National Register reference number.82004470- 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.
Rev. Rufus A. Johnson followed Mr. Hall, and was installed October 16, 1833. His pastorate continued until March 12, 1838, and he died in Upton in 1860. Rev. Cazneau Palfrey succeeded Mr. Johnson, and was installed April 2-5, 1838. His pastorate continued until April 2.5, 1843. Mr. Palfrey was born in Boston August 11, 180.5, and graduated at Harvard in 1826. Previous to his ministry at Grafton he was settled over the Unitarian Society in Washington, where he remained six years.
Alter the resignation of Mr. Willson the church was without a pastor until 1858, and during a large part of the interval its pulpit was supplied by Rev. Farrington Mclntire, a native of Fitchburg, and a graduate of Harvard in 1843. In 1858 Rev. William G. Scandlin, a native of Portsmouth, England, and a graduate of the Meadville School in 1854, was called. He was installed June 23, J 858, and his pastorate continued until his death, March 17, 1871. In the early days of the War of the Rebellion, in response to his offer of service, he was appointed chaplain of the Fifteenth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and received a leave of absence from his people. During a subsequent service as a member of the Sanitary Commission he was taken prisoner and confined for a time in Libby prison. His services, both as chaplain and dispenser of the bounties of the Commission, were widely known and gratefully acknowledged. During his pastorate his meeting-house was burned, in 1862, and immediately rebuilt. His death was universally lamented both by his own society and his fellow-citizens of all denominations, and the day of his funeral was observed in Grafton as a day of mourning.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 34 fires within 5 miles of Willard House and Clock Museum
between 2002 and 2020, burning about 19 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning
8
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
8
Smoking
5
Power generation/transmission/distribution
4
Railroad operations and maintenance
3
Recreation and ceremony
3
Arson/incendiarism
3
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 1,673 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Willard House and Clock Museum between 1839 and 1975: 899 Plantae, 463 Animalia, 290 Fungi, 14 Unrecorded, 5 Protozoa, 2 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
4 workings within 5 miles of Willard House and Clock Museum: 2 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Grafton, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1995 and 2017: 7 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 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.
Two inch diameter hail fell in Grafton damaging screens and vinyl shutters on the west side of one house. On Route 122A, hail covered the ground, making the road slick, and broke car windows.
Lincoln and Cambridge Streets in Worcester were flooded with one to two feet of water. The intersection of Ward Street and Route 122 in Millbury was flooded with one and a half feet of water. In Grafton, Hayes Pond overflowed onto East Road spilling water onto the road up to four inches in depth.
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 Willard House stands in a rural section of the village of North Grafton. This colonial period farnhouse faces south, overlooking 9 1/2 acres of open land on the west side of Willard Street. Today the Willard House presents a 2 1/2 story, saltbox form with an asymmetrical, 3 bay facade -- an appearance that reflects the physical growth of the building. As originally constructed in 1718, the Willard House consisted of only one room with a sleeping loft above. It is thought that the western side of the house and the second story were added ca. 1760, and that the leanto was added in a third construction phase of unknown date. A gabled, two story ell was added at the northwest corner in 1970, when the house was restored.
Built on a fieldstone foundation, the house's post and beam frame is sheathed in clapboard and enclosed by a gable roof. A large chimney is placed just behind the ridgepole and slightly off center. On the main block of the house, narrow 6/9 windows are set in projecting frames, those on the first floor having bold cornices. The doorways on the facade and east side have similar cornices. On the rear (north) elevation are a single 6/9 window and a small entrance vestibule. The northwest ell has smaller 6/6 windows in flush frames, with a modern bay window on its northern elevation. The interior of the Willard House retains its period design.
Major features include a narrow center stairway with a closed stringcourse, feather-edge panelling, origina] mantelpieces, and exposed post and beam construction. In 1968 the Willard House was purchased for use as a museum.
(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect Joseph Willard The Willard House is significant for its associations with four famous clockmakers of the 18th and early 19th centuries and as an example of evolving colonial period architecture in Grafton. The property retains integrity of design, setting, and location and meets criteria B and C of the National Register of Historic Places. The Willard House was built in 1718 by Major Joseph Willard -- a farmer, militiaman, and one of the earliest settlers in town. He was a descendant of Major Simon Willard, the founder of Concord, Mass. Somewhat later, Joseph's son and daughter-in-law, Benjamin and Sarah Willard, also occupied the house with their 10 children.
Four of Benjamin and Sarah's children became famous as clockmakers; all four were born in the Willard House between 1743 and 1757. Benjamin the third child and oldest son, was born in 1743 and died in 1803. The west side of the house was given to Benjamin in 1764, and the clockshop was built for him in 1766. Benjamin may have apprenticed to the Cheneys of East Hartford, Conn., and probably taught his younger brothers the clockmaking trade; he worked in Grafton, Lexington and Roxbury, Mass. Several musical clocks by Benjamin are known. Simon, the 8th child (1753-1848), worked in Grafton and Roxbury, making his first clock at the age of 17.
The most prominent of the Willard clockmakers, Simon invented a clock-powered jack for roasting meats, patented the lighthouse clock, and produced tall clocks, Massachusetts shelf clocks and tower clocks. Of his 11 children by his second wife, three became associated with the clock business; many of his apprentices became notable in the craft. Ephraim (1755-?) was the 9th child of Benjamin and Sarah Willard.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82004470, 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.
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