Architectural style. Federal architecture, American colonial architecture
National Register reference number.90001080- 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.
What gave the new town the name of Needham is not definitely known, but Rev. Stephen Palmer, who was an authority on the local history of this town, in | a note to an historical address delivered by him in | 1811, says, '' The author has been informed by one of the descendants of the venerable Timothy Dwight, of Dedham, who was a member of the Legislature when this town was incorporated, that it was named | Needham at the request of Governor Dudley after | Needham in England, and because that town is near | to Dedham, although in a different county."
Parker was shot making for the woods. Fisher escaped. Lieut. John Bacon lived in that part of Needham set off to Natick in 1797. Born in 1721; married Abigail Sawin, 1744. They had nine children. Austin Bacon, Esq., a great-grandson of Lieut. Bacon, gives the following interesting account of the cireumstances attending the death of his ancestor: " In the night or near morning the alarm was given, and he set eastern part of the town, and sent his horse back Soon after he had gone a trumpet sounded, and some Framingham men came along with one Nero Benson, a negro, for a trumpeter, and every house they passed had a blast. they heard from him, when one Hawes, they used to call 'Old Hawes,' came home (he was a soldier in the French and Indian war), and gave the following account: That Bacon and himself were on a ledge of rocks in Menotomy behind a stone wall, trying to get a good shot at the red-coats. the flank guard should surprise them, and kept a lookout. Bacon, with his powder in his hat, was lying behind the wall with another, when Hawes said, 'Run or you are dead, here's the side guard.' They tried to get over the wall, but Bacon was shot through near the third button on his vest. receiving the news my grandfather (son of Lieut. Bacon) went off to see how it was, and near night, April 20, came home with his clothes, the body having been buried at West Cambridge. The clothes erandfather entered the room he knew the old striped hat which was put on top of the roll of clothes." Bacon was described as a great worker, and would
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 141 fires within 5 miles of Kingsbury-Whitaker House
between 2003 and 2020, burning about 396 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
69
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
51
Smoking
9
Debris and open burning
7
Equipment and vehicle use
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Other causes
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 15,874 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Kingsbury-Whitaker House between 1805 and 1975: 6,388 Animalia, 4,861 Plantae, 4,168 Fungi, 205 Protozoa, 169 Chromista, 51 Unrecorded, 32 Bacteria.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, ? ex Herb. W.G. Farlow, 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
8 workings within 5 miles of Kingsbury-Whitaker House: 6 past producers, 1 producer, 1 unknown.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Needham, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 2000 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 4 flood, 2 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.
Flooding reaching the tops of tires in Needham at the intersection of Great Plain Avenue and Ivy Road. The Canton Street railroad underpass in Sharon was flooded. A section of Village Street in Medway was flooded. The exit ramp from U.S. Route 1 near an auto dealership in Norwood was flooded; Dean Street in Norwood was flooded; two sections of University Avenue in Norwood were flooded. Oak Street at Park Street in Medfield was flooded. Albion Road at Cliff Road in Wellesley was flooded; State Route 9 near the Fire Department Headquarters was flooded.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
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
Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: nationally statewide X locally Applicable National Register Criteria XA XB C D Criteria Considerations (Exceptions) A IB C D E G Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions) Architecture Community planning and Development Exploration/Settlement Period of Significance ca. 1720-1930 Significant Dates 1840 ca.11829 ca. 1920 ca. 1930 Cultural Affiliation N/A SkingsuBury/Deacon Timothy Whitaker, Edgar Kimball Architect/Builder N/A State significance of property, and justify criteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significance noted above.
The Kingsbury Whitaker House, Needham, Massachusetts, retains integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The house is architecturally significant as a reflection of the evolution of an early dwelling into a substantial farmhouse, and later, a suburban residence. A portion of the house is believed to have been built in the mid 18th century, while the main block was substantially re-worked and expanded ca. 1840. With additions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the present house reflects changing building practices over two centuries.
The property holds associations with two important citizens of Needham, Deacon Timothy Kingsbury and Edgar Kimball Whitaker, and illustrates the change in Needham from an isolated rural community to a prosperous Boston suburb. The Kingsbury Whitaker House therefore fulfils National Register Criteria A, B, and C on the local level. Colonial settlement of Needham started as early as 1636, when the General Court of the Province granted 200 square miles of wilderness to thirty families. Present-day Needham lay in the northeast corner of the large land grant, in the curve of the Charles River and directly across that river from the site of the parent town of Dedham. Parts of Needham were granted to English immigrant families from 1643 onward.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 90001080, 30 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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