Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Hillside Avenue Historic District
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
“Medford owes its first settlement to the influence of Governor Cradock and Governor Winthrop. The first gentleman was the richest individual attached to the New England Company; and he gave his money with the freedom of an enthusiast.”
History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts : from Its First Settlement, in 1630, to the Present Time, 1855 (1855). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1975 · category: District · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.75000276- 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 writing this History, it has been my -wish to secure Medford such territory in time as its acres are territory in space. The gathering of these annals has been too long delayed. Time, moth, and rust have done thenfatal work on many valuable materials ; and some gentlemen, who felt a deep interest in their native town, have died without leaving any manuscript testimonies. When the history of New England shall be written, the true data will be drawn from the records of its towns. Now, therefore, in humble imitation of those States in our Union which have contributed each its block of granite, marble, or copper to the National Monument at Washington, I ask leave to offer Medford's historical contribution to the undecaying pyramidic monument which justice and genius will hereafter raise to the character and institutions of New England.
The records of the first forty years are lost. I have reproduced them, as far as I could, from documents in the General Court relating to our earliest history ; from several monuments of the first settlers, which are yet standing among us ; from authentic traditions which were early recorded ; and from collateral histories of the neighboring towns. To find the lost, and remember the forgotten, seems to be the province of the local annalist. From the moment I reached the first town-records of Medford (1674), I implicitly followed those excellent guides. Where I could save space by abbreviations, without altering the sense, I have occasionally done so in my quotations, and have used our modern orthography. The spirit of antiquarian research, now beginning to show itself, will lead to the discovery of many facts concerning the early history of Medford which are beyond my reach. These may soon render necessary a new history of the town ; and I hope it may be undertaken by a person whose ability and leisure will enable him to do far greater justice to the subject than has been within my power.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 79 fires within 5 miles of Hillside Avenue Historic District between
2015 and 2020, burning about 101 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
22
Debris and open burning
13
Recreation and ceremony
10
Smoking
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Equipment and vehicle use
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 1,793 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Hillside Avenue Historic District between 1898 and
1975: 800 Animalia, 543 Plantae, 384 Fungi, 28 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
18 workings within 5 miles of Hillside Avenue Historic District: 10 plants, 5 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown.
12 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Lead, Gypsum-Anhydrite. 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
Medford, the town this property stands in, in 20 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 1 flash flood, 1 hail.
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.
Trees were downed on Corey Street and Riverside Avenue. A telephone pole was downed onto Massachusetts Avenue and wires on Lawrence Street were downed, all by thunderstorm winds.
At 12:52 AM EST, a large tree was down on a car and laying across Auburn Street in Medford. At the same time, a tree was reported down on Summer Street and a large tree was down on George Street.
In Winchester, a large tree was down on a house, which took the chimney off the house on Alden Lane. A tree was down on Cambridge Street by the boat club. A tree was down on wires on wires on the 30 block of Allen Road. Trees and wires were down on Ledyard Road. A tree was down on the 70 block of Lawson Road.
In Medford, multiple trees were reported downed. In Somerville, a tree was down on a house on Vernon Street and a large branch was down on power lines on Walker Street.
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
3,687 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 Hillside Avenue Historic District is located on the southern slope of a steep hill slightly west of Medford Square, with views of Tufts University and College Hill to the south and Boston, Charlestown, and Somerville to the east. The area contains twenty houses on Hillside Avenue and Grandview Avenue. The district is set off physically and visually from the surrounding houses by a fifteen foot cliff and although some of the buildings north and east of the area are early twentieth century structures, there are many modern intrusions. The Bela Warner House (8) is the visual center of the district. Located on top of the hill this 2½ story shingle and clapboard building, constructed c. 1884, combines architectural elements from the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival and Shingle styles.
The main entrance is recessed, with carvings on the arch over the door. A bas-relief of a large carved sheaf of wheat is situated off center over the door, and the fenestration of the house is irregular. Hillside Avenue, lined with eleven eclectic houses also in the district, leads up the hill to the front of the Warner House. On the west side of Hillside Avenue are seven houses. Four were built by Frank Hervey, two as investments (1,2) and two as Hervey's residence (4) and stable(3). The former were originally identical: Judor Revival 22 story, gable end to the street, shingled houses. 16 Hillside Avenue (1) is now painted green with yellow trim; its neighbor has brown shingles.
The Frank Hervey residence (4) is a 3 story building with two intersecting gambrel roofs and an octagonal tower. It has both Palladian thestable), now converted into a two family dwelling, has stories. It was extensively altered and is now covered with pale blue aluminum siding.
/ARCHITECT multiple STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Hillside Avenue Historic District in Medford is a significant late nineteenth century planned development. It contains twenty substantial architect-designed houses built in a wide range of styles for business people who communted to downtown Boston by train. Laid out as early as 1875 on land formerly belonging to Thatcher Magoun's estate, the Hillside Avenue area was not heavily developed until after 1889. Between 1875 and 1880 Nicholas White, an Irish stone mason who is credited with the construction of Richardson's Grace Church in Medford, built a stone house (19) near the crest of the hill.
Originally this house was approached from a road on its east side; however, in the 1880's with the creation of Grand View Avenue, its driveway was moved to its west side. The house, with its three story tower, crenellated entrance bay, and granite construction is unique in Medford. Around 1884 the Bela Warner House (8) was built at the head of Hillside Avenue. Thought to have been designed by an architect named Hayes, the style oi the Warner House is eclectic, drawing elements from Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, and Shingle styles of architecture.
Its visual dominance was a suitable expression of Warner's rise to wealth as the President of the Eastern Salt Company- No other buildings were constructed in the area until 1889-90 when Frank Hervey, a Medford grocer, constructed a house and stable (3,4) on the west side of Hillside Avenue. At the same time Manfred E. Nichols, a dry goods merchant, had an elaborate Queen Anne style house and stable (14) built to plans drawn by Coburn & Sons, architects, of Lewiston, Maine, on a site at the south bend of Grand View Avenue.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75000276, 22 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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