Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Waters, Asa, Mansion
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
“At the Annual Town Meeting, held March 20, 1905, a committee was chosen, consisting of Mr. Putnam, to consider Millbury's past history, especially its industries, with a view to the publication of a history of the town.”
Centennial History of the Town of Millbury, Massachusetts, Including Vital Statistics, 1850-1899 (1915). Machine-read text.
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.78000479- 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.
At the Annual Town Meeting, held March 20, 1905, a committee was chosen, consisting of Mr. George F. Chase, chairman, Mr. John C. Crane, Mr. Ira N. Goddard, Mr. George W. Mallalieu, and the Rev. George A. Putnam, to consider Millbury's past history, especially its industries, with a view to the publication of a history of the town. Accordingly, at intervals in the succeeding years this committee met and made plans for the compilation of such a work. One member of the committee, Mr. John C. Crane, had already for many years been privately gathering literary material pertaining to the industries, institutions, and individuals of the town, and this collection became the nucleus for the present volume. For a year Mr. Crane continued his labors of compilation and read his manuscript to the committee regularly at its meetings and, in recognition of his enthusiastic and patient work, the committee voted to express its appreciation of the "valuable, devoted and loving labors of Mr. John C. Crane in compiling the History of Millbury."
In the preparation of such a history the stoppingplace is largely an arbitrary one, as there is always more description of places, people, or events, that might be included and more painstaking care may ever be exercised in revising the manuscript, but the committee presents the history of the town believing that the book gives a true idea of Millbury happenings, together with such particular chronicles of people, societies, and institutions, as to leave little of importance that remains uncovered.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Waters, Asa, Mansion between
2002 and 2020, burning about 54 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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
19
Smoking
14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
11
Recreation and ceremony
9
Power generation/transmission/distribution
5
Arson/incendiarism
5
Railroad operations and maintenance
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
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 1,575 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Waters, Asa, Mansion between 1839 and
1974: 954 Plantae, 346 Animalia, 243 Fungi, 14 Unrecorded, 14 Protozoa, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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
23 workings within 5 miles of Waters, Asa, Mansion: 15 past producers, 5 producers, 2 plants, 1 unknown.
7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Titanium, Metal. 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
Millbury, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 4 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 2 hail, 1 flash 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.
A car was stuck in flood waters on Sutton Avenue in Northbridge. The Blackstone River at Millbury overflowed its banks near Route 146, flooding portions of the northbound lanes. The intersection of Routes 140 and 122A was flooded after the Blackstone River overflowed its banks in Grafton. The Mill River in Mendon overflowed its banks flooding the Bellingham Street Bridge.
In Worcester at 3:17 AM EST Rt 20 was closed in both directions due to flooding at Grafton St. At 3:40 AM EST an area of 500 Main St was flooded in Sturbridge.
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
2,406 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 Asa Waters Mansion is located on the corner of Elm and School Streets in Millbury. The 1'½ acres of property are well landscaped with tall shade trees and shrubbery though the original formal gardens have not been maintained. The immediately surrounding town center area is mixed commercial and residential structures. BAERE The building was allegedly designed by a Mr.Bryant of Boston and constructed by Captain Louis Bigelow of Worcester from 1826-29. The house was built and finished with the finest of materials: hard pine from the South, pumpkin pine from Maine, mahogany from Central America, marble from Italy, and brick from Baltimore. A11 the wood carving was done by hand. When the structure was completed, it was It is a Federal style building with Georgian Revival details.
The square symme- trical three story mansion has a two story L-shaped, ridge roof ell attached to the rear (south) elevation. The building is sheathed in hard pine clapboards and has a stone and granite foundation. The hip roof with one chimney has a balustrade delicately ornamented by alternating circular design screens and groups of turned balusters. Fenestration on the first two stories is 6/6. True to Federal tradition, the windows become gradually smaller from the first story up. The third story has six light windows. The windows are framed by louvered shutters. Paired two story Corinthian pilasters at the corners of the building support a ful1 Corinthian entablature on the east and west elevations.
On the north facade, the entablature is broken and only the cornice continues across the center bays. The cornice isolates the third story from the other two. The 5 bay wide facade faces north toward Elm Street. It is divided into three sections by the Corinthian pilasters previously described.
/ARCHITECT Capt. Louis Bigelow, builder Mr. Bryant, Boston Architect The Asa Waters Mansion is architecturally significant as the finest Federal style house in Millbury. The lavishly designed building was constructed with the best quality materials available, which were brought to Millbury by wagon in 1826-29. The Mansion is historically significant for its association with Asa Waters II, a prominent arms manufacturer and leading citizen. Waters served in the General Court and was a local philanthropist. Asa Waters II was born in Sutton in 1769. Gun making had been a Waters family trade for several generations, and Asa developed the skill with ingenuity. He introduced various improvements which contributed to the growth of the business.
He held several patents, one of which was issued for the turning of gun barrels in a lathe. The first U.S. Government contract for the production of guns in Millbury was dated September 8, 1808. It called for the delivery of 1,000 stands of arms, i.e. a musket and bayonet complete. Such contracts were made with Asa Waters for a period of five years. The contracts continued for 37 years following, assuring steady work to a body of skilled mechanics, and adding to the town's prosperity. Asa Waters' guns are collectors' items today. Asa Waters was the founder and first president of the Millbury Bank. He became a representative to the State Government in 1823. He was one of the largest land owners in the county and gave the town land near his house for an Academy.
Many prominent guests were entertained at the Mansion including Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, President Taft, and Alexander Graham Bell. Agassiz and other famous speakers of the New England Lyceum Lecture series also visited the house.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78000479, 18 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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