Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Powder House Park
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
“The citizens now began to awaken to a sense of the importance of this appendage of Charlestown. They felt that their territory was neglected by the town government, and their wishes disregarded; that they were taxed for supporting institutions, and making improvements in the benefits of which they did not participate, and that they did not receive returns at all commensurate with the amount of money they contributed.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County (1880). 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.75000287- 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 surface is uneven, and rises into no less than eight considerable elevations, of which Prospect, Winter, Spring, and Central hills, and Mount Benedict are the principal. The soil is various, and in many places excellent for cultivation. Good sand for building purposes is abundant, and a vein of clay, suitable for brickmaking, underlies much of the surface. The only stratified rock to be found in Somerville is slate. The intrusive rocks, cropping out in numerous ledges, in which occur an unusual variety of minerals, are entirely diabase. The formation is particularly rich in dikes.
At the founding of Charlestown in 1628, and for the first ten years, the area of the peninsula generally sufficed for the wants of the settlers; but when, in 1637, land became so scarce within the neck tiiat new-comers were rarely granted more than a citizensliip, purchases were made of the Indians, and settlements began to extend upon the mainland. Tiie territory north and east of the Charles River was then owned by the Pawtucket Indians ; and by payment of thirty-six shillings in 16-37, and twenty-one coats, nineteen fathoms of wampum, and three bushels of corn, two years later to Squa Sachem and Webcowit, rulers of the tribe, the latter were well satisfied to relinquish to the town of Charlestown all the territory that is now Somerville. A few settlers had established themselves on the mainland from the earliest period.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 85 fires within 5 miles of Powder House Park between
2015 and 2020, burning about 111 acres in total. None started naturally. 30 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
30
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
23
Debris and open burning
12
Recreation and ceremony
11
Smoking
6
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 1,771 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Powder House Park between 1898 and
1975: 753 Animalia, 553 Plantae, 398 Fungi, 29 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
14 workings within 5 miles of Powder House Park: 9 plants, 4 past producers, 1 producer.
10 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Lead, Gypsum-Anhydrite, Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Somerville, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 2006 and 2021: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 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.
Water flooded Medford Street up to the roof of a vehicle. Two vehicles were stuck in flood waters on Medford Street. In addition, a large sinkhole opened up as a result of the flooding. This resulted in the street closing through Wednesday, December 10 while crews figured out how to repair the sinkhole.
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
2,439 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 Nathan Tufts Park in Somerville is located near a busy intersection ef roads leading to Medford, Arlington, Cambridge, änd Boston. To the south, east, and north of the park are early twentieth century houses, to the northwest is an open scar field, and to the west is a row of stores. The park is pleasantly landscaped taking advantage of the natural rocky formation, an old quarry with a variation in elevation of about 100 feet. Benches mark the paved walkways and the park contains elm trees, maples, evergreens, and shrubbery. Iwo small areas have been set aside as tot lots with playground equipment. Iwo structures are contained with- in the park, the Powder House (c. 1704-1720) and the Fieldhouse (1935).
The Powder House sits on the edge of the old "Iwo Penny Brook Quarry" and was built of stone quarried there. The bluestone walls of the cylindrical base are two feet thick, with brick lining the interior. on the northeast side, which was reinforced with cinderblock c. 1900. A higher opening on the southwest was also reinforced. The interior has a modern concrete floor, and a modern beam was added to support the roof. The conical roof is now shingled with composition roofing and a flag flies from a twenty foot pole at the roof's peak. The Fieldhouse, built by the Work Project Administration, is located north- northwest of the Powder House and directly opposite Powder House Circle.
The one story ridge roof structure is approximately fifty feet by twenty-two feet and has a small cylindrical tower, six feet in diameter, on the northeast corner. The building is constructed of stone, and the roof is slate on the north facade and composition shingles on the back.
c.1710, 1774, 1935 BUILDER/ARCHITECT The Nathan Tufts Park derives its primary significance from the Powder House This was built as a mill between 1704 and 1720 and its location at the crossroads among Charlestown, Menotomy, Cambridge and Mystic lent itself to use by farmers for miles around. In 1747, the old mill was sold to the Province of Massachusetts for use as a ana4, hensaae aage le use ed to inta lators naieicane of the Colony's store of powder were taken. The next day people from all the adjoining communities met, bearing arms for the first time, on the Cambridge Common. During the following war years, the powder house was a magazine for the revolutionary forces.
In 1822, the mill/powder house returned to private owners as part of property purchased by the Tufts' family, benefactors of neighboring Tufts University. For several decades, much concern was expressed about the fate of the powder house, but it was not until 1890 that it returned to public ownership. This happened when the heirs of Nathan Tufts deeded the structure and 65,000 square feet of land to the City of Somerville. Conditions included the city buying additional adjoining land and designating all of it as Nathan Tufts Park.
Nathan Tufts Park owes its preservation to the Powder House; without the latter, this five acres would probably have been subdivided along with the adjoining area around the turn of the century- The Fieldhouse, much more recently erected (1935) in Powder House Park is significant for different reasons.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75000287, 15 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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