Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Golden Ball Tavern
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
“At the famous Lovewell's Fight with the Pigwacket tribe of Indians, which took place at Pigwacket (Fryeburg), May 8, 1725, Jacob Fulham, who was a sergeant in Captain Lovewell's company, was killed. He lived to an advanced age, and as "Colonel Francis Fulhnm " was moderator of a town-meeting, Marcli £5, 1751.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880). 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.72000141- 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 territory of the original town of Watertown was so extensive that its several parts were very early known by distinct and peculiar names. The lands next west of Beaver Brook were called " the lots in the Further Plain," or the Great Plain (and later Waltham Plain). The Remote or West Pine Meadows were probably in the southern or southeastern parts of Weston. The Lieu of Township Lots, or lots beyond the Further Plain, were west of Waltham Plain, south of the Great Dividends, and extended beyond Stony Brook. The Farms, or Farm Lands, included what remained as far as the Sudbury and Dedham bounds, comprising the main portion of Weston.
In the files of the County Court, is a schedule dated May 10, 1642, containing a list of names of persons to whom ninety-two farms, containing 7,674 acres, were allotted, and mention is made of " farms laid out formerly." The names of the committee do not appear on this schedule, but they do appear, with some half-dozen others, in connection with a range of lots on the south side of the highway. " The first lot in the range, adjoining the Sudbury Line, was that of Bryan Pendleton, by him sold to Peter Noyes, and very early purcJiased by George Munning." Adjoining this on the east were tlie lots of Daniel Pattrick, Simon Eire, Jolm Stowers, Abraham Browne, Jolm Whitney, Edward How, Jeremiah A'orcross, and Thomas Mayhew, who thus appear to have been the earliest proprietors of lands in Weston. The allotment committee seem to have provided farms for themselves and a few friends in advance of the general allotment of May, 1643.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 84 fires within 5 miles of Golden Ball Tavern between
1995 and 2020, burning about 54 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 6 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
31
Debris and open burning
25
Recreation and ceremony
10
Arson/incendiarism
6
Power generation/transmission/distribution
5
Railroad operations and maintenance
3
Smoking
1
Natural
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
Other causes
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 2,005 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Golden Ball Tavern between 1898 and
1975: 1,185 Animalia, 423 Plantae, 360 Fungi, 16 Protozoa, 10 Bacteria, 9 Chromista, 2 Unrecorded. 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
12 workings within 5 miles of Golden Ball Tavern: 10 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Weston, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 9 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 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.
A microburst with winds estimated near 65 mph caused damage in Weston (as well as Waltham and Wellesley). In Weston, multiple large trees and wires were down on Meadowbrook Road. Three large 2-foot oak trees were downed on Summer Street. Large branches were down on North Avenue, Pine Street, and South Street. A big tree was down on Rolling Lane. A 10-inch diameter tree was down on Doublet Hill Road. Two power poles were broken and Eversource, the utility company, was there all night.
A microburst with winds of approximately 65 mph caused damage in Waltham (as well as Weston and Wellesley). In Waltham, three trees were downed and leaning on a house on Florence Road, causing minor damage. A large tree was down on Lincoln Street. Tree branches were down on a house and deck on Keach Terrace. A tree fell onto a vehicle on Vernon Street. Numerous trees were down in the vicinity of Brandeis University.
In Waltham, a car was stuck in flooding on Second Avenue...no water inside the vehicle. At 440 PM EST (540 PM EDT), a portion of Route 128 Southbound at Route 20 was flooded and impassable. Six to twelve inches of water was observed on South Street at Charlesbank Way.
An early morning thunderstorm with unusually frequent cloud to ground lightning moved eastward across the western suburbs of Boston and then directly across the city. In Weston and Newton, several trees and power lines were knocked down by strong winds. Lightning strikes blew out transformers and knocked out power to an estimated 20,000 customers from Sudbury to Boston. Small hail was reported by the National Weather Service at Logan International Airport in Boston. The Boston Fire Department reported its busiest two hours on record as lightning strikes cut off power, triggered alarm systems and heavy rain flooded roads. Lightning detection systems recorded around 20 cloud to ground strikes per minute or around 1,200 strikes per hour, continuing for more than an hour.
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
4,646 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
The Golden Ball Tavern, built in 1768, stands on the Boston Post Road in Weston. It is probably the best example in the town of the final phase of Georgian Colonial architecture. The main portion of this clapboard house, measuring 38 by 42 feet, is a two-story, five by three bay structure with a high, double-hip roof and twin interior chimneys. Each facade of the house is broken by regularly spaced 12/12 sash windows and a center door. On the main (north) facade, the door is flanked by simple pilasters which support a full entablature with a modillioned cornice. Five transom lights break the entabla- ture. A cornice similar to that above the entablature runs around the main block of the Tavern at the eave line.
A golben ball, the trademark of the Tavern, hangs from a metal bracket mounted above this doorway. An ell was added to the eastern end qf the house at an early date. A large two-story ell, originally aseparate house, was added to the western end of the Tavern about 1800 and is thought to predate it. Adjoining this western ell are two other structures which have recently been converted into an apartment for a custodian. The barn, whose frame includes five pairs of gunstock posts, is the only other building still standing on the Tavern property. The barn is believed to date from the same period as the main house. M The house plan is basically that of two rooms on either side of a central - hall. Each of the rooms has a fireplace.
Two additional fireplaces originally z faced each other in the attic; one is still intact. The twin chimneys rest on barrel arches in the basement.
The Golden Ball Tavern, probably the best example in the Town of Weston of the final phase of Georgian Colonial architecture, was built in 1768 by Captain Isaac Jones. Though Jones was a prominent citizen, even serving as Selectman in 1772, it was his reputation as a Tory sympathizer in the " period immediately before the American Revolution that involved him in the events which give the Tavern its primary historical significance. On March 28, 1774, three months after a similar "social event" in Boston, the Golden Ball was the scene of the Weston Tea Party. Captain Jones was rumored to be selling tea on which he had paid the British duty. A group of townspeople gathered in disguise at the Golden Ball to relieve Captain Jones of his stock of tea.
Finding neither Captian Jones nor the tea, the group broke windows, ransacked the house and helped themselves to the taproom supplies before returning home. No further incidents occurred until the following year when General Gage decided to seize rebel arsenals before they became dangerously large. In February, 1775, Gage sent Captain William Brown and Ensign Henry de Berniere to estimate the preparedness of the countryside between Boston and Worcester, where military supplies had been stored by the Liberty men. The spies stayed overnight at the Golden Ball on their way to Worcester and on their return. Here they prepared the reports and sketches which General Gage had requested. later another British spy arrived at the Golden Ball on a similar mission.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 72000141, 17 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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