BlockBefore
Decorative drawing: an ornate nineteenth-century American house. Not a photograph of this place.

Allen House

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

“(VII) Daniel Smith Gray, son of Timothy Gray (6), born in Wilton, New Hampshire, October 6, 1816, died October 9, 1900, at Lowell. He attended the district schools of his native town, and remained at home working on his father's farm until he was about twenty years of age.”

Historic Homes and Places and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts ; (1908). Machine-read text.

one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.

Sources: the county history on the Internet Archive · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 57 Rolfe St., Lowell, 01854
  • When was it listed? 1982-08-11
  • Category. building
  • Township. Lowell city
  • National Register reference number. 82001992 - 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.

The ground it stands on

160,056 words

The chapter on Lowell City in History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names Lowell. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

It appears that immediately after ilr. Lowell's return he had at once gone to work to construct a loom ; but he found its construction no easy task. Without patterns, or even drawings, so far as we know, each part had to be planned and tried, altered and rearranged, until tlie whole assumed the shape of a machine. We are told that " many little matters were to be overcome or adjusted before it would work perfectly." Mr. Appleton says : " Mr. Lowell said to me that he did not wish me to see it until it was complete, of whicli he would give me notice. At length the time arrived. He invited me to go out with him and see the loom operate. I well recollect the state of admiration and satisfaction with which we sat by the hour watching the beautiful movement of this new and wonderful machine, destined, as it evidently was, to change the character of all textile industry. This was in the autumn of 1814."

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

The great obstacle to tlie use of the power-loom, at that time, proved to be dressing the yarn ; it required a man at each loom to dress the warp as it unrolled from the beam. This rendered it necessary to stop the loom while the man was doing it. This difficulty was removed by the invention of an ingenious mode of dressing the warp before it was placed in the loom. Mr. Lowell procured from England a drawing of Horrocks' dressing-frame, and Mr. Moody, whose services he had secured, made an improvement which more than doubled its efficiency, - a very ingenious machine called a warper, that wound the threads from the bobbins on the beam. After this there was no farther difficulty in running a power-loom.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lowell City - 160,056 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

126 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 126 fires within 5 miles of Allen House between 2001 and 2020, burning about 70 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 31 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/undetermined35
Arson/incendiarism31
Debris and open burning27
Recreation and ceremony18
Smoking4
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Natural3
Equipment and vehicle use2
Railroad operations and maintenance2
Other causes1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
6 September 2002Smokingunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
26 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2002Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
13 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNew Hampshire Division of Forest and Landsnot named
9 August 2002Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
5 August 2002Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
4 August 2002Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
18 August 2002Debris and open burning1.0 acresMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 503 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 503 specimens collected within 10 miles of Allen House between 1898 and 1975: 346 Plantae, 93 Animalia, 31 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Mathieson, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Exosporium pusillum, not of this specimenExosporium pusillum P.Karst.1898King C. A.Stony Brook
A photograph of the species Aristida dichotoma, not of this specimenAristida dichotoma Michx.1899E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis1899RorerEast Billerica
A photograph of the species Bidens cernua, not of this specimenBidens cernua L.1899E. F. Williams
A photograph of the species Elatine americana, not of this specimenElatine americana (Pursh) Arn.1899not recorded
A photograph of the species Fuirena pumila, not of this specimenFuirena pumila (Torr.) Spreng.1899E. F. Williams
A photograph of the species Galium tinctorium, not of this specimenGalium tinctorium (L.) Scop.1899not recorded
A photograph of the species Menispora libertiana, not of this specimenMenispora libertiana Sacc. & Roum. ex Sacc.1899RorerEast Billerica
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.1900Thaxter, R.Stony Brook
A photograph of the species Betula nigra, not of this specimenBetula nigra L.1900not recorded
A photograph of the species Boletus frostii, not of this specimenBoletus frostii J.L.Russell1900A. W. Flint
Polygala sanguinea L.1900E. F. Williams

All 503 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 29 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 29 workings within 5 miles of Allen House: 15 past producers, 10 producers, 4 plants. 14 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Dracut DepositCobalt, NickelPast Producer1876, 1939
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.GraphitePlant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.GraphitePlant
Brox QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Chelmsford MillStone, Crushed/BrokenPlant
Dracut PlantStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Essex Bituminous Concrete ProductsStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
George Brox IncStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
West Chelmsford QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Fletcher Westford QuarryGraniteProducer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this property

16 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lowell, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 3 lightning, 2 hail. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 1995Thunderstorm WindLowell2 hurtno account filed
June 2002LightningLowell$25,000no account filed
May 2006Thunderstorm WindLowell$20,000no account filed
May 2004LightningLowell$15,000no account filed
May 2017Thunderstorm WindLowell$1,000At 942 PM EST, a tree was reported down on Pleasant Street in Lowell.
May 2017Thunderstorm WindSouth Lowell$1,000At 943 PM EST, a tree was reported down on Pike Street in Tewksbury.
September 2023Thunderstorm WindLowell$500In Lowell, wires were down on Lowell St.
June 2023FloodLowell$500Flooding caused a small mudslide on Route 110, blocking the road.
June 2008LightningLowell$500Lightning struck a home on Marlborough Street, resulting in a power surge that blew several light switches off the wall.
July 2023Flash FloodLowell-In Lowell, Douglas Rd was flooded to 3 feet.
August 2023FloodSouth Lowell-In Tewksbury, Chapman Rd was flooded at Jefferson Rd.
September 2020FloodLowell-In Lowell, a section of Raven Road had two feet of street flooding, with the road blocked.
July 2013FloodLowell-Moore Street in Lowell was closed due to flooding.
August 2004HailLowell-no account filed
May 1998HailLowell-no account filed
May 1998Thunderstorm WindLowell-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Middlesex County

Map coverage status

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.

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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Bowers, Jonathan, House0.5 miles1976
Grace Universalist Church0.5 miles2011
Pawtucket Congregational Church0.6 miles2007
St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church0.7 miles2008
St. Patrick's Church0.9 miles1985
St. Joseph's Convent and School0.9 miles2002

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 82001992 in Record Group 79.
Middlesex CountyAll 1100 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • 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.