Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
First Baptist Church
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
“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 1975 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.75000249- 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 61 fires within 5 miles of First Baptist Church between
2015 and 2020, burning about 102 acres in total. None started naturally. 23 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
23
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
15
Debris and open burning
9
Recreation and ceremony
7
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 2,032 specimens
collected within 10 miles of First Baptist Church between 1898 and
1975: 894 Animalia, 629 Plantae, 445 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 First Baptist Church: 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
2,096 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
Set off by itself on a triangle of land at a major intersection, the First Baptist Church is the focal point of Cambridge's Central Square. Built of brick in the Gothic Revival style, the church was designed by the prominent Boston firm of Hartwell and Richardson, and constructed in 1881. Extensively surveyed by HABS in 1968, the church is in nearly original con- aition. Ihe two-story L-shaped building faces north and is conceived in twg partsst the church proper, with its central entrance portico, vestibule, tBand northeast corner tower, runs north-south. ject out 12'. The southern part of the building runs east-west, the west end projecting out beyond the west wall of the church proper.
This section contains a parish hall, office, study, kitchen, and meeting rooms on the Iirst floor, with meeting rooms and access to the church balconies on the The two sections of the church are connected by a hall with Theinterior retains its fine woodwork, stained glass windows, elaborate ventilator grates and some original gas fixtures. Original wall and ceiling colors have not been changed. Set on a foundation of grey granite blocks, the two-story church is topped by a grey slate ridge roof with bands of red slate. The exterior brick- work is basically common bond but there are also wide and narrow bands of basketweave, sawtooth and recessed brick on all elevations.
Terra cotta decorations, in the form of leaves and flowers, are found on drip molds (above all windows) and finials (which top each gable and spire). But- tresses of various heights encircle the building. The Gothic gabled center entrance portico contains a double wooden door with tracery above. It is reached by a straight flight of 12' long granite stairs.
/ARCHITECT Hartwell and Richardson The First Baptist Church is significant as a local landmark on a prominent urban site and as the best example of a Gothic Revival church in the City of Cambridge. The church was designed by Hartwell and Richardson. The building itself replaced two former Baptist churches on the same property. The original First Baptist Meetinghouse was built in 1817 but burned in 1866. It was replaced the same year with a brick Gothic Revival church designed by S. S. Woodcock. Unfortunately, this church burned in 1881, but, as before, was replaced in the same year. Though of a similar design and partially built on the same foundation, the 1881 structure was larger than its precursor and its walls were especially constructed with fire retardation in mind.
The 19th century Baptist parish in Cambridge was a large one and both the 1866 and 1881 churches seated 1,000 people. Central Square has suffered considerable decline through the 20th century, and has lost a good deal of its 19th century fabric through demolition and/or exterior defacement. While a few noteworthy buildings remain in the Square, they are irregularly spaced throughout. on a triangle of land at a major intersection, the First Baptist Church 1s both a visual landmark and a reminder of higher architectural standards and more prosperous times.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75000249, 10 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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