Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1990. 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 Massachusetts Fields School is a historic former school building at the corner of Rawson Road and Beach Street in Quincy, Massachusetts. Built in 1896, it is a high-quality Colonial Revival brick building, built during Quincy's revolutionary transformation of its school system in the late 19th century.”
Wikipedia article Massachusetts Fields School, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 249 National Register listings in Norfolk County · listed in 1990 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Norfolk County.
Architectural style. Queen Anne style architecture in the United States, Colonial Revival architecture
National Register reference number.88000960- 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.
Fires near this property
208 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 208 fires within 5 miles of Massachusetts Fields School between
2015 and 2020, burning about 100 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
147
Smoking
34
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
18
Debris and open burning
6
Fireworks
2
Equipment and vehicle use
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 11,535 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Massachusetts Fields School between 1810 and
1975: 5,442 Plantae, 2,735 Fungi, 2,716 Animalia, 376 Chromista, 182 Protozoa, 54 Unrecorded, 30 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, 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
3 workings within 5 miles of Massachusetts Fields School: 2 producers, 1 past producer.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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
Quincy, the town this property stands in, in 29 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 10 thunderstorm wind, 8 flood, 5 flash flood, 3 hail.
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.
Several streets in the area of Quincy, Braintree, and Milton were flooded with one to two feet of water. One car was stuck in flood waters at Granite and Chickatawbut Roads in Quincy.
In Quincy, a tree was down on a car at the intersection of Evans Street and West Squantum Street. A person was trapped and extricated, but fortunately was uninjured. Police report relayed by amateur radio.
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
7,577 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.
Statement of significance
Massachusetts Fields School, Quincy, Massachusetts Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: nationally statewide Xlocally Applicable National Register Criteria XA Criteria Considerations (Exceptions) Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions) Architecture Education Community Planning and Development Period of Significance 1896-1938 Significant Dates 1923 Cultural Affiliation N/A Significant Person N/A Architect/Builder A. H. Wright State significance of property, and justify criteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significance noted above.
The Massachusetts Fields School possesses integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, setting, and historical association with the civic development of the town of Quincy. Constructed in 1896, the school represents the commitment of the Quincy School Committee to remain in the vanguard of educational innovation. A well-preserved example of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style architecture, the Massachusetts Fields School remains nearly unaltered since its enlargement in 1923. The Massachusetts Fields School thus meets criteria A and C for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, with significance at the local level. The town of Quincy has long been noted as a forerunner in educational innovation.
The town's celebrated School Committee of 1873, chaired by John Quincy Adams II, was distressed by the condition of "immobility in the schools; no advance in ten years; little change and no improvement in a century." The average graduate of the grammar school in 1870 had difficulty reading without faltering and could barely write a standard letter in a legible, correctly spelled manner. Members of the School Committee conducted an examination of each school in Quincy (approximately thirty at that time) and were appalled with the results, concluding that the entire system was in need of reform. The decision was made to engage a superintendent of schools who would undertake a complete overhauling of the system.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 88000960, 33 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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