Built in 1807 in the Federal 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
“Gamaliel Bradford House is a historic house in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Built in 1807, the house is locally distinctive for its brick side walls and monitor section above the hip roof.”
Wikipedia article Capt. Gamaliel Bradford House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 93 National Register listings in Plymouth County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · built in 1807, Federal architecture · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Plymouth County.
National Register reference number.78001402- 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 181 fires within 5 miles of Bradford, Capt. Gamaliel, House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 63 acres in total. 1 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
112
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
48
Misuse of fire by a minor
11
Arson/incendiarism
3
Recreation and ceremony
2
Smoking
2
Natural
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 1,511 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Bradford, Capt. Gamaliel, House between 1816 and
1975: 934 Animalia, 267 Plantae, 168 Fungi, 100 Unrecorded, 28 Chromista, 14 Protozoa. 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 Bradford, Capt. Gamaliel, 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
1,786 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 Gamaliel Bradford House is located on Tremont Street in the eastern portion of Duxbury- The ambience of the neighborhood is predominantly rural residential, and the house is sited close to a bend in the street in simply landscaped grounds. The house is square in plan with an ell, two stories high and has a truncated hip roof with monitor. The house is oriented 90 off north with the elevations facing the quarter points of the compass. The southeast and northwest elevations are brick; the rear (southwest) elevation and the facade (northeast) are sheathed in clapboards. Fenestration throughout is 8/8 except the first floor of the facade and rear elevations where it is round arched 8/12 with a graceful fan in the spandrel of the arch.
Fenes- tration is framed by shutters and is jackarched with key on the brick elevations. There are four interior end chimneys. Cornerboards are wide and plain with a simple base above the granite faced foundation. The monitor has single 3/3 windows on the facade and rear elevations and two 3/3 windows on the brick elevations. The simple entablature has a dentiled architrave and molded cornice. The facade is three bays wide. The center entry is sheltered by an open Doric order porch with full entablature. The door is framed by sidelights and capped by a fan. Side elevations are four bays deep and have two S curve bolt anchors on the second floor line. The rear elevation is three bays wide with a simple enclosed Doric porch at the center entry.
The porch, originally open, is enclosed by multi-light panels. Attached to the northeastern end of the rear elevation is a two story ridge roof ell. The ell is three bays wide with an entrance immediately south of the central bay.
The Gamaliel Bradford House is significant for its graceful, yet substantial Federal style architecture and for its original owner. Gamaliel Bradford (1764-1824), a member of the prominent Bradford family, built this house in 1807 on the main road from Plymouth to Boston. From its slight elevation, the large house offered a view of the mastheads on the Duxbury waterfront. Gamaliel had a reputation for having an outgoing competitive nature with a taste for the biggest and best. During the Revolutionary War he was, at a very early age, a lieutenant in the Continental Army. Gamaliel also went to sea early and held several commands. In 1797 President Adams offered him command of the frigate Boston, but he declined.
In 1800 while commanding the Industry, he lost his leg during an encounter with French privateers. Some two years later he retired from the sea. He later received an honorary M.A. from Harvard and served as a trustee of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He became a member of the Society of Cincinnati in 1783. In 1943 the destroyer Bradford was commissioned in honor of his family. The Bradford acquired three stripes in the Pacific theatre during World War II. The Gamaliel Bradford House was at times used as a boarding house and private school. The house was owned after 1840 by Reverend Josiah Moore, minister of the nearby Unitarian Church, whose son later owned it from 1903 through 1914. After that time, it was owned by Charles Bittinger, the artist, who held it until 1968.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78001402, 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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