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
“Joseph Gould House is a historic First Period house in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is a 2.5-story frame house that is six bays wide and two rooms deep.”
Wikipedia article Capt. Joseph Gould House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1990 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
Also known as. First Period Buildings of Eastern Massachusetts TR
Township. Topsfield town
Architectural style. American colonial architecture
National Register reference number.90000259- 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.
Topsfield, Capt. Daniel with every. teken of respect for his memory, and sympathy for his afflicted family. As.it was on .the. day assigned to military parade and review, the militia company in the town, the command of which he had recently resigned, appeared under arms on the occasion, commanded by Capt. Bradstreet, and went through those movements and positions usual on such occasions, attended with solemn music. - The order and decorum of the military, made a favorable impression on a numerous assemblage of people. The solemnity observable on the occasion was expressive of the public estimation of an honest man, a good neighbor, and a worthy citizen.
The membership of the society on December 31, 1910, was 252. Only four new members have been elected during the year, while one has resigned and five have been removed by death: - -Henry W. Lake, a charter member and at the time of his death a director of the society; Mrs. Jennie Hood Bosson of Reading, whose genealogy of the Hood family was printed in the last volume of our Historical Collections; Miss Anna S. Lamson of Topsfield; Fred A. Phelps of Laconia, N. H., and David Cummings of Boston. Mr. Cummings executed a will on Oct. 8, 1907 and when it was offered for probate on April 25, 1910 it was found that the sum of two thousand dollars had been given to this society together with an interest in the residue probably amounting to a like sum. This generous bequest makes it possible for the society to acquire a permanent home and having in view the possible ownership of real property, incorporation under the laws of Massachusetts was effected at a meeting held September 2nd, and at the same mecting a committce was appointed to ascertain on what terms the Capen house, so called, might be secured as a permanent home for the Society, thereby preserving for later generations one of the most interesting of the 17th century dwellings yet remaining in Essex County. After conference, however, it was found that the present owner declined to sell the property and the terms under which the house might be leased for a period of five years scemed so disadvantageous that it seems necessary to abandon the proposed plan. No other building of recognized antiquity now remains in town that is worthy of consideration in this connection and if the plan of acquiring permanent quarters is to be followed out it necessarily must be along other lines. In the not distant future it will be an imperative necessity to provide enlarged quarters for the erected, no doubt some arrangement could be made whereby the society would be provided with suitable rooms and the financial details arranged with mutual advantage.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 86 fires within 5 miles of Gould, Capt. Joseph, House between
2006 and 2020, burning about 290 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 10 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
22
Recreation and ceremony
15
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
14
Smoking
13
Arson/incendiarism
10
Equipment and vehicle use
8
Fireworks
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
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 3,529 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Gould, Capt. Joseph, House between 1800 and
1975: 1,374 Plantae, 1,211 Animalia, 738 Fungi, 125 Unrecorded, 51 Chromista, 21 Bacteria, 9 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A Brown, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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
5 workings within 5 miles of Gould, Capt. Joseph, House: 5 past producers.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Sulfur, Iron. 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
Topsfield, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 2001 and 2025: 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud, 1 flood, 1 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.
The Ipswich River flooded the Topsfield Fairgrounds parking lot and grounds. This resulted in a delay in the opening of the annual Topsfield fair. Alternate parking lots had to be opened and shuttles used to transport patrons to and from the fair. Approximately 100 small businesses were affected by floodwaters flooding their travel trailers.
Route 1 at Ipswich Road in Topsfield was closed in both directions due to a landslide. The landslide damaged four cars and left some of the road buried under three feet of mud.
In Topsfield, there was significant basement flooding to a residence on Woodside Rd. Inundation reportedly approached the height of the electrical panel of the home.
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
1,525 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 reproduced in full on its own page, word for word and 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.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 90000259, 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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