Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Austin Hall
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1972. 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
“Richard Henry (1787-1879) was the author, poet and essayist. He was one of the founders of the North American Review.”
A History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 (1913). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1972 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.72000128- 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.
In October, 1660, the County Court ordered, that the House of Correction, or Bridewell, should be used as a prison for the County, until further provision be made. Such provision was made by the erection of a jail l before Aug. 26, 1692, when it was ordered by the Court, " that the County Treasurer take care that their majesties Goal at Cambridge be repaired, for the comfortable being of what persons may be committed forthwith." 2 It was also ordered, Dec. 14, 1703, " that an addition be made to the prison at the west end thereof, of eighteen foot square, with studs conformable to the old house." A dozen years later, the old part of the prison became so unsatisfactory, that the Court appointed " a committee to agree with carpenters and other workmen to erect and build a good well-timbered house in Cambridge for a Prison, for the accommodation of a keeper, to be thirty-six foot long, and for width agreeable to the foundation of the old Goal or Prison, two storeys high, fifteen foot stud, with a stack of chyrnneys in the middle, to be done and finished workmanlike, as soon as may be conveniently effected Further
Until 1720, the " Common " extended to Linnaean Street, and included also a few acres, lying in a nearly square form, at the northwesterly corner of Linnaean Street and North Avenue.1 This extreme point of the Common was set apart as a " Place of Execution," or " Gallows Lot," as it was more familiarly called. And after the Common was reduced to its present size, and the lots in this square fronting on the streets, had been granted to individuals, about one acre in its extreme northwesterly corner was reserved for its former use, until trials, and imprisonments, and executions were transferred to East Cambridge.2 It was entered from North Avenue through a bridleway or passage, between Lancaster Place and Arlington Street, now called Stone Court.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 69 fires within 5 miles of Austin Hall between
2015 and 2020, burning about 105 acres in total. None started naturally. 28 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
Arson/incendiarism
28
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
17
Debris and open burning
9
Recreation and ceremony
8
Smoking
5
Equipment and vehicle use
1
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 2,064 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Austin Hall between 1898 and
1975: 904 Animalia, 637 Plantae, 459 Fungi, 27 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 8 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
12 workings within 5 miles of Austin Hall: 10 plants, 2 past producers.
10 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Lead, Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium). 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
Cambridge, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 2006 and 2023: 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 3 flash flood, 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.
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
2,611 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.
Description of the property
Austin Hall, built 1881-1883, is the second Harvard University building designed by H.H. Richardson. A basic T plan was used in the execution of this structure built to house the law school. The two storey cental mass with triple arched entrance porch and small circular stair tower is flanked by a pair of simpler, single storey wings. Extending behind the central section, a two storey reading room wing forms the base of the T. The entire building is constructed in light and dark colored Iongmeadow sandstone, with the excep- tion of the yellow Ohio sandstone used in the arches surrounding the entrance. The foundation, string course, sills, lintels and cornice are built of the light sandstone while the dark stone is used for the rest of the bearing wall structure.
The main facade of the central mass is dominated by the three arches over the recessed entrance porch. Above it on the second storey level a row of tall narrow windows separated by rectangular stone mullion crosses the facade. A broad lintel and a continuous sill, above and below the second storey windows, runs across the facade and around the building. Below the sill is a wide band of stone laid in a checkerboard pattern. Still further cuts across the top third of the three narrow first storey windows. This course is actually an extension of the continuous sill below the range of Z windows on the left wing. A two storey semi-attached stair tower breaks through the horizontality of the facade just to the right of the entrance arches.
Three narrow slit windows follow the progress of the stairs on the first floor of the tower while two rows of smaller windows are situated on the second C storey.
Austin Hall was constructed in 1881-1883 to house the Law School of Harvard University. This is the second Harvard building designed by H.H. Richardson, who is generally considered the first great architect to work in a truly American idiom, the style of architecture known as American or taneneraay Richardsonian Romanesque. Richardson is best known for his massive, monu- mental works of stone and brick and for his use of very low arches which rise, in Syrian style, almost from the ground. Although influenced by the Romanesque architecture of Southern France, Richardson's style is a new combination of design elements, widely imitated by his contemporaries and by later architects as well.
Austin Hall is the only stone academic building Richardson ever did and aooordipg to Professor Henry Russe11 Hitchcock "one of Richardson's greatost When he built Austin and Sever Halls, "Richardson repaid his debt to Harvard by constructing the only two buildings in Cambridge worthy to stand with those of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth century." The asymmetrical balance achieved in the main facade of Austin Hall is characteristic of much of Richardson's architecture. The building has a strong horizontal emphasis in the long range of second story windows, the broad continuous lintel above them and the continuous sill below (which ex- tends to form the eaves of the two wings).
Subtler points of emphasis include the horizontal line formed by the capitals of the entrance arches and the string course that runs across the facade to the left of the arches.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 72000128, 12 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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