Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
First Minister's House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1979. 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
“(1.) John R., born July "27, 1869; was graduated from Boston University with the degrees of A.B., A.M. and Ph.D.; married Jennie Florence Ditmars (B.U. '96), June 27, 1907; is a member of the New England Conference.”
John Ainsworth Dunn, Gardner, Massachusetts (1908). Machine-read text.
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.79000372- 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.
His first experience in the chair business was in 1852, when he worked in a factory in East Gardner, just below the farm of his greatgrandfather, giving three months' time to learn the art, which he has practised so many years. He also worked for a time in Fitchburg, and afterward in Ashburnham. In 1855, with less than fifty dollars in his pocket, he came to Gardner, finding employment in the works of the Heywood Chair Manufacturing Company, where he remained for the next nine years.
In connection with the manufacturing plant at Gardner, offices, and warehouses are maintained at Chicago, Boston, and St. Paul, and in addition to the business passing through these houses, Mr. Dunn has a large direct trade with the principal chair manufacturers at home and abroad.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 77 fires within 5 miles of First Minister's House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 38 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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
44
Smoking
11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
10
Recreation and ceremony
5
Misuse of fire by a minor
3
Arson/incendiarism
2
Equipment and vehicle use
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
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 566 specimens
collected within 10 miles of First Minister's House between 1870 and
1973: 308 Plantae, 163 Animalia, 90 Fungi, 3 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A., A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton 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
7 workings within 5 miles of First Minister's House: 5 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. 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
Gardner, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1995 and 2020: 14 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 lightning, 2 flood.
The reports record 2 injuries. 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 tree and several large tree limbs on Edgell STreet in Gardner were downed by thunderstorm winds. Trees in Ashuburnham also were downed with one blocking a road.
In Gardner, there were many areas of flooding. There was one foot of water on a section of Route 2A at 618 PM EST. A car was stuck in flooding on Timpany Blvd. at 643 PM EST. Chestnut Street at Union Square was flooded and impassable at 648 PM EST. A basement was flooded on Dean Street at 658 PM EST.
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
1,396 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 First Minister's House is a free standing late Georgian house of square plan located on a rise fifty feet back from Elm Street. It is located in the center of town and is surrounded for the most part by residential buildings of later period and lesser quality. The structure stands on a granite foundation, and its timber frame is sheathed with white clapboards. It is two stories tall and has a low hipped roof pierced by two interior end chimneys. The symmetrical facade is five bays in width with a central entrance which is its focal point. The doorway is framed by light Ionic pilasters which carry fragments of a pulvinated freize and a triangular modillioned pediment. The door is headed by a molded semi-circular arch with a keystone which contains a transom.
The windows flanking the door are richly treated with pulvinated friezes and heavy dentilled caps. The three-bay side elevations continue the detail of the facade with their first floor windows; headed by friezes and heavily molded caps. The entire composition is further enriched by quioned corners, a deep modillion cornice, and shutters framing each window. The office and garage additions, built in this century, are attached to rear of the structure and are compatible in design. These additions extend down the rise away from Elm Street to a circular gravel driveway that is surrounded by well-kept grounds. An old, unused concrete swimming pool is set back and to the rear and does not interfere with the house and grounds.
The interior features included wideboard flooring throughout, exposed beams, wideboard wainscoting and doors, and stone cellar. The four rooms of the second floor have wideboard flooring throughout and original doors and hardware. There are three upstairs fireplaces of shallow depth and original mantels.
/ARCHITECT Rev. Dr. Jonathan Osgood The First Minister's House in Gardner retains integrity of design, location, materials, and setting and is significant both as the town's most sophisticated example of late Georgian architecture and for its association's with important local persons. It was constructed in 1792 by the Reverend Jonathan Osgood who was the town's first minister. As there was no doctor at that time, he also served as the town's physician. Osgood later served as a representative in the state legislature. The second owner of the house was Deacon Lawrence; it is said that at this time the house served as a stop on the underground railroad. There has been only one other owner, a family named Blackwell, before the present one.
This house is Gardner's finest example of late Georgian design and merits attention in terms of statewide interpretation of this style. Its facade well illustrates the attempt of this period to enrich the common five bay, two story elevation with bold classical detail. Typically, the house has quoins and a projecting modillion cornice. Especially fine features are the center entrance with its elaborate pedimented frame, and the first floor windows headed by pulvinated friezes and heavily moulded caps. It is unusual that these caps are continued on the side elevations which were usually left unadorned. The late date of the house can be seen in its low hipped roof and nearly square plan which' look toward the federal period.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 79000372, 8 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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