Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Stone Building
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1976. 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
“Such were tlie opinions expressed, the resokitions adopted, and the measures taken by the people of tliis Province, long before the 19th of April, 1775. It was not the battle of Lexington that gave rise to the llevolution.”
History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from Its First Settlement to 1868, with a Genealogical Register of Lexington Families (1868). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1976 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.76000252- 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 Lexington town, The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
He was first taxed in 1748< He was a member of Capt. Parker's company on the morning of 19 April 1775, and was severely wounded by a bullet which struck his right arm, and so fractured the bone that he was not only disabled for a long time, but pieces of bone were extracted from it for several months afterward.
Of the illustrations bound witli this work, the portraits of Rev. Mr. Hancock, Col. INIunroe, and the author were furnished by their respective descendants ; and those of Theodore Parker, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Follen, and Rev. Mr. Stetson, by their numerous friends resident in the vicinity. The views of dwelling-houses, including the Lexington House, Avere, except as stated below, sup])lied by their present or late owners ; and those of public buildings by citizens' subscriptions.
In the exercise of the powers given to them, the Committee have inserted the following illustrations at the town's expense, viz. : a lithographic portrait of Jonathan Harrington ; wood enjrravinffs of the Clarke House, the old Munroe Tavern, the INIonument, the proposed Monument, and the Battle Scene on the 19th of April ; diagrams of Lexington Common, and the Old North Bridge at Concord, with their surroundings as they were in 1775 ; andy^c similes of the autogi'aphs of twenty-nine men whose names are affixed to public documents which are a part of the History. It was thought that nothing ought to be omitted from the book, which could serve to explain, or invest with additional interest, the events narrated.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 53 fires within 5 miles of Stone Building between
1992 and 2020, burning about 102 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 24 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
24
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
14
Debris and open burning
10
Recreation and ceremony
2
Other causes
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Natural
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 1,990 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Stone Building between 1898 and
1975: 844 Animalia, 636 Plantae, 445 Fungi, 30 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 9 Unrecorded, 9 Chromista. 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
11 workings within 5 miles of Stone Building: 8 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Peat, Clay, Iron. 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
Lexington, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2022: 6 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 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.
Three lanes of Route 128 in Burlington were closed due to flooding. There was also 6 inches of flooding across the all lanes of Route 128 near North Street in Reading.
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
2,589 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 Stone Building (Cary Memorial Library) faces onto Massachusetts Avenue (formerly Main Street), one of the principal roads in East Lexington. It is set back from the road approximately thirty feet and is surrounded by a cir- cular driveway. The Stone Building was designed in 1833 by architect Isaac Melvin of Concord and is said to be his first work. The contractor was John Colby and the car- penter was Curtis Capell. The building is an impressive example of the Greek Revival style. The two-story structure is five bays wide and five bays deep. Its tetrastyle portico is supported by massive fluted Doric columns, and its front pediment contains two quarter-circle windows with finely wrought radiating sash. A series of guttae at the eaves adds further ornament to the pediment.
The main focus of the front facade, and the highlight of the entire building, is the central entrance. The doorway is surmounted by a fanlight and flanked by sidelights. The entrance is further enhanced by Greek fretwork and other detail derived from anthemion and palmette motits, The second-floor window above the doorway echoes the sidelights and Greek detail below. Heavy pilasters add emphasis at either corner of the front facade. The Stone Building is sheathed with white clapboards, and the dark green shuttered windows have six over six lights. Three brick chimneys rise from the ridge roof. The exterior of the building is basically unaltered from its original appearance.
Inside the downstairs floor has been adapted for library purposes, although the upstairs meeting room remains much the same as when it was used for religious and political gatherings. Form No. 10-300a (Rev.
/ARCHITECT Isaac Melvin The Stone Building is significant as one of the early centers of free-thinking and discussion for religious, philosophical and cultural groups in the East Village of Lexington. The building is also the most elaborate Greek Revival structure in East Lexington today. In 1832 Eli Robbins, a wealthy merchant and public spirited citizen of Lexington, saw the need for a public building in the town where lectures, preaching, and other meetings could be held and particularly where freedom of speech, including the current anti-slavery point of view, might be allowed. In the spring of 1833 Robbins engaged Mr.
Isaac Melvin of Concord to design a suitable building located in the "East Village" of Lexington about two miles along the main road from the Battle Green, In the same year citizens of the East Village petitioned the Town Meeting to provide a church and a minister in their own part of town. When no help was given, they formed the "Religious Society of the East Village" and in 1835 they began meeting in the building which Eli Robbins had commissioned. The pastor of the new religious society was the Reverend Charles Follen who had been forced to flee his native Germany because of his radical political activities. In America he became an ardent abolitionist before such views were acceptable in New England, and as a result he lost his position as professor of German at Har- vard College.
In order to give full expression to his religious, moral, and pol- itical opinions, Follen tured to the ministry. After six months of preaching to the Religious Society of the East Village, Follen was called to Watertown, and he sent as his replacement Ralph Waldo Emerson who preached in the hall about two years.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 76000252, 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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