Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1982. 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 Rufus Choate House is a historic house at 14 Lynde Street in Salem, Massachusetts. It is primarily recognized for its association with lawyer and Federalist Party politician Rufus Choate (1799-1859), who lived here from about 1825 to 1834.”
Wikipedia article Rufus Choate House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.82000481- 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.
Q. what kind of man is Jn° willard : a young man or an old man. A : he is not an old man. he had black hair. Q. what meeting was this meeting : was this that that was near Jngerfals: A: Yes. J think. Q. what did they do then. A. the eat & drank wine: was there a minifter there. A. no : not as J know of : from whence had you your wine : A. from Salem J think was Q.. goodwife Olliver there, yes I knew her.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 54 fires within 5 miles of Choate, Rufus, House between
2006 and 2020, burning about 174 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
Recreation and ceremony
18
Smoking
9
Equipment and vehicle use
7
Debris and open burning
5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
4
Arson/incendiarism
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
2
Fireworks
1
Natural
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 9,131 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Choate, Rufus, House between 1800 and
1975: 3,670 Plantae, 2,870 Animalia, 1,044 Fungi, 900 Chromista, 458 Unrecorded, 146 Bacteria, 43 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A B. Proper, A H HIGGINSON, A. A. Eaton 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 Choate, Rufus, House: 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
Salem, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1993 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flood, 1 flash flood.
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.
Numerous streets were closed due to flooding. In addition, numerous vehicles were reported stuck in water on roads throughout Peabody; occupants had to be rescued and vehicles towed. Parts of Route 128 were impassable due to flooding. The Peabody police station was flooded, damaging training rooms, telephones, three police cruisers, and two motorcycles. Several houses were flooded near the intersection of Washington and Granite Streets. The Lahey Clinic was flooded with 4 to 6 feet of water in the basement and several inches of water in the 1st floor hallways. The fire chief estimated that at least 100 houses and 40 businesses were damaged. In addition, at least 100 basements throughout town were flooded. Flooding was extensive enough that schools were closed.
In Salem, Swampscott Road was closed due to flooding and three cars were stuck in floodwaters on Highland Avenue. Cars were stuck in floodwaters on Stettson Road in Swampscott. In Marblehead, West Shore Drive was impassable and closed from Cornell Road to Lafayette Street. In addition, a building was flooded on Salem Street and a house was flooded on Smith Street.
Two trees down in Salem Willows Park. Numerous dime-size hail stones fell at approximately 1845 EST in West Peabody with one or two stones just under the size of a quarter as measured by the son of a NWS meteorologist. Rainfall in Peabody was 1.68 inches.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
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
2,021 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 Rufus Choate House is a Federal period structure in downtown Salem, Massachusetts. The bullding faces south on Lynde Street, a block from one of Salem's main thoroughfares, Washington Street. Its small urban lot is contained within a small-scale neighborhood of residential structures, which now house a variety of uses. Built in 1787, the Choate House is three stories high with a hip roof, clapboard siding, a granite foundation, and twin interior chimneys. The main block of the house is one story deep with a center entrance; a gabled 3-story ell at the rear of the building is also original. Continuing northward from this ell are two 1-story additions, the story addition containing one room on each floor.
Because of the numerous ells and additions, fenestration is irregular on the side and Prior to the recent restoration, sash generally contained 2/2 lights; these have been replaced with new 6/6 sash. The symmetrical facade of the Choate House Bioa%, repe raito cea Facade or ie carate souesd is five bays long; its center entrance is surmounted by a bracketed canopy and rectangular bay window. Separating the property from the street is a cast iron fence erected in 1853. The house apparently remained intact until its ownership by the Northend family (1871- 1935). In the last quarter of the 19th century, several changes were made.
The original front steps were replaced with the present granite stairs, and the old door- way (appearance unknown) was replaced with a new double doorway, hood, and bay window At that period, if not before, 2/2 sash was installed throughout the house, and the 2-story, flat roofed addition was constructed. The original one-story woodshed behind the original ell was extended northerly at various times.
(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect N/A The Rufus Choate House retains integrity of design, location, and setting. The property is significant for its association with a prominent statesman and as a representation of Federal period development in Salem; it meets criteria B and C of the National Register. The Choate House was constructed in 1787 for Ebenezer Beckford, a prominent Salem merchant. More significantly, between 1825 and 1834, the building was occupied by Rufus Choate (1799-1859), a lawyer, orator, and politician. During his residency in Salem, Choate served in the Massachusetts legislature and in the United States Congress. Choate left Salem for Boston in 1834 and subsequently Attorney General, and founder and President of the Massachusetts Bar Association.
Choate's eloquence and intelligence were well known in his time, not only through his %e to have follened in the fores teps of bantel acbster In 1873 the Choate House was bought by William Drummer Northend, a celebrated criminal lawyer in New England. Author of The 0ld Bay Colony, Northend was also known as one of the most accurate historical writers of the period His daughter Mary Northend, who lived at the Choate House most of her life, maintained an' extensive collection of photo- graphic negatives (more than 16,000) of historic houses, and published many articles on colonial buildings. During much of the zuth century, the choate House was used as a boarding house for men. Substantial renovation has recenty been completed, converting the building to use as law offices.
Architecturally, the Choate House provides an excellent representation of the Federal period in Salem. Its simple but elegant design typifies middle class housing during of great prosperity and development in Salem.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82000481, 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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