Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Badger, Rev. Stephen, 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
“The Historical and Natural History Society at South Natick was started in 1870. Its name indicates the intent of its founders, - scientific investigation and local historical research.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County (1880). 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.80000647- 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.
HE neighbor towns of Natick are, on the east Neediiam and Diiver in Norfolk County, Sher- Imrii to the south, Franiingham west, and Wayland north. Lake Cochituate, the Long Pond of our fathers, but resuming its Indian name when it became Boston's water-supply, is a noteworthy natural feature. Charles River crooks through South Natick; and on the edge of Dover Pcgan Hill rises four hundred feet. Natick has three villages : the compact, populous Centre, on the Boston and Albany Railroad, seventeen miles from the city ; Felchville, a mile north ; and two miles southeast tlie original settlement, South Natick. Population, by the census of 1875, 7,419.
History is silent as to the exact time of removal from Nonantum; but on coming to Natick they laid out three parallel streets, two on the north, and one on the south side of the water, and divided the land into fifty lots more or less. That would show a population of two hundred probably. A few houses were built, but Gookin says they liked wigwams better as being warmer and more portable. Then for the general good a fort was constructed, ditched, banked, and stockaded; round and capacious.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 120 fires within 5 miles of Badger, Rev. Stephen, House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 50 acres in total. 4 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
44
Recreation and ceremony
30
Debris and open burning
25
Natural
4
Power generation/transmission/distribution
4
Smoking
4
Arson/incendiarism
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
Fireworks
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
Other causes
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 1,586 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Badger, Rev. Stephen, House between 1898 and
1975: 1,102 Animalia, 248 Fungi, 226 Plantae, 6 Protozoa, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley, A. E. Feldman 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 Badger, Rev. Stephen, House: 6 past producers, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Peat. 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
Natick, the town this property stands in, in 25 storm reports between 1998 and 2020: 15 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 3 flood, 2 lightning.
The reports record 4 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.
Route 9 near the pumping station was flooded. The intersection of Speen and Timer Streets was closed due to flooding. A small car was stuck in the flood waters. The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority train tracks were flooded near downtown Natick. The first floor of Coolidge Gardens on Cottage Street was flooded. Four cars were stuck in flood waters at the intersection of Route 9 and Wethersfield Road. The area near the Natick Mall was flooded with six to twelve inches of water.
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
2,490 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 Reverend Stephen Badger House is located on a one-and-one-quarter acre parcel at the northwest corner of Eliot Street (formerly the Sherborn Road) and Badger Avenue. The Badger House stands approximately 100' north of Eliot Street and 175' north of the Charles River. Prior to the late 1940's, the house was part of a 70-acre farm, most of which is currently owned by real estate developers and is covered with second-growth woods. The property's original barn remained until July 4, 1938 when it was burned. The Badger House is a two-and-one-half story main house with a one-story rear ell, both of which are of timber frame construction covered with clapboarding. The house's corners are trimmed with plain boards.
The main house is nearly square in plan with two interior chimneys rising in symmetrical locations through the side slopes of the house's hip roof. The house's facade (south elevation) is symmetrical consisting of a center entry flanked by two windows on each side at the first story and five windows across the second story. The entry contains a door of four raised panels set beneath a five-pane transom and between panelled pilasters. These pilasters support a partially broken entablature, a dentilled cornice and a pediment. This entry was added to the house in 1949 and is made up of antique materials, selected to approximate the entry shown in ca 1870 photograph of the house; the house's earlier (perhaps original) entry was removed around 1880 when a Victorian double door was added.
All facade windows contain restored 12/12 sash set in projecting boxed frames; first-story windows have moulded caps, while the heads of second-story windows are set in the base of the cornice. Centered on the facade's roof is a gabled dormer containing an 8/8 window.
/Architect Builder Unknown Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Reverend Stephen Badger House possesses integrity of location, design, materials eighteenth-century domestic architecture. motic arehseoctuer. other docai té an exco)2ent 20cal o Altered around 1880 by the addition of a central facade gable, double doors, new chimney caps, a porch, 2/2 sash and other Victorian details, the house was restored to its pre-Victorian appearance in 1949. Detaiis for this restoration were based on a cs. 1870 photograph of the house, showing it in its earliest known form. The house's original owner, Stephen Badger, was the last of Natick's Indian mission- aries. Founded as a 6,000 acre grant at the request of Rev.
John Eliot of Roxbury in 1650, Natick was intended to serve as a permanent settlement for Indians who had been converted to Christianity. For nearly 75 years, town affairs were conducted by Indians aa and records kept in the Indian language. Supported by the "Society for the Propagation of the Faith Among the Indians," Eliot served as the community's minister until his death in 1690. Subsequently, Daniel Takawampait conducted the affairs of the town until his death in 1716; he was succeeded by Reverend Oliver Peabody in 1721. Peabody died in 1752 and was replaced by Stephen Badger in March of 1753, when he was allotted Lot #25 by the Indian Proprietors.
At this time, the Harvard Yearbook comiserated with Badger's wife for "having married a poor parson and (for) having to live in an unfinished house and with only Indians for neighbors." During Peabody's ministry, white settlers had begun to purchase remaining lots in the community.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 80000647, 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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