Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Fowle-Reed-Wyman House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. 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
“Amos Bobbins was born in West Cambridge (now Arlington), Massachusetts, December 28,1817, and received a limited education in the public schools of the time and locality. At the age of fourteen he became a poultry buyer and dresser for his brother Nathan, who had been for some time established in Faneuil Hall Market in Boston.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (1890). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1975 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.75000244- 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.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Arlington town, The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
The command of the party of exempts is variously attributed to Pavid Lams on, a private soldier from Cambridge during the French War (see Paige, 405, note),* and to Phillips Payson, A.M., pastor of a church in Chelsea [H. U. 1754, D.D. &c.], both of whom were probably present. Bancroft says two wagons sent out to the troops with supplies were waylaid and captured by Payson, the minister of Chelsea.' Gordon, Hist.
Particulars relating to the later years of the towns of West Cambridge and Arlington may not be so full, in certain respects, as some readers might wish ; but the comparative unimportance of the events of recent times in the place, and the increased accessibility of modern local records, are ^considered a suflScient explanation for any such apparent neglect.
In 1655 John Fownell sold to Henry Dunster, thirteen acres of the above laud in Charlestovvn, which he recovered by law, as we have already stated; being a portion of that land, which certain inhabitants of Charlestown, in 164G, gi-anted to Mr. Henry Dunster, President of the College, in Winottamy or Menotomy Field - Cambridge bounds one side, and Mystic Pond and River and Menotomy Brook the other sides. - Midd. Registry, i. 104, 5. This property is now included in the town of Arlington. The present Mystic street' is very near the former Charlestown line, which formed the eastern (or northern) boundary of Cooke's twenty acres, 1G42-1652. See Wyman's Clis. 312.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 72 fires within 5 miles of Fowle-Reed-Wyman House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 98 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
20
Debris and open burning
10
Recreation and ceremony
10
Smoking
2
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
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 1,845 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Fowle-Reed-Wyman House between 1898 and
1975: 798 Animalia, 572 Plantae, 407 Fungi, 30 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 9 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 Fowle-Reed-Wyman House: 7 past producers, 3 plants, 2 producers.
5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Lead, Peat, Clay. 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
Arlington, the town this property stands in, in 11 storm reports between 1998 and 2022: 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 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 microburst occurred in Arlington, downing numerous trees. Most of these trees were downed in an approximately 1 square mile section of eastern Arlington, between the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Broadway and Route 16 around the Cambridge/Arlington line. Numerous houses and vehicles were damaged by downed trees. Traffic signals and street lights were also damaged or downed by falling trees/wind.
Several trees and branches were downed at the corner of Washington and Arnold by thunderstorm winds. A tree was downed onto a car on Howard Street. A large branch on Dudley Street was downed onto wires.
In Arlington, a tree fell into a house on Hamlet Street. A tree was down on Quincy Street. |A tree was down on Allen Street near Broadway. A tree and wires were down on Sunnyside Avenue. A tree limb fell into the side of a house on Davis Avenue.
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
2,755 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 Belcher House as it stands today exhibits from an easterly perspective a structure of First Period character. Later prosperity of its owners has brought about additions to the house resulting in an irregular roofline of gambrel additions. The east elevation of the house, which fronts on Old Mystic Street, is composed of five bays with the windows paired on either side of the central doorway. The roof, gently sagging after several centuries, is topped by a large central chimney- The entrance was altered in the 18th century with molded surround and complete entablature. The transom has four bull's eye lights, two of which are replacements of earlier glass. Clapboards cover the frame except on the north facade where there are shingles.
The house is painted deep red, characteristic of the earth pigments popular during the eighteenth century. Windows and trim are white. An integral lean-to falls from east to west, fully visible only on the north side because of the interruptions of later additions on the south and west elevations. Evidence of the slope of the lean-to can be seen on the interior in the ceiling of the upstairs hallway- The First Period plan of the house is clearly visible, but later additions have changed the main entrance to the south side. The original east entrance now opens into a hallway from which the early box stairway has been removed. On either side are the typical parlor and hall which serve today. as a parlor and dining room.
Exposed summer beams and intersecting corner posts and girts are also First Period reminders as are the wide painted pine floor planks which survive in the upstairs chambers. The plastered ceiling covering the joists indicates a move toward the more formal aspects of eighteenth century houses.
/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Belcher House is the oldest house in Arlington, Massachusetts, and stands on a historic tract of land which was once known as Squaw Sachem's Farm. The present house was built c. 1706 and the surrounding land continued to be farmed until the tur of this century. As a suburban residential community grew up around the house its acreage dwindled and now the building stands on a six-tenths of an acre lot. The various owners of the farm played prominent roles in the development of Arlington and the house and land are significant in the town's history.
The vast tract of land which Squaw Sachem, the widow of the former chief of the Pawtucket Indians, owned was north of the Charles River in what is now Middlesex County, stretching from Charlestown on Massachusetts Bay to beyond Concord. By 1638 Squaw Sachem had conveyed most of her holdings to the English settlers of Charlestown and Cambridge, reserving for herself her homestead of about 500 acres west of the Mystic Ponds. In 1639 she deeded her farm to Jotham Gibbons, son of Captain Edward Gibbons of Charlestown, stipulating that her tribe be allowed to hunt, fish and plant on the land until her death. Early histories of New Ingland indicate that Edward Gibbons, who arrived from major-general of the colony's militia from 1649 to 1651.
His son Jotham was a mariner and had business interest in Boston and Bermuda. After his early death in 1658, Jotham's daughter Love inherited the farm. Love lived in Boston with her first husband William Prout, and following his death she married the Reverend John Fowle of Bermuda. When she died in 1701 Love's 480 acre farm was divided among her eight children.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75000244, 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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