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 Odd Fellows' Hall in Beverly, Massachusetts occupies a prominent location on Cabot Street opposite city hall in Beverly Center. It is a High Gothic Revival building constructed in 1893 to a design by local architect J.”
Wikipedia article Odd Fellows' Hall (Beverly, Massachusetts), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.78001408- 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
54 since 2006
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 54 fires within 5 miles of Odd Fellows' Hall between
2006 and 2020, burning about 226 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 1 was 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
Recreation and ceremony
17
Equipment and vehicle use
8
Smoking
8
Debris and open burning
7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
5
Misuse of fire by a minor
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
2
Natural
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
Arson/incendiarism
1
Fireworks
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 8,006 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Odd Fellows' Hall between 1800 and
1975: 3,037 Plantae, 2,248 Animalia, 1,315 Fungi, 752 Chromista, 465 Unrecorded, 124 Bacteria, 65 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A H HIGGINSON, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Hervey 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
8 workings within 5 miles of Odd Fellows' Hall: 5 plants, 1 unknown, 1 producer, 1 past producer.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Zirconium, Thorium, Tungsten. 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
Beverly, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1993 and 2020: 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flood, 1 heavy rain.
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.
Local police reported numerous trees blown down. At the Beverly Airport, a wind gust to an estimated 70 to 75 mph occurred during a severe thunderstorm, flipping over several light aircraft and damaging a total of 14 aircraft. Five were damaged beyond repair.
The Federal Street railroad underpass and portions of Park Street flooded, resulting in several cars getting stuck in the floodwaters. At least eight inches of water flooded the Cummings Center, flooding all first floor businesses (about 200). The Department of Public Works garage flooded, damaging police cars and other city vehicles. Approximately 100 houses were affected by flooding.
Several trees downed. Lightning struck several homes. Damage by fire occurred to one house on Gregg Street after lightning hit a telephone cable entering the house.
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
1,868 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 Odd Fellows' Hall in Beverly is located on Cabot Street, the city's main street and one of its traditional thoroughfares. It commands a highly visible position in the downtown area opposite the City Hall. The three story commercial block was designed in 1875 in the popular High Victorian Gothic style, characterized by a crested slate roof, the use of polychromy and the pointed arch, and an irregular silhouette. It 1s constructed of red brick laid in black mortar trimmed with brownstone and white Concord granite in alternate colors. Its dark grey roof is banded with green and surmounted by a ventilated cupola with small cross gables on each side. Each elevation consists of a recessed center portion framed by projecting gabled pavillions.
The east and west elevations are both four bays wide with segmentally arched storefronts at the ground floor level. Some of the storefronts have been hidden by modern signage but their original configuration has been retained. Fenestration on the second floor is tripled pointed arch windows carried on bracketted granite sills, and linked at their imposts by a granite stringcourse. On the third floor there are paired windows with granite lintels and sills in the middle bays, and tripled windows with transoms set in a single pointed arch and carried on bracketted granite sills in the end pavillions. The gables, which break through the corbelled cornice, are articulated by three granite bands with a small window between the upper two and patterned brickwork in the apex.
Sash is 2/2 double hung throughout. Tablets of Ohio freestone, carved with the Odd Fellows ritual symbols, are set betweentheupper windowson the east, north and south elevations. The elevation on the east has the "All-Seeing Eye" and is inscribed "Odd Fellows' Hall, 1875" with leaf ornamentation.
/ARCHITECT J. Foster Ober Toe oe rele is as played ni fhe adevelopthe t ote eier of i arhite cera design and It was designed by J. Foster Ober, one of Beverly's leading architects of the period, and constructed by the local firm of Williams Brothers. Carpentry work was done by Samuel F. Ober and masonry work by Augustus Williams. Two Boston craftsmen were imported for the detail work: Michael 0'Connor to sculpt the freestone tablets and P.A. Butler to paint the fresco in the lodge room. The cornerstone was laid on September 8, 1874, and the building was dedicated one year *later on October 8, 1875. .Both events were accompanied by elaborate ceremonies, and the construction of the building during this period was given extensive newspaper coverage.
It cost a total of $65,000 to build, and the finest materials, including Concord granite and Ohio freestone, were used in its construction. Besides housing the ritual hall for the Odd Fellows and later the Masons on its upper floor, the lower floors have always served as stores and offices for the town. The Post Office was located there in 1887 and was equipped with the town's first electric lights. The ground floor remains in commercial use without disrupting the original storefront configuration.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78001408, 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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