Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Lawrence, Phineas, 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
“The tax upon the town for the support of tbe Great Bridge was probably .beginning to be onerous, and the people evidently began to be a little restive under it, for in March, 1788, a committee reported verbally tlmt they were unable to find any grant of land made for its support in which Waltham or Weston liad any interest. Abner Sanderson was, in May, again elected representative, a position which he continued to fill until 1802.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1987 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.87001397- 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.
On the ]-"5th of May, 1715, the town passed a vote " to build a meeting-house for the accommodation of tlir inhabitants of the most westerly part of the town." The former West or Farmers' Precinct having been incor])oratcd as Weston, that part of the town now called Waltham had become the most western division. The vote was not, however, carried into effect, and in Si|)l( inbrr of the same year the Eastern Precind priiiioiiiii the (ienernl Court for separation.
Leaving now the (piarivl of the eliurehes, we eoiiie to the third, the final, and on that aeeonnt perhaps the principal, cause of the complete with- drawal of the West Precinct, and its formation into a distinct town. As early as January 1720-21 tlie precinct in many things assumed almost complete municipal powers. On the 30th of January, 1720-21, a meeting was held, at which Isaac Mixer was chosen clerk, Joseph Mixer treasurer, and Lieutenant Jonathan Smitli, Sergeant Jonathan Sanderson, Ensign Samuel Garfield, Captain Samuel Harrington, John Cutting, Sergeant Joseph Pierce, and Daniel Benjamin were chosen precinct committee. Votes were passed to carry into effect the order of the General Court of December 17, 1720, in regard to the meeting-house, and in October, 1722, it was voted to "sell what was left of the old meeting-house." On the 7th of April, 1729, a meeting was held to see, among other things, about a location for a school-liouse. Allen Flagg agreed to give a piece of land at the north end of his orchard for that purpose, and the precinct agreed to accept it. On the 1th of February, 1729-30, Znchariah Smith, Allen Flagg, Thomas Harrington, Thomas Bigelow, Jonas Smith, John C'hilds, and John Cutting were appointed a committee to wait upon the selectmen, and have inserted in the warrant for the next town-meeting an article requesting the town to grant a sum of money to build a school-house on the land of Mr. Flagg. The town, however, refused to accept the site or vote the money, and on this school cjuestion came tlie tug of war, which resulted in the West Precinct becoming Waltham. The town-meeting at which the request of the western people was refused was held in March. On the 1st of May, 1 730, Thomas Bigelow, Zachariah Smith, Allen Flagg, Elisha Smith, and John Child were appointed a committee at a meeting of the West Precinct, to take measures to have that portion set off as a separate town, "and take Effectual care that the same may be Established that Learning may be Advanced amongst us or some other proper methods whareby to obtain the same." A petition signed by Anthony Conady (Caverly ?) and others, representing the difficulties in the way of schools, and the " impositions" of the East Precinct, and praying for a separate township, had already been prepared and sent for the consideration of the General Court, and the town was served with a copy of the j^etition, and cited to show cause why it should not be granted. Li February, 1730-31, Deacon William Brown, Anthony Cau [v] erly. Deacon Thomas Livennore, Thomas Bigelow, and Jonas Smith were chosen a committee to attain the coveted separation. At a regular meeting held April 19, 1731, the town, or practically the East Precinct, appointed Lieutenant Samuel Stearns, Joseph Nason, and Jonas Bond a committee to appear in behalf of the town, and probably in opposition to the division. What action the court took is not plain, but one of the recommendations was that the town provide two school-houses, with two duly qualified schoolmasters, - one of each for each precinct. These recommendations the town (August 16, 1731) refused to accept. The assessors of the West Precinct, - Nathaniel Harris and Deacon William Brown, - acting under a sense of gross injustice practised by the East Precinct majority, refused to assess for the grant made by the town for the support of schools. Something of the spirit of opposition to taxation without representation asserted itself here.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 49 fires within 5 miles of Lawrence, Phineas, House between
1992 and 2020, burning about 98 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 23 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
Arson/incendiarism
23
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
13
Debris and open burning
10
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
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 2,160 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Lawrence, Phineas, House between 1898 and
1975: 931 Animalia, 689 Plantae, 472 Fungi, 31 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 11 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
6 workings within 5 miles of Lawrence, Phineas, House: 4 past producers, 1 producer, 1 plant.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium). 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
Waltham, the town this property stands in, in 17 storm reports between 1996 and 2019: 9 flash flood, 3 flood, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain.
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.
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
3,221 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 Phineas Lawrence House is located in the northeast section of Waltham, Massachusetts, on Trapelo Road, a ma jor east/west route through the city. This section of Waltham is part of the Waltham Highlands, and is character ized by very rugged, steeply contoured topography, much of it between 200 and 300 feet in elevation. The Highlands area is the source for several important brooks which feed into the Charles River, and the Lawrence House is located approximately a quarter of a mile west of the Beaver Brook. The Phineas Lawrence House is set back twenty-five feet from Trapelo Road as it begins its rise from the Beaver Brook valley.
Much of the land on the southern side of Trapelo Road and the area just west of the Lawrence House on the north side of Trapelo Roadis owned bythe Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is occupiedby three hospitals for chronically or mentally ill patients. Most of the hospital facilities are not visible from Trapelo Road and as a result the Lawrence House has a commanding view of largely open land to the wsouthwest. The Phineas Lawrence House is the only nineteenth century building in a small enclave of twentieth century residential structures in this largely institutional section of Waltham. The Lawrence House,which faces southwest, is sited on a one-acre wooded lot between Porter and Baldwin Roads and is bounded along Trapelo Road by a drylaid stone wall. The house is a ca.
1810, two-story, five-bay, center hall plan structure, tour bays deep with a ca. 1860 two-story, tive-bay ell oft the rear (north) elevation. A ca. 1925 garage addition has been appended to the east side of the ell.
/Architect Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) Unknown The Phineas Lawrence House, 257 Trapelo Road, Waltham, Massachusetts, has significant associations with Waltham's early development and its agricultural past, as well as possessing integrity of location, des ign, setting, materials, and workmanship. The Phineas Lawrence House is important architecturally as one of the few remaining Federal-per iod farmhouses, which were typical of Waltham's early agricultural period. The property also includes a late 19th centur y barn; it, too, is considered contributing. The house was also the birthplace and home of Phineas Lawrence (1826-1924), who chronicled the history of the Trapelo Road area of Waltham and the Brown family in his book A Brief History of the Trapelo Browns.
Lawrence was also a prominent Waltham civic leader and bus inessman who contributed to the development of Waltham from town to city. The Phineas Lawrence meets Criteria A, B, and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. The area occupied by present-day Waltham was originally part of the large Watertown land grant, one of the earliest settled areas of Massachusetts. By 1738 Waltham established itself as an independent town whose prosperity was der ived from farming and dairying activities. Up until the ear ly 19th century, Waltham was thinly settled, and the topography of broad valleys between Charles River tributaries lent itself to large farm estates.
With the advent of industrialization, the river and brooks that ran through Waltham and watertown became attractive factory sites. The farm estates prospered by providing foodstuffs to the burgeoning population of mill workers and town residents. Increased industrial development and town growth caused local roads, such as Trapelo Road and Lexington Street, to be improved and extended.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 87001397, 13 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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