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Higginson, Henry, House, photograph from the federal nomination
Higginson, Henry, House, photograph from the federal nomination

Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.

Higginson, Henry, House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.

From the record

“The main road from Lexington to Concord, called in early times " the Bay-road,'* passed through the northerly part of Lincoln and by Captain Smith's house. Probably he was the first to receive intelligence that the royal forces were in motion.”

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880). Machine-read text.

one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 2005 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.

Sources: the county history on the Internet Archive · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 sitess, 3 structuress, 2 buildingss, 1 object as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 44 Baker Farm Rd., Lincoln, 01773
  • When was it listed? 2005-05-26
  • Category. building
  • Township. Lincoln town
  • National Register reference number. 05000468 - 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.

The ground it stands on

13,190 words

The chapter on Lincoln Town in History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names Lincoln. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

HE town of Lincoln is a collection of hills in the heart of Middlesex County. Its centre is about thirteen and one half miles west-northwest from the state house, and its territory is bounded nortli by Bedford, easterly by Lexington and Waltham, southerly by Weston and Wayland, and northwesterly by Concord. Its greatest length is upwards of five, and its greatest breadth about three and one half, miles, and it embraces about eight thousand five hundred acres. The hill on which the meetinghouse stands is four hundred and seventy feet above high-water mark at Boston, and though there are other hills of greater altitude, it is believed to be the highest land in the county whereon men have built themselves habitations. From the summit of this hill, in fine weather, the prospect extends from the seminary buildings in Andover to the churches in Hopkinton, and from Bunker Hill Monument to the New Hampshire hills.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Sandy Pond, a beautiful sheet of water, lies on the western side of the town, and a fine tract of arable land extends from the centre of Lincoln to the borders of Wayland, the quality of which was well known to the Indians, and they repeatedly petitioned to have a town on the easterly shore of Sandy Pond, or the westerly side of Beaver Swamp. The southwestern border of the town is washed for more than a mile by the sluggish waters of Concord River. Brooks which are tributaries to the Concord, Charles, and Shawshiiic rise and flow out, but not a tubful of water comes into the town from any source except the rains and dews of heaven. Two of these brooks acquire sufficient force and volume before leaving the town to furnish water-power for saw and grist mills, and a small mill for sawing marble taken from a quarry near by existed here many years ago ; but the business was not remunerative. Tlie inhabitants of Lmcoln are occupied witli

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lincoln Town - 13,190 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

45 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 45 fires within 5 miles of Higginson, Henry, House between 1992 and 2020, burning about 27 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 1 was 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
Debris and open burning21
Missing data/not specified/undetermined13
Railroad operations and maintenance4
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Arson/incendiarism1
Equipment and vehicle use1
Other causes1
Natural1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
5 September 2020Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2001Naturalunder an acreMinute Man National Historical ParkFISKEHILL
3 August 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
26 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
24 August 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
19 July 2020Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 1,180 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,180 specimens collected within 10 miles of Higginson, Henry, House between 1898 and 1975: 518 Animalia, 356 Plantae, 283 Fungi, 9 Chromista, 6 Unrecorded, 4 Bacteria, 4 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 18221900not recordedWayland
Specimen of Trientalis borealis Raf.Trientalis borealis Raf.1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Antennaria howellii, not of this specimenAntennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer1898Williams, E.F.
A photograph of the species Antennaria parlinii, not of this specimenAntennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Antennaria plantaginifolia, not of this specimenAntennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Boletus griseus, not of this specimenBoletus griseus Frost1898H. Webster
A photograph of the species Agaricus brunnescens, not of this specimenAgaricus brunnescens Peck1900Morris, G. E.Waltham
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.1900Thaxter, RolandStony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
A photograph of the species Betula alleghaniensis, not of this specimenBetula alleghaniensis Britton1900E. F. Williams
A photograph of the species Boletus auriporus, not of this specimenBoletus auriporus Peck1900G. E. Morris
A photograph of the species Boletus badius, not of this specimenBoletus badius (Fr.) Fr.1900G. E. Morris

All 1,180 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Higginson, Henry, House: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Acton PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Pepperell PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this property

6 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lincoln, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2000 and 2022: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 lightning. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2008LightningSouth Lincoln$15,000Lightning struck DeCordova Museum. Unspecified damage was reported.
August 2003Thunderstorm WindLincoln$10,000no account filed
August 2022Thunderstorm WindSouth Lincoln$3,300In Lincoln, two large trees were down with wires down on Old Concord Road. A tree was down on Route 126. A tree was down on wires at the intersection of Huntley Lane and Farrar Road. A large branch was down on the 1400 block of Concord Road.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindLincoln$1,300In Lincoln, a large tree and wires were down on Bedford Road.
May 2010LightningLincoln$100A tool shed was struck by lightning and caught fire.
June 2000Thunderstorm WindLincoln-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Middlesex County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

From the nomination file

16,329 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Statement of significance

Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) x A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. - B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. x C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. - D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: -A owned by religious institution or used for religious purposes. _ B removed from its original location. _ C a birthplace or grave. - D a cemetery. _ E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. _F a commemorative property. _G less than 50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years.

Narrative Statement of Significance (Explain the significance of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) _Middlesex, MAR County and State Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions) Architecture Entertainment/Recreation Social History Period of Significance 1905-1955 Significant Dates 1905-1906 construction 1906-1933 Higginson occupation Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) Cultural Affiliation Architect/Builder Julian Ingersoll Chamberlain 2.

The whole case file for this property - 16,329 words, 58 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 05000468, 58 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Brooks, Daniel, House1.3 miles1973
Flint House1.7 miles2003
Shaw, Thomas Mott, Estate1.8 miles1987
Pest House1.9 miles1977
Hubbard--French District2.0 miles2000
Concord Armory2.0 miles2007

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 05000468 in Record Group 79.
Middlesex CountyAll 1100 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.
  • Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • 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.