Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
First Presbyterian Society Meeting House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
2010. 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
“At the Annual Town Meeting, held March 20, 1905, a committee was chosen, consisting of Mr. Putnam, to consider Millbury's past history, especially its industries, with a view to the publication of a history of the town.”
Centennial History of the Town of Millbury, Massachusetts, Including Vital Statistics, 1850-1899 (1915). Machine-read text.
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 2010 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.10000722- 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.
At the Annual Town Meeting, held March 20, 1905, a committee was chosen, consisting of Mr. George F. Chase, chairman, Mr. John C. Crane, Mr. Ira N. Goddard, Mr. George W. Mallalieu, and the Rev. George A. Putnam, to consider Millbury's past history, especially its industries, with a view to the publication of a history of the town. Accordingly, at intervals in the succeeding years this committee met and made plans for the compilation of such a work. One member of the committee, Mr. John C. Crane, had already for many years been privately gathering literary material pertaining to the industries, institutions, and individuals of the town, and this collection became the nucleus for the present volume. For a year Mr. Crane continued his labors of compilation and read his manuscript to the committee regularly at its meetings and, in recognition of his enthusiastic and patient work, the committee voted to express its appreciation of the "valuable, devoted and loving labors of Mr. John C. Crane in compiling the History of Millbury."
In the preparation of such a history the stoppingplace is largely an arbitrary one, as there is always more description of places, people, or events, that might be included and more painstaking care may ever be exercised in revising the manuscript, but the committee presents the history of the town believing that the book gives a true idea of Millbury happenings, together with such particular chronicles of people, societies, and institutions, as to leave little of importance that remains uncovered.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 68 fires within 5 miles of First Presbyterian Society Meeting House between
2002 and 2020, burning about 54 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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
Debris and open burning
19
Smoking
13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
11
Recreation and ceremony
10
Power generation/transmission/distribution
5
Arson/incendiarism
5
Railroad operations and maintenance
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,585 specimens
collected within 10 miles of First Presbyterian Society Meeting House between 1839 and
1974: 953 Plantae, 356 Animalia, 244 Fungi, 14 Unrecorded, 14 Protozoa, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
23 workings within 5 miles of First Presbyterian Society Meeting House: 15 past producers, 5 producers, 2 plants, 1 unknown.
7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Titanium, Metal. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Millbury, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 4 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 2 hail, 1 flash flood.
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.
A car was stuck in flood waters on Sutton Avenue in Northbridge. The Blackstone River at Millbury overflowed its banks near Route 146, flooding portions of the northbound lanes. The intersection of Routes 140 and 122A was flooded after the Blackstone River overflowed its banks in Grafton. The Mill River in Mendon overflowed its banks flooding the Bellingham Street Bridge.
In Worcester at 3:17 AM EST Rt 20 was closed in both directions due to flooding at Grafton St. At 3:40 AM EST an area of 500 Main St was flooded in Sturbridge.
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.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned sheet.
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.) XA 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: X 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.) Areas of Significanc (Enter categories from instructions RELIGION _COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE Period of Significance 1828-1960 Significant Dates 1828 building dedicated 1862 reorientation of interior Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) Cultural Affiliation Architect/Builder _Carter, Elias (original architect/builder) LaMotte & Son, Inc. (1947 renovation architect) 2.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 10000722, 66 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.
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.
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