Built in 1856 in the Italianate architecture. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1986. 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 School Street School is a historic school building at 40 School Street in Haverhill, Massachusetts, United States. The brick three-story building was designed by Joseph R.”
Wikipedia article School Street School (Haverhill, Massachusetts), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1986 · category: Building · built in 1856, Italianate architecture · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.86002922- 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 the foregoing lists of names, it will be seen that Haverhill furnished its full proportion of soldiers during the whole of this war. We regret that we cannot give more definite information in regard to the names and number of those killed, wounded, or captured, but the meagreness of the records as to individual histories, and the time which has elapsed since the occurrences took place, have put it beyond our power to do so. We have no doubt that other persons from this town, besides those whose names we have given, were in the service ; but, as the place of residence or enlistment is not always given in the rolls, and as it frequently happened that persons of the same name, but from different towns, were found in those lists where the residence was given, we have found it impossible to obtain a more perfect list. As a specimen of the imperfection of the records, we may cite the fact, that although Dr. James Brickett of this
In July, 1766, Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, was appointed by the King " Surveyor General of all "his Majesty's woods in North America," for the purpose of putting into execution the acts of parliament concerning the preservation of " the King's woods from trespass & waste." By these acts, all white pine trees from fifteen to thirty-six inches in diameter, were reserved for the royal navy, and any owner of land, before he commenced cutting, was under the necessity of employing a deputy surveyor to mark the trees upon his land, reserved for the use of the king, and if he neglected to have his land thus surveyed, either from inability to pay for such survey, or other cause, and proceeded to cut his timber, the same was forfeited to the king ! In this way, whole mill-yards of lumber, got out by the settlers for building their houses, and barns, were often forfeited. Seizures were made in all parts of the Province, wherever the pine abounded, and mills had been erected. Samuel Blodget, of Goffstown, was appointed, in February, 1772, deputy surveyor for thirty-one towns in the province of New Hampshire, and the towns of Haverhill, Andover, Dracut, Chelmsford, and Ipswich, in the province of Massachusetts Bay.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 85 fires within 5 miles of School Street School between
1992 and 2020, burning about 47 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 2 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
17
Recreation and ceremony
14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
12
Misuse of fire by a minor
12
Equipment and vehicle use
9
Smoking
7
Railroad operations and maintenance
6
Power generation/transmission/distribution
5
Arson/incendiarism
2
Natural
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 1,919 specimens
collected within 10 miles of School Street School between 1800 and
1975: 1,162 Plantae, 594 Animalia, 151 Fungi, 5 Protozoa, 4 Chromista, 3 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A Brown, A S Gaunt, A. A. Eaton 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
18 workings within 5 miles of School Street School: 15 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant.
3 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
Haverhill, the town this property stands in, in 23 storm reports between 1998 and 2021: 10 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 4 lightning, 2 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.
Flooding affected several homes in Danvers, and closed a portion of Bridge Street in Salem.|Minor to moderate flooding affected the larger mainstem rivers in the Merrimack basin. The Merrimack River at Lowell crested at 58.1 feet at 7 pm on the 17th (flood stage is 52 feet) which is the fifth highest flood on record. In Haverhill, it crested at 17.6 feet at 230 am on the 18th (flood stage is 15 feet) while in Lawrence, a crest of 29 feet was reported at 9 am on the 18th (flood stage is 20 feet). The Spicket River at Methuen crested at 9 feet at 145 pm on the 18th (flood stage is 8 feet). The Concord River at Lowell crested at 8.4 feet at 1 am on the 19th (flood stage is 8 feet).
In Haverhill, Winter Street and North Avenue were flooded. In addition, vehicles were stuck in flood waters on Parsonage Hill Road. Spotters reported that the road was begining to wash away. Canal Street in Salem was flooded with three to four feet of water on the roadway. In Groveland, Balch Avenue was flooded near its intersection with Route 113.
Trees and wires on Corliss Hill Road and South Williams Street were downed by thunderstorm winds. Also, a tree was downed onto a car at the intersection of Broadway and Lake Streets. This tree blocked Broadway, causing traffic to be rerouted.
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
3,937 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 School Street School in Haverhill, Massachusetts, is a rectangular brick structure with a shallow hip roof. Built on a lot that slopes steeply from the north to south, the school is two stories high with a full basement; the latter is fully below grade at the north end but above grade at the southern end. Constructed in 1856, the building is a well-detailed example of the use of Italianate-style detailing in schoolhouse architecture. Its almost severe detailing, symmetry and lack of intricate ornamentation give this restrained building a sense of simple dignity. On all four facades, the building's bays are demarcated by monumental brick pilasters, which support a restrained brick entablature. Above this is a projecting cornice of wood, supported by heavy brackets.
The school is surmounted by a shallow hip roof, sheathed in asphalt shingles, and was originally crowned by a small cupola or bell tower, which was removed when the cpp ia or beif toven, wht. building was reroofed ca. 1915. At that time, the two central chimneys were enlarged for the installation of a new heating system. The primary east and west facades are identical. Each includes an array of stylized brick pilasters combined with rigidly symmetrical fenestration arrayed on either side of a large, shallow projecting central bay. The school's entrances, which are located at both east and west side within these projecting bays, are set within round-arched openings with prominent brownstone voussoirs and oversized keystones. Sturdy wood double doors are surmounted by glazed transoms.
On the top floor, each central bay holds a Palladian-inspired tripartite window grouping with a 12/12 window framed by two 8/8 windows. These and all other windows in the school, which have 12/12 wood sash, are framed by simple brownstone sills and lintels.
(in one paragraph) The School Street School retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The building is historically significant for its associations with Haverhill's devel opment as an industrial town, its emergence as a major shoe manufacturing center, and its conmitment to public education in the mid to late 19th century through an indus triai tamifi cant for extensive municipal building program. The school is architecturally significant as an early and well-preserved example of Italianate styling in an educational building whose plan exhibits a progressive interest in healthful schoolhouse design. The building was designed by the regionally prominent architect Joseph P. Richards.
The School Street School thus fulfils Criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. Prior to the construction of the nominated property, Haverhill's commitment to public education was longstanding. The earliest public school was established in 1660, and the first schoolhouse was built in 16/9. A School Committee was formed in 1789, and issued regulations setting out a course of study the following year. The opening decades of the 19th century saw Haverhill grow from an agriculture-based village to a manufacturing town. Shipbuilding, which had begun in the 1750s, reached its peak in 1800 with three shipyards in the central village and another at East Haverhill.
Other early industries included tanning and hatmaking, but it was with the manufacture of shoes that Haverhill became most strongly identified. This industry developed relatively s1owly in Haverhill; as late as 1794 there were reportedly only two shoemakers in the town, and their production was confined to supplying members of the conmunity. During the War of 1812, however, shoes began to be shipped to other cities and towns as far away as Philadelphia.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86002922, 18 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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