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 Goldthwaite Block is a historic commercial building on 99-103 Main Street in Brockton, Massachusetts. Built in 1892, it forms part of one of the city's best-preserved assemblages of 19th-century commercial architecture, alongside the Lyman Block and Howard Block.”
Wikipedia article Goldthwaite Block, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 93 National Register listings in Plymouth County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Plymouth County.
National Register reference number.82004427- 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 history of Brockton has been written, and is at last presented to the public, after an unexpected amount of labor. There is no. locality in New England which has undergone more rapid changes than this. In ISOO the auth(ir wrote an extended histor)' of the town of North Bridgewater, which has long since gone out of print, containing then about six thousand inhabitants. The rapid growth of the town, the change (jf name t(j Brockton, and afterwards its incorporation into a city, rendered the necessity for a new and enlarged naiTative work under the distinctive name of Brockton. The work has been subject to unavoidable delay owing to the extra amount of work in its preparation, and it is submitted to the citizens of Brockton and vicinity, with all its imperfections, with the hope that it may not be disappointing to those who are interested in and have by their encouragement and generous subscriptions been the means of its publication. Of the importance of works of this class, we may be pardoned for quoting from an eminent writer on kindred works: *
The undersigned citizens and legal voters in the town of North Bridgewater, while willing or desirous to change the corporate name of the town, respectfully beg leave to protest against adopting the name of Brockton, and ask to be heard by themselves or counsel thereon.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 429 fires within 5 miles of Goldthwaite Block between
2005 and 2020, burning about 181 acres in total. 5 started naturally. 8 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
216
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
135
Misuse of fire by a minor
31
Recreation and ceremony
17
Smoking
16
Arson/incendiarism
8
Natural
5
Fireworks
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 783 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Goldthwaite Block between 1857 and
1975: 432 Plantae, 216 Fungi, 132 Animalia, 1 Chromista, 1 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour, A. Clark 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 Goldthwaite Block: 9 past producers, 1 producer, 1 plant.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Brockton, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 8 hail, 3 heavy rain, 3 lightning.
The reports record 60 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.
Numerous trees and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds throughout Brockton. This includes trees and wires on Warren Avenue in front of the Boys and Girls Club, near the high school, on Route 14, on French and Perkins Avenues, and on Ash Street. One of these trees fell on a dentists office on South Street in the Campello neighborhood.
A line of thunderstorms moved across parts of central and eastern Massachusetts with wind gusts to 40 to 50 mph. In Lowell, two children received minor injuries when a tree fell on them after it was uprooted by winds gusting to an estimated 50 mph. In Southboro, large tree limbs were downed. In Swampscott, a tree fell on an automobile. In Belmont, Cambridge, and Watertown, tree limbs and a few power lines were reported blown down. In Brockton, two large tree limbs were knocked down. In downtown Boston, a street sign was blown down and hit a man on the head.
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
2,092 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 four story Goldthwaite Building is located on Main Street in downtown Brockton, across from the City Ha11 (NR). It is surrounded by three other late nineteenth century build- ings of similar scale. The 1892 structure is the most ornamental of the group, being faced with yellow Roman brick and red terra-cotta. The three upper floors of the facade are divided into three bays by masonry piers with terra-cotta capitals. The center bay contains paired 1/1 sash at each floor. Those of the top floor have arched heads and are set within the elaborate typanum of a larger arch.
p ne diyae the Toker Boreh, tha Terra-cotta spandrels divide the lower floors; that dividing the third and fourth floors is imprinted with the words "GOLDTHWAITE BLOCK" while that dividing the second and third floors reads "ANNO DOMINI - 1892". The outer bays contain wood framed, copper clad oriels with three windows at each floor. The spandrels dividing each floor are embossed with a foliate pattern. The enframing. pilasters carry a terra-cotta freize. While the upper floors remain today in their original state, the street level storefronts have been alteredmany times. As originally designed, two stores flanked a center bay through which one gained access to the upper floors.
Some time in the early twentieth century, the first floor was converted to a single store with the entry to the upper floors shifted to one side. In 1979, the building was converted to use as elderly housing, and a three bay storefront was replaced which is similar in design to the origina..
Statement of significance
/Architect J. Westwood religion science sculpture social/ humanitarian theater transportation other (specify) Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Goldthwaite Block possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship and, as a major local example of Victorian commercial design, meets criterion It is significant both for the quality of its architectural detail and as an integral part of the largest and most prominent group of unaltered 19th century bulldings remain- ing in Brockton. In materials and detail, it echoes the landmark Brockton City Hall (1883, NR), which is visible across Main Street. The Goldthwaite Block was built in 1892 by Charles Herbert Goldthwaite to house the "apothecary" established in 1867 by his uncle, Emerson Goldthwaite.
The younger Gold- thwaite was born in Stoughton, MA, 1n 1861, and was taken in by his uncle atter the death of his tather, a leather cutter, in 1883. At that time, Emerson Goldthwaite operated a : dry goods store with "drugs, medicines, books, and stationery" in a wood frame building on the site of the present structure. Emerson sent his nephew to the Boston School of Pharmacy 1n 1883, and when he graduated in 1884, the Goldthwaites established Brockton's first "drug store. " Emerson soon retired, opening a small loan oftice across the street in the Bixby Building. By 1980, "C.H. Goldthwaite, Druggist" was in business by himself. The relative architectural opulence of the Goldthwaite Block indicates that Goldthwaite was a successful merchant who could afford to build a local landmark.
The building is one of the few contemporaneous buildings for which the architect's name was recorded. Goldthwaite employed a Scotsman named J. Westwood, who came to Brockton in 1890 to practice architecture.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82004427, 15 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.
Block
