Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. 17 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1893.
From the record
“The James Smith House is a historic colonial house in Needham, Massachusetts, United States. It is a wood-frame structure, five bays wide, with a side gable roof and clapboard siding.”
Wikipedia article James Smith House (Needham, Massachusetts), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 342 National Register listings published here for Norfolk County · listed in 1986 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.86001845- 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.
What gave the new town the name of Needham is not definitely known, but Rev. Stephen Palmer, who was an authority on the local history of this town, in | a note to an historical address delivered by him in | 1811, says, '' The author has been informed by one of the descendants of the venerable Timothy Dwight, of Dedham, who was a member of the Legislature when this town was incorporated, that it was named | Needham at the request of Governor Dudley after | Needham in England, and because that town is near | to Dedham, although in a different county."
Parker was shot making for the woods. Fisher escaped. Lieut. John Bacon lived in that part of Needham set off to Natick in 1797. Born in 1721; married Abigail Sawin, 1744. They had nine children. Austin Bacon, Esq., a great-grandson of Lieut. Bacon, gives the following interesting account of the cireumstances attending the death of his ancestor: " In the night or near morning the alarm was given, and he set eastern part of the town, and sent his horse back Soon after he had gone a trumpet sounded, and some Framingham men came along with one Nero Benson, a negro, for a trumpeter, and every house they passed had a blast. they heard from him, when one Hawes, they used to call 'Old Hawes,' came home (he was a soldier in the French and Indian war), and gave the following account: That Bacon and himself were on a ledge of rocks in Menotomy behind a stone wall, trying to get a good shot at the red-coats. the flank guard should surprise them, and kept a lookout. Bacon, with his powder in his hat, was lying behind the wall with another, when Hawes said, 'Run or you are dead, here's the side guard.' They tried to get over the wall, but Bacon was shot through near the third button on his vest. receiving the news my grandfather (son of Lieut. Bacon) went off to see how it was, and near night, April 20, came home with his clothes, the body having been buried at West Cambridge. The clothes erandfather entered the room he knew the old striped hat which was put on top of the roll of clothes." Bacon was described as a great worker, and would
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 139 fires within 5 miles of James Smith House
between 2003 and 2020, burning about 396 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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
69
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
51
Smoking
9
Debris and open burning
6
Equipment and vehicle use
3
Other causes
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 16,475 specimens
collected within 10 miles of James Smith House between 1815 and 1975: 6,345 Animalia, 5,509 Plantae, 4,165 Fungi, 205 Protozoa, 165 Chromista, 53 Unrecorded, 33 Bacteria.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, ? ex Herb. W.G. Farlow, A C Gibson 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
7 workings within 5 miles of James Smith House: 5 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 plant.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Tantalum. 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
Needham, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 2000 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 4 flood, 2 lightning.
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.
Flooding reaching the tops of tires in Needham at the intersection of Great Plain Avenue and Ivy Road. The Canton Street railroad underpass in Sharon was flooded. A section of Village Street in Medway was flooded. The exit ramp from U.S. Route 1 near an auto dealership in Norwood was flooded; Dean Street in Norwood was flooded; two sections of University Avenue in Norwood were flooded. Oak Street at Park Street in Medfield was flooded. Albion Road at Cliff Road in Wellesley was flooded; State Route 9 near the Fire Department Headquarters was flooded.
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 James Smith House, Needham, is located on Great Plains Avenue, one of the earliest transportation routes in this suburban community 12 miles southwest of Boston. With a 1 1/2-story rear ell built ca. 1730 and a 2 1/2-story, five-bay main block added ca. 1810-1830, the Smith House is one of the ol dest structures in Needham. The building is of wood construction, the main block sheathedin clapboard and the ell presently cedar-shingled, and rests on a brick foundation. Both main block and ell sit above full basements. Originally part of a 15-acre parcel on Needham's "Great Plain," the house now stands on a level lot of less than one acre in a residential neighborhood dominated by single-family dwellings constructed in the 20th century.
The house faces north and is set back almost 20 feet from the road. It is fronted by a picket fence and plantings of flowering bushes and evergreen trees. On the building's east side is an asphalt driveway. A clapboard barn (ca. 1960) stands at the rear of the property. The present James Smith House was constructed in two phases in the early 18th and early 19th centuries, with a third phase overlaying stylish ornamentation later in the 19th century. It is apparent that the earliest portion, ca. 1730, survives partially intact as a rear ell of the present house, while the main Federal-style front portion dates to the occupancy of the Smith family ca. 1810-1830. (It is also conceivable that the main block may have been built as late as 1832-1835, when the property was acquired by George G.
Stevens.) The Greek Revival-style alterations to the house, notably a front porch (now removed), mantels in the front rooms, and new roof over the main block, were undoubtedly done during George Stevens' occupancy ca. 1840-1860.
(in one paragraph) The James Smith House, Needham, retains integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. Architecturally, the property is significant as a demonstration of the evolution of building practices and styles in the colonial and early national periods, as the building was altered to suit changing needs. A modest ca. 1730 dwelling survives as the building's rear ell; the main block, a five-bay, 2 1/2-story structure was built ca. 1810-1835, and Greek Revival-style decorative features were added in the mid 19th century. The James Smith House thus fulfils Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. Needham, originally part of the 1636 Dedham grant, was incorporated in 1711. By ca.
1712, a meetinghouse stood west of the Great Plain (at the intersection of Great Plains Avenue and present-day Central and Nehoiden Streets). years later, a bridge had been built across the Charles River. Great Plains Avenue evolved early in the 18th century as a link from Dedham west to a growing village center. The Plain and the banks of the Charles River were the first areas settled, with scattered farmsteads. The village as a whole remained rather isolated and undevel oped up to the eve of the Revolution. The smal1 structure that is now the rear ell of the nominated property, built ca. 1730, was probably the Smith family farmhouse, although this assumption is unproven. It is known that James Smith arrived in the area and owned this piece of property by 1727.
The name of James Smith first appears in town records in 1726, when he and his wife Mary were admitted to membership in Needham church, shortly after they arrived from Ireland. They presented a testimonial from the minister of the congregation in Ballykelly, in Londonderry.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86001845, 17 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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