Photograph by Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
Barlin Acres
Built in 1790 (Federal architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. 19 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1887.
From the record
One of 686 National Register listings published here for Worcester County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · built in 1790, Federal architecture.
National Register reference number.82000487- 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.
From its high elevation Boylston is essentially an agricultural town, and offers but little opportunity for manufacturing or other industries, but as a farming town it takes a liigh rank with the other towns of the county, both in the industry and prosperity of its inhabitants and in the cultivation and appearance of its farms. From the assessors' returns for the present year it appears that the valuation of the town is $.523,573 ; rate of taxation, $1.5 per $1000. There are 160 dwelling-houses, 208 ratable polls, 224 horses, 820 neat-cattle and 147 swine in the town. Its dairy products are extensive, and it has some of the best orchards in the county. According to the Massachusetts State Census of 1875, there were produced in the town during the year ending May 1, 1875, 20,930 oarrels of apples, valued at $8,100 ; 4,639 bushels of corn, valued at §4,706 ; 18,689 bushels of potatoes, valued at §11,847 ; 2,240 tons of hay, valued at S37,- 053; 148,415 gallons of milk, valued at $22,211; 43,500 pounds of pork, valued at $4,521; 49,425 pounds of beef, valued at $3,876. The total value of all agricultural products for that year was $147,537. The only manufacturing interests in the town are situated at Sawyer's Mills, where there is a cotton-mill owned and operated by the Lancaster Mills Company, of Clinton. The resident superintendents of the mills have been Deacon Moses Brigham, Levi Hoi brook, James A. Weeks, Edmund C. Forbes and Thomas C. Sheldon.
The people of the town have always been noted for their healthfulne^s and longevity. For a period from 1797 to 1830 there were thirty-four deaths of persons over eighty years of age. Miss Betsey Stone, a descendant of one of the oldest families, died June 30, 1868, at the great age of one hundred years and eight months. Abel Farwell, a pensioner of the War of 1812, died September 1, 1888, at the age of ninetyseven years, and was at the time of his death the oldest person in the town. Ezra Ball, now in his ninetv-fourth year, at present enjoys that distinction, and is the oldest resident member of the Congregational Church, an honor which was enjoyed by his grandfather at the time of the settlement of Rev. Mr. Hooper in 1794, and by his father when Rev. Mr. Sanford became pastor of the church in 1832. The population of the town, according to the last census, is eight hundred and thirty-four, and it has not varied very much from this number at any period of the town's historj^. The greatest number of inhabitants at any one time was in 1808, the year of the incorporation of West Boylston as a separate town, when it was ten hundred and thirty. In 1885 there were fourteen persons in the town above eighty years of age.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 51 fires within 5 miles of Barlin Acres
between 2015 and 2020, burning about 27 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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
29
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
7
Smoking
5
Arson/incendiarism
5
Recreation and ceremony
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
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 1,883 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Barlin Acres between 1839 and 1974: 1,030 Plantae, 579 Animalia, 246 Fungi, 17 Unrecorded, 7 Protozoa, 4 Chromista.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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
12 workings within 5 miles of Barlin Acres: 10 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone. 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
Boylston, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2001 and 2022: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 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.
In West Boylston, the Fire Department showed a Facebook photo of a driveway and part of a road was washed out by flood waters, with a white sedan hanging over the washed out road. Exact street unknown.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
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 Keyes-Dakin House (Barlin Acres) is located off School Street, which runs south from Boylston Center to the interchange of State Route 140 and Interstate Route 290. It is a two story frame house with brick ends which appears to date primarily from the late eighteenth century, although tradition ascribes a construction date of 1743. Major additions are known to have been made in the 1920s, but the east service wing may date from the same period as the central block. The house presently stands on 300 acresofundevelopedland which includes most of an early eighteenth century land grant to the Keyes family. Several outbuildings surround the house, but they appear to date from the twentieth century.
At this time, the nomination 1s contined to the house and the land immediately surrounding it, including the well. The original portion of the house is square in plan with a symmetrical, five bay facade. It rises from a masonry foundation (partially covered by concrete to a low hipped roof and paired end wall chimneys (of which the right front is missing). Windows consist mainly of 12/12 double hung sash in simple frames with louvered shutters. Trim includes a plain, boxed cornice, plain corner boards and a molded water table. The facade (south) displays the customary 5 bay, 9 window configuration of the two story eighteenth century house. Its focus is an enclosed entry porch ascended by two granite doorsteps.
The entry consists of paired fluted pilasters, supporting a plain frieze and a triangular pediment. This composition enframes a six panel door which appears to be a recent replacement. The window directly above the entry is slightly smaller than the rest due to the intrusion of the pediment, and contains 6/6, rather than 12/12 sash.
(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect unknown The Keyes-Dakin House possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship as well as significant associations with the development of Boylston since the eighteenth century and with one of the area's prominent families, the Keyes. Additional- ly, it stands as a fine example of early Federal period architecture in its original agrarian setting. Thus, the Keyes House meets criteria A, B, and C of the National Register of Historic Places. The land on which the Keyes house stand was granted as the 35th house lot of the town of Shrewsbury; Boylston was a part of Shrewbury until its incorporation as an independent town in 1786. settle on the land.
Cyprian was one of the twenty founders of the North Precinct (which was later incorporated as Boylston) Church and one of its first Deacons. He also held numerous offices in Shrews- bury, including Town Clerk, Selectman and Assessor. He was also a member of the first The property remained in his possession until his death when he willed it to his son-in-law, Oliver Dakin, who gave it to this son David in 1805. David Dakin held the land until 1883 when he sold it out of the family, to William Toombs. The house appears to have undergone substantial renovation, if not rebuilding, shortly after Cyprian's death, since its form and details are those of the early Federal period. After Toomb's death in 1856, the property was owned by his son Edward W.
Toombs who subsequently sold the portion with the house to Patrick Griffin, an Irish immigrant. Griffin retained the property until his death in 1888at which time photographs show it to be little altered trom its turn of the century appearance. It was subsequently owned by George Flagg, F.C.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82000487, 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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