	A large tree was downed across Academy Street.
April 2019	Hail	Westfield	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Chautauqua County

Maps showing this location

7 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1899 USGS Westfield quadrangle1:62500 - 6 printings
1954 USGS Westfield quadrangle1:24000 - 5 printings
1960 USGS Buffalo quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Buffalo quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1967 USGS Buffalo quadrangle1:250000
1973 USGS Buffalo quadrangle1:250000
1986 USGS Jamestown quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Nixon Homestead	under 500 feet	1983
L. Bliss House	0.2 miles	1983
Atwater-Stone House	0.3 miles	1983
Rorig Bridge	0.3 miles	1983
French Portage Road Historic District	0.4 miles	1983
Harriet Campbell-Taylor House	0.5 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83001657 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Chautauqua County	All 50 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.