Built in 1909 in the Renaissance Revival architecture. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1978. 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
“Methuen Memorial Music Hall, initially named Serlo Organ Hall, is a music hall built by Edward Francis Searles to house "The Great Organ", a very large pipe organ originally built for the Boston Music Hall. The hall was completed in 1909, and stands at 192 Broadway in Methuen, Massachusetts.”
Wikipedia article Methuen Memorial Music Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · built in 1909, Renaissance Revival architecture, by Henry Vaughan · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.78000462- 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.
Fires near this property
85 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 85 fires within 5 miles of Methuen Memorial Music Hall between
1992 and 2020, burning about 47 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 10 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
23
Smoking
18
Misuse of fire by a minor
10
Arson/incendiarism
10
Debris and open burning
6
Recreation and ceremony
5
Equipment and vehicle use
5
Railroad operations and maintenance
4
Power generation/transmission/distribution
3
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 996 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Methuen Memorial Music Hall between 1816 and
1975: 569 Plantae, 310 Animalia, 106 Fungi, 4 Chromista, 4 Protozoa, 3 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A Brown, A S Gaunt, A. C. Mathieson 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
6 workings within 5 miles of Methuen Memorial Music Hall: 3 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 producer, 1 plant.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper, Perlite. 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
Methuen, the town this property stands in, in 27 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 15 thunderstorm wind, 5 flash flood, 3 lightning, 3 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.
Two to three inches of rain fell in only a couple of hours and produced significant urban flash flooding. In Methuen, Riverside Drive by the boat ramp was closed due to flooding and several cars were stranded. Route 213 at I-495 was flooded and cars were stuck in the roadway. In Haverhill, the area near Laurel and Railroad Avenues was flooded with four feet of water and a car was stranded in flood waters. The intersection of Primrose and Dexter Avenues was impassable. In Peabody, several roads were impassable due to flooding which included Allens Lane, Walnut Street, Prospect Street near the North Shore Mall, Foster Street, Tremont Street, and Margin Street. In Danvers, Wildwood Road was flooded. In Lynn, a portion of Boston Street was flooded.
A tree on North Lowell Street in Methuen was downed by thunderstorm winds. Also, a large tree limb was downed onto Curtis Street near the intersection with Jackson 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
2,444 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
Methuen Memorial Music Hall is located on Broadway (Mass. Route 28) on the north bank of the Spicket River, just south of the town center. The nominated property is approximately 7/8 of acre and informally landscaped. Ihe monumentally scaled, Renalssance Revival structure has a Latin cross plan and 1s bullt of brick on a granite foundation. Ihe slate ridge roof has gently flared leaves and a modillioned cornice. Projecting pavilions with cross gable roofs act as the arms of the cross. A continuous sandstone stringcourse encircles the structure dividing the grand scaled hall from a second floor. The facade faces east towards Broadway and is dominated by the balancing elements of the attached tower and projecting pavilion. The tower is built in 3 stages.
The first, stage includes the principal entrance. This entrance is round arched and framed by a pedimented sandstone frontispiece set within a tall round arched recession. Above the entrance are long, paired round arched windows and single round arched windows on the side elevations. The second stage begins above the encircling belt. It is 3 levels high with 3 round arched brick panels. There is a single round arched window set with the center panel, on the third level of the tower facade. The side elevations have 3 similar windows on the first level and single windows on the second and third levels. A projecting sandstone cornice divides the second and third stages. The third stage has a columed arcade on all four elevations. Above this is a corbelled table and hip roof.
The principal element of the projecting pavilion is a large scale round arched window. Above the encircling cornice/stringcourse are paired narrow round arched windows capped by a blind receiving arch.
/ARCHITECT Henry Vaughan STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Methuen Memorial Music Hall is significant for its architecture, as the final location of the famous Boston Musie Hall Organ, and as an example of the eccentricity and philanthropy of Edward F. Searles. The Music Hall was designed by the English architect, Henry Vaughan. Vaughan also designed the National Cathedral and the Groton School Chapel. Searles built this hall to house the famous Boston Music Hall Organ which had been built in 1863 by Walcker of Germany. The organ had been in storage for many years after having been removed from the stage of the Music Hall to make room for the newly organized Boston Symphony Orchestra. Edward F. Searles was a Methuen native born to poor farmers.
After working in many jobs from an early age, he made a small fortune and established a professional reputation as an interior decorator. After touring Europe to add to his art collection, he retumed to America and became associated with the firm of Mckim Mead and White. Searles met the widow of Mark Hopkins in San Francisco, in 1881 and quickly became her financial advisor as well as decorator. In 1887 they were married which caused a sensation since Mary Hopkins was so many years Searles' senior. They returned east and Searles immediately began constructing identical castles in Great Barrington on Mary's maiden aunt's land, and in Methuen on the site of his family's farm.
The Music Hall was originally known as the Serlo Organ Hall; the Anglophile Searles believed that Serlo was the old English derivation of his family name. In addition to the Music Hall Searles also gave his home town two schools, three churches, a reproduction English tavern, and paid off the town debt.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78000462, 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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