Photograph by Duxbury Rural & Hist Soc, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
King Caesar House
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
“The King Caesar House is a historic house located at 120 King Caesar Road, Duxbury, Massachusetts. It is operated as a non-profit museum by the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society.”
Wikipedia article King Caesar House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 93 National Register listings in Plymouth County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Plymouth County.
National Register reference number.78000477- 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.
These notes should be added here, - Mr. Kent was colleague to Dr. Allyn, but was to all intents pastor from 1826 to 1833, the former being the greater part of this time incapacitated. Mr. Knapp fully supplied the pulpit a number of years before Mr. Moore's death, coming over from Plymouth, where he had a private school, as Mr. Moore became too enfeebled to officiate. After the hitter's death, Mr. knapp continued to fill it, until the society could decide upon a resident minister. This was done in 1882 by the settlement of Mr. Burr. It is a curious fact that in this long list of ministers only three are buried in the town, to any one's knowledge, these being Mr. Wisewall, Dr. Allyn and Mr. Moore. To the first there is a stone in the old burial ground, the second in age within the enclosure, bearing the date of 1700. It is of some significance to the religious inquirer to learn that all the colonial churches of the Old Colony but one turned Unitarian when that movement began early in the last century, namely: Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Cohasset and Hingham, the exception being Marshfield.
A character almost totally unlike the preceding, but which may be thought scarcely less interesting, is that of the subject of this sketch. Mr. Bailey began his life, not as the others in the Old Colony, but among the vine-clad hills of France, and in the French colonies, where he lived until after the Battle of Waterloo, in which he participated as one of Napoleon's officers. Later he came here and settled at the cross-roads, where Tremont, Chestnut, Evergreen and Tobey Garden Streets meet; and this place has since been called Bailey's Corner. He lived in the house now owned by Mr. James H. Peterson, where he brought up a large family of attractive daughters, and a son who now lives in an adjoining house. The latter preserves the sword that was on the world's eventful battlefield of Waterloo, where his father received a saber cut on his head, necessitating the trepanning of his skull and the insertion of a piece of silver, a surgical operation that could not, at that time, have been long practiced. Mr. Bailey's life in Duxbury was as quiet as it had formerly been eventful. He was a cigar-maker by occupation, and carrying his wares to Boston by vehicle must have been his most exciting diversion. He died at his home in 1864.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 149 fires within 5 miles of King Caesar House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 52 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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
Debris and open burning
92
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
39
Misuse of fire by a minor
10
Arson/incendiarism
3
Smoking
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
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 1,504 specimens
collected within 10 miles of King Caesar House between 1816 and
1975: 982 Animalia, 248 Plantae, 139 Fungi, 107 Unrecorded, 28 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by -- Russell, A., 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
2 workings within 5 miles of King Caesar House: 2 past producers.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: 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
Duxbury, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 8 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 2 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.
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
2,499 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 King Caesar House is located on King Caesar Road in Duxbury. The house sits on a slight elevation on Powder Point overlooking Duxbury Bay and the Weston Wharf. A low stone wall and white picket fence separates the house property from the road. The posts of the center gate are topped by urns. The 14 acres of land surrounding the building are meticulously maintained. The grounds include tall shade trees, fir trees, topiary shrubbery, sloping lawns and formal gardens. The wharf lies directly south of the house, across King Caesar Road on the Bay. It includes 3/4 of a acre of additional property, also well landscaped. The surrounding area is residential, consisting pri- marily of large lots with summer and year round homes.
The Federal style, brick-end house was built in 1808 by Ezra Weston II, known as "King Caesar." The original T-plan structure is two stories with a hip roof and four tall inside end chimneys, two on each side elevation. The south facade, rear elevation, and ells are sheathed in clapboards painted yellow. The trimwork is painted white. Cornerboards are wide and plain. Fenestration is 6/6 with slightly projecting lintels and sills, all framed by louvered shutters. The original I-plan form was added on to sometime ago with ells on the rear (north) elevation. The five bay wide, symmetrical facade faces south. Stone steps lead to the three panel wooden door. It is flanked by leaded glass sidelights, and headed by a leaded glass fan with keystone.
Directly overhead on the second story is a 6/6 window with side- lights. The west elevation is four bays deep with a slightly off center door topped by a shaped lintel. The north elevation has a gabled dormer with nine lights on either side of the original two story ell.
/ARCHITECT The King Caesar House is significant for the quality of its architecture and as the home of a prominent local family. It is the finest Federal style structure in Duxbury. The builder, Ezra Weston II, was a leading American shipbuilder. house occupies an attractive location and faces south towards the Weston's harbor. Ezra Weston acquired the name "King Caesar" because of his business acumen and success in shipbuilding and shipping. The Weston family were farmers originally. Weston was engaged in shipping by 1764, and after serving in the Revolution, he returned to the growing trade. Duxbury developed as a shipping center during the years 1764-98, and Weston's affluence grew with the fortunes of the town.
With his success he purchased more land in and around Duxbury to increase his ship- building complex. In 1798 Weston's son, Ezra II, joined as a partner in Ezra Weston and Son. The partnership continued until the father's death in 1822. Ezra II inherited the large holdings, an active business, and the nickname "King Caesar." He proved well educated in shipbuilding and shipping affairs. "King Caesar" married Jerusha Bradford, a member of another prominent Duxbury family, and the sister of several successful local shipmasters. Weston was one of the founders of the Duxbury Bank and served as the first president of this bank in 1833; his son, Gershom, was the second.
The Weston holdings included farms for ships' provisions, a ropewalk, a forge shop for tools and ship hardware, a cotton mill for sailcloth, a sail loft, and a ten acre shipyard. Ninety-nine vessels were built and owned by the Westons between 1800 and 1842. Among them was "Smyrna", the first American ship to enter the Black Sea. "Hope" was Weston's largest vessel. Built in 1841, it measured 159' long and weighed 880 tons.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78000477, 13 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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