Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1989. 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 causes that niduced the First Parish, the oldest and largest settlement, thus to separate from her younger sisters, to forego in part the prestige and charm of its time-honored name, and to surrender its ancient and valued archives and records, and other manuscript property, were principally political ones. The town of Reading, in 1812, consisted of three well-defined parishes, namely, tlie Old Parish, now Wakefield; the North Parish, called the Precinct, now North Reading ; and the West Parish, or Woodend, now Reading.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County (1880). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1989 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.89000714- 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.
TITS town is old, though its inline is new. Its history, as the abode of white men, runs back to 1639, when, under a special grant of land from the General Court to the town of Lynn of " four miles square," it was settled by families coin- \\\'S mostly from Lynn, and I'lok the name of Lynn Village. This grant included the territory substantially within the limits of tiie present towns of AYaketiekl and Reading. Tlie first settlement was made in what is now Wakefield, and in 1644, seven houses having been erected, seven families located, and a humble church edifice built, the village was made a town corporate, with the name of Reading. In 1651 a second grant of territory was made to the township of two miles square, including substantially what is now North Reading. In 1713 the inhabitants of the last-named territory, " having become of sufficient and competent numbers to call, settle, and maintain a Godly, learned, orthodox minister," were incorporated as a distinct parish by the name of tlie North Precinct of Reading, the remaining portion of the town being known as the First Parish. Li 1769 the northwesterly part of the First Parish, the part then called Woodend, was incorporated by the name of the West Parish of Reading, forming the nucleus of the present town of I
Reading. In ISH the old town was divided, and the First or South Parish, then commonly known as the Old Parish, including the present territory of Wakefield, was incorporated as a new town under the name of South Reading.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Beacon Street Tomb between
2003 and 2020, burning about 27 acres in total. None started naturally. 8 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
Recreation and ceremony
18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
16
Debris and open burning
13
Arson/incendiarism
8
Smoking
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
4
Equipment and vehicle use
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
2
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 1,055 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Beacon Street Tomb between 1898 and
1975: 404 Plantae, 392 Animalia, 224 Fungi, 17 Bacteria, 8 Unrecorded, 5 Chromista, 5 Protozoa. 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
11 workings within 5 miles of Beacon Street Tomb: 5 past producers, 4 producers, 2 plants.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Silica. 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
Wakefield, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2020: 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. 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.
A 55 year old woman was injured when lightning struck her house in Wakefield. The woman was ironing when lightning struck and was thrown about 6 feet. She temporarily lost feeling in her right arm and was transported to the hospital. Doctors evaluated her, determining that no permanent damage was done but the strike had affected her right eardrum and thrown off her equilibrium. The house was found to be undamaged.
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.
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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