Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
McGill, John H., House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1980. 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
“Medford owes its first settlement to the influence of Governor Cradock and Governor Winthrop. The first gentleman was the richest individual attached to the New England Company; and he gave his money with the freedom of an enthusiast.”
History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts : from Its First Settlement, in 1630, to the Present Time, 1855 (1855). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1980 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.80000640- 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.
In writing this History, it has been my -wish to secure Medford such territory in time as its acres are territory in space. The gathering of these annals has been too long delayed. Time, moth, and rust have done thenfatal work on many valuable materials ; and some gentlemen, who felt a deep interest in their native town, have died without leaving any manuscript testimonies. When the history of New England shall be written, the true data will be drawn from the records of its towns. Now, therefore, in humble imitation of those States in our Union which have contributed each its block of granite, marble, or copper to the National Monument at Washington, I ask leave to offer Medford's historical contribution to the undecaying pyramidic monument which justice and genius will hereafter raise to the character and institutions of New England.
The records of the first forty years are lost. I have reproduced them, as far as I could, from documents in the General Court relating to our earliest history ; from several monuments of the first settlers, which are yet standing among us ; from authentic traditions which were early recorded ; and from collateral histories of the neighboring towns. To find the lost, and remember the forgotten, seems to be the province of the local annalist. From the moment I reached the first town-records of Medford (1674), I implicitly followed those excellent guides. Where I could save space by abbreviations, without altering the sense, I have occasionally done so in my quotations, and have used our modern orthography. The spirit of antiquarian research, now beginning to show itself, will lead to the discovery of many facts concerning the early history of Medford which are beyond my reach. These may soon render necessary a new history of the town ; and I hope it may be undertaken by a person whose ability and leisure will enable him to do far greater justice to the subject than has been within my power.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 77 fires within 5 miles of McGill, John H., House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 100 acres in total. None started naturally. 28 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
Arson/incendiarism
28
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
22
Debris and open burning
12
Recreation and ceremony
9
Smoking
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Equipment and vehicle use
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 1,818 specimens
collected within 10 miles of McGill, John H., House between 1898 and
1975: 795 Animalia, 566 Plantae, 391 Fungi, 28 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
11 workings within 5 miles of McGill, John H., House: 6 plants, 4 past producers, 1 producer.
7 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Lead, Gypsum-Anhydrite, 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
Medford, the town this property stands in, in 20 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 1 flash flood, 1 hail.
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.
Trees were downed on Corey Street and Riverside Avenue. A telephone pole was downed onto Massachusetts Avenue and wires on Lawrence Street were downed, all by thunderstorm winds.
At 12:52 AM EST, a large tree was down on a car and laying across Auburn Street in Medford. At the same time, a tree was reported down on Summer Street and a large tree was down on George Street.
In Winchester, a large tree was down on a house, which took the chimney off the house on Alden Lane. A tree was down on Cambridge Street by the boat club. A tree was down on wires on wires on the 30 block of Allen Road. Trees and wires were down on Ledyard Road. A tree was down on the 70 block of Lawson Road.
In Medford, multiple trees were reported downed. In Somerville, a tree was down on a house on Vernon Street and a large branch was down on power lines on Walker Street.
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
2,497 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 John McGillHouse stands at the northwest corner of Vernon and Mystic Streets, facing Hastings Heights Park. The house is a two-and-one-half storey Colonial Revival style structure of balloon-frame construction. The house is rectangular in plan and rests on a foundation of square granite rubble. The building's exterior is covered with painted wooden shingles and enclosed by a pitched roof covered with asphalt shingles. Chimneys are placed asymmetrically, one rising through the roof's ridge near the house's east end, another through the slope of the roof on the interior of the west wall and a third through rear slope of the roof near the center uf the house.
The facade (south elevation) is symmetrically arranged and is divided into three sections by four Ionic pilasters which rise to acanthus-consoles at the cornice. At the facade's center is an open porch, framed by Tuscan columns which support an entablature with modillioned cornice. At the rear of the porch is the main entry which consists of a panelled oak door with an oval light. Flanking the front door are two windows, the upper halves of which contain leaded glass. Set above the entry,-at the second is a tri-partite window each section of which is double diamond and lancet lights over Ss doaile dlanoni and tancet 1sghca ovet a single pane. Beneath the center of these three windows is a wooden panel. Flanking the facade's center bay are two identical two-storey bow windows.
At the first storey each bow window contains three l/1 windows with curved glass. These windows are separated by pilasters which support an entablature and cornice. Second storey windows of each bay are identical to those at the first storey, except that their entablatures are surmounted by the decorated cornice at the eaves. The facade's roof contains three dormers.
(in one paragraph) The John McGill House possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship and associations with Medford's late nineteenth century develop- nent as a Boston suburb. It is particularly significant for its high architectural quality and is one of the finest representatives of its period in Medford. Designed tod teh batoasdt. posiand by Robert coit of Boston, its symmetrical plan is enhanced by such elements as Ionic pilasters, Palladian windows and a broken scroll pediment. Built for John H.
McGill, a grindstone manufacturerin South Boston, the McGill House occupies a prominent corner lot opposite Hastings Heights Park in an area which was laid out for development as early as 1855, but which was built-up primarily around the turn of the century when much of West Medford became a middle and upper-middle class suburb of Boston. Locally, McGill was believed to have been a millionaire, a rumor which may have been encouraged by the large scale and ornate exterior of the McGill House. Interior fittings of the house include carved limestone fireplace surrounds, wooden panelling and other high-quality features which serve to substan- tiate McGill's wealth.
At present, virtually all of the house's features remain as they appeared in the original plans, which are in the possession of the current owner. The architect of the McGill House, Robert Coit, maintained an office in Boston from 1893 to the late 1930's, although he lived in Winchester, a town near Medford. Coit's known work consists of large-scale suburban houses, six of which were illustrated in the American Architect and Building News and in The American Architect. Most of coit's known work is located in winchester and Brookline, with the McGill House being his only identified design in Medford.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 80000640, 24 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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