Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Fernald, George P., House
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
“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 1976 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.76000258- 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 76 fires within 5 miles of Fernald, George P., House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 100 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
12
Recreation and ceremony
9
Smoking
3
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 1,835 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Fernald, George P., House between 1898 and
1975: 802 Animalia, 567 Plantae, 400 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
12 workings within 5 miles of Fernald, George P., House: 7 plants, 4 past producers, 1 producer.
8 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
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
2,456 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 George Fernald House (1894) occupies the entire top of Rock Hill in Medford on a lot of 27,000 square feet which has. ar dommanding view of the surrounding area. The George Fernald House is a Georgian Revival structure with an overall length (north to south) of 108 feet. The clapboard house is set on a rubble stone foundation. The main (east) facade is of five-part Palladian design - a central section, rectangular pavilions at each end, and connecting one-story sections. The central portion is two and one-half stories high and five bays wide. It is set on a high basement and capped by a hip roof. Extending out from the facade is a pedimented portico supported by four Ionic columns. The portico is set on a high basement covered by vertical boarding.
The boarding outlines three low-rising arches with keystones. These are enclosed by lattice work, creating the effect of a blind arcade. Set above the basement is a wooden floor from which the four columns rise to support an entabla- ture with modillioned cornice. Above this is the pediment, enclosed by vertical boarding and with mouldings identical to those of the cornice. The central entrance has an elaborate Federal period frame consisting of two fluted Ionic pilasters supporting an entablature whose cornice is decorated with a band of Greek fretwork. Above this is a broken pediment with modillioned cornice. A fanlight above the door extends upwards into the pedimented area and has a decorated keystone at its top.
The windows on the first floor are nine-over-six double hung sash headed with wooden lintels and keystones. The second floor windows are six-over-six sash, except for the center window which is flanked by four-pane casement windows.
: Lewis H. Lovering STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The George Fernald House is significant as Medford's most elaborate and grand statement of Georgian Revival architecture, and particularly because it makes use of both new and period materials. Due to its prominent location at the top of Rock Hill, the building has become a local landmark. In 1894 George Fernald and his brother Albert, both architects, purchased the land at the top of Rock Hill and built the house. Many of the details of the house were salvaged from a Providence, Rhode Island,Federal period house which was demolished in the 1890's. The front doorway and window lintels and possibly the Palladian window on the west facade were taken from the salvage.
Interior fittings taken from the Providence house include several Federal mantelpieces, doors, mouldings, wainscotting and the main staircase. In addition to his use of period materials, Fernald modelled parts of the house on direct Georgian/Federal precedent. The original dining room is one and one-half stories high with a plaster, barrel vaulted ceiling; its design is clearly based on that of the Ball Room at the "Count Rumford House". in North Woburn: The pedimented, two-story portico which was originally flanked by curved staircases resembles details of the White House in Washington, D.C. The western facade originally faced a series of formal gardens which had been laid out to take advantage of the hilly site.
Old photographs show that the gardens' plan was heavily influenced by Fernald's lifelong interest in Sicily and its landscape. He pub- lished an article on "Sicilian Hill Gardens" in The Architectural Record in which the illustrations show Fernald's design sources.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 76000258, 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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