Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Wood, Nathan, House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1987. 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
“In the prosecution of my work it has been a source of constant and profound regret that I have not been able to do what I believe to be full justice to zvoman, - to bring her into greater prominence, and assign her to her rightful place in the com- munity and town whose historic features this volume assumes to portray. But this has been found to be practically impossible.”
History of Westminster Massachusetts (first Named Narragansett No. 2) from the Date of the Original Grant of the Township to the Present Time, 1728-1893; with a Biographic-genealogical Register of Its Principal Families (1893). Machine-read text.
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1987 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.87000375- 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.
In the summer of 1883 it was my privilege to attend, for the first time, one of the annual gatherings at Wachusett Park, known in the general neighborhood as "The Old Folks' Picnic." As I conversed with different elderly people there, and listened to the formal addresses of the occasion, composed largely of reminiscences and tales of by-gone days, I was impressed with the desirability and importance of having a comprehensive History of Westminster published, not only to rescue from oblivion many interesting facts, incidents, and events, which otherwise would soon be irretrievably lost to human knowledge, but also for the purpose of collating, condensing, and having in readily accessibly form, whatever might be found in any public records relating to the town, of permanent value to the citizens, to the public at large, or to the student of past times. And in the same connection it occurred to me that, possibly, I might be prompted to undertake the task indicated myself at some future day, should circumstances permit; little realizing, however, what an amount of time, research, and wearisome labor would be required for its accomplishment.
In the prosecution of my work it has been a source of constant and profound regret that I have not been able to do what I believe to be full justice to zvoman, - to bring her into greater prominence, and assign her to her rightful place in the com- munity and town whose historic features this volume assumes to portray. But this has been found to be practically impossible. Society, in its present organic form, not only makes little account of woman, but, for the most part, excludes her from view. In all public concerns man is at the front: man alone, with rare exceptions, appears in all public records. And history, general and local, is written accordingly. Yet, woman is an essential part of every community, and constitutes a vital factor in every problem affecting the common welfare and happiness. In the home, which is the heart of modern civilization, in moral and religious concerns, in church work, in humane and charitable enterprises, in educational activities, she has proved herself to be a great power for good, contributing her equal share to the promotion of the higher interests, and to the development of the best life, of all classes and conditions of people. Such, in my judgment, has been the case in Westminster, and not to recognize and record the fact in some positive way in this History would render it radically defective, - would be to withold the tribute of respect and honor from great numbers of those to whom such tribute is due.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 64 fires within 5 miles of Wood, Nathan, House between
2015 and 2020, burning about 80 acres in total. None 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
37
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
16
Smoking
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Recreation and ceremony
2
Arson/incendiarism
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
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 632 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Wood, Nathan, House between 1870 and
1973: 283 Plantae, 171 Fungi, 161 Animalia, 8 Unrecorded, 6 Chromista, 3 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. Ferrett, A. H. Allen 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
1 working within 5 miles of Wood, Nathan, House: 1 past producer.
None of them still produces. 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
Westminster, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 2005 and 2018: 3 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 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.
In Westminster and Athol and Leicester, several basements were flooded. The Blackstone River overflowed its banks in Uxbridge spilling on to Blackstone and Lower Mendon Streets and flooding basements on Blackstone Street. In Worcester, there were flooded basements on Milbury, Hooper, and Brookline Streets. In addition, Beaver Brook overflowed flooding a parking lot.
At 9:16 AM EST, moderate flooding was reported under several railroad underpasses southwest of Fitchburg. This included Princeton Road and State Route 2A.
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
6,463 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 Nathan Wood House, Westminster, is located in a rural setting on à four-acre lot on the corner of Worcester Road and Patricia Road, about a mile southeast of the town center. The house is a vernacular Georgian-style residence whose well-preserved exterior appears little changed since the building was constructed ca. 1756. The timber-frame house with graduated clapboard exterior rises 2 1/2 stories from a fieldstone foundation. It is five bays wide, with a central pedimented entrance. The central chimney 15 located forward of the gable roof's ridge. The roof is presently asphalt-covered. A single-story rear ell, shingle-sheathed, was added in the late 19th century. The house is set back about twenty feet from the road, behind a Tow, dry-laid fieldstone wall covered with rosebushes.
A barn, built ca. 1820, stands to the north of the house. Several large maple trees, beauty bushes, and old lilacs surround the house. To the south and east is a sloping lawn with an extensive perennial border; beyond this is an open field containing several beehives. The remaining three acres are wooded. The Ahijah Wood House, located south of the Nathan Wood House and also being nominated to the National Register is not visible. The main (west) facade is well proportioned, and distinguished by its central The doorway is topped by a five-light transom and set within a classical frame of incised pilasters supporting entablature and deeply molded, dentilated pediment.
Symmetrically aligned fenestration consisting of 8/12 Kaned fonestrat ton constes ting of molted, sash with plain sills is elaborated on the first story with molded cap cornices. Windows on the second story are set flush with the building's simple cornice. Most of the sash retains original lights. Narrow corner boards finish the otherwise unadorned facade.
(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect Unknown The Nathan Wood House, Westminster, retains integrity of location, design, setting, materlals, workmanship, feeling, and vernacular mid-Georgian style building retaining original finishes on both exterior and interior, the house holds associations with a local family of some significance and remains in their possession for almost a century and half. The Nathan Wood House thus fulfils Criteria B and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. The town of Westminster was one of seven townships designated in 1733 as part of a land grant made in 1728 by the General Court: this grant fulfilled a commitment made in 1685 to veterans of King Philip's War and their survivors.
Located just north of Wachusett Mountain in north-central Massachusetts, the township, then known as Narraganett, No. 2, received its first European in 1737. A meetinghouse site was established in 1739. Settlement proceeded slowly despite the inducements of $40 bounty and construction of a gristmill (1741) to Ture families. By 1741, nineteen families had settled in the town. With hostilities resulting from the French and Indian War, settlement was slow in the 1740s (ten houses are known to have been fortified due to frontier warfare); and by 1750, only thirty-two families had erected houses and cleared their mandated three acres on lots of sixty acres each.
It was not until after 1750, when the Legislature ordered meeting of proprietors to be held in the township and decisions were rendered allowing public improvements (especially highways) that new residents were retained. A poor agrarian community, Narragansett No. 2 was incorporated as Westminster in 1759. In April 1770, the town was granted representation in the Legislature. A committee authorized to subdivide the township began to lay out lots early in 1734.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 87000375, 23 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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