Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
District Five Schoolhouse
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1991. 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
“Just as the last sheets of the Appendix were going through the press, the Reporter learning, for the first time, that Professor Webster had made a formal apology to Messrs. Sohier, an extract from such a letter; the same letter containing allusions to other matters which Mr.”
Report of the Case of John W. Webster, Indicted for the Murder of George Parkman, Before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts : Including the Hearing on the Petition for a Writ of Error, the Prisoner's Confessional Statements and Application for a Commutation of Sentence, and an Appendix Containing Several Interesting Matters Never Before Published (1850). Machine-read text.
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1991 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.91000697- 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.
We compile from two of the newspapers of the day, the Boston Daily Evening Transcript and the Boston Daily Evening Traveller, some particulars of the last hours and execution of Prof. Webster, which we deem not inappropriate, in this connection, to the present volume. We have taken pains to verify the statements by a reference to eye-witnesses present at the scenes or interviews, and have made an occasional alteration for the sake of greater exactness. - Rep.
Professor Webster was visited as usual by his family yesterday afternoon, and they remained with him nearly four hours. There is every reason to believe that they left entirely ignorant as to the day of the execution. The prisoner had felt great anxiety in regard to this closing interview, lest he should betray himself. When it was over, he felt greatly relieved, and spoke cheerfully. He had detected no sign of a recognition of the fact that this was their last interview in the demeanor of his family : neither had the jailer. To the latter, as they left the cell, they addressed some remarks plainly indicating their expectation of re-visiting the prisoner. An immense crowd had assembled in Leverett street, and about the jail, to see the unhappy family as they went out ; but Mr. Andrews took Mrs. Webster and her family through his own house to a door opening on Lowell street, where a carriage was waiting, and they thus escaped the scrutiny and remarks of the multitude.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 43 fires within 5 miles of District Five Schoolhouse between
2007 and 2020, burning about 17 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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
19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
10
Recreation and ceremony
7
Arson/incendiarism
2
Smoking
2
Equipment and vehicle use
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
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 404 specimens
collected within 10 miles of District Five Schoolhouse between 1857 and
1975: 207 Animalia, 155 Plantae, 29 Fungi, 10 Protozoa, 2 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. S. Pease, Agassiz, Agassiz, Alexander Emanuel Rodolphe 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
15 workings within 5 miles of District Five Schoolhouse: 13 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, 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
Webster, the town this property stands in, in 21 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 13 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 2 flood, 2 tornado.
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.
In just about one minute, an EF-1 tornado, with maximum winds estimated at 110 mph, wreaked havoc in the easternmost portion of Dudley, MA and in the downtown portion of Webster, MA. It touched down along Route 12 (Schofield Avenue) to the west of Laprise Court in Dudley and traveled northeastward onto Main Street in Webster, then lifted near the French River by Oxford Avenue. ||Many trees were snapped and debarked. In Webster, a gas station overhang was twisted. An old brick rooftop was damaged, with bricks having fallen onto Main Street. The rubber roof covering of another building was peeled completely off. Windows were blown out at a business on Main Street and the street was littered with broken glass. The side walls of an apartment complex were bent slightly outward toward the tornado. Window screens were sucked outward. A car windshield and side mirror was damaged. There were other reports of trees fallen onto cars. Utility poles were snapped and numerous wires were downed. According to MEMA, at least 3 buildings were condemned and at least 5 were uninhabitable.||Nearly everyone that our survey team spoke with had heard the warning via the Wireless Emergency Alert on their cell phones as much as 20+ minutes in advance of the touchdown! This undoubtedly played a big role in the fact that there were no fatalities. According to media reports, there was one minor injury when part of a roof fell on top of a woman's car.
In Webster at 411 PM EDT (311 PM EST), lightning caused a house fire on Colonial Road. Subsequent follow-up with the fire department revealed that there was $100,000 in water damage to the home from extinguishing the fire.
A weak tornado touched town in the town of |Thompson in northern Windham County, Connecticut. A NWS |meteorologist conducted a storm survey following tips from amateur |radio operators and local broadcast meteorologists. The following |information summarizes all of the reports. ||The tornado touched down near a red barn near the intersection of |Quinebaug Road (Route 131) and Riverside Drive (Route 12). It was |reported to be about 50 yards wide and tracked northeastward in a |discontinuous path, impacting areas just south of Ryler Court at |Riverside Drive, Wilsonville Road, Wagher Road, and Denis Drive at |Labby Road. It then crossed the Massachusetts/Connecticut state |line and ended as a waterspout in Lake Chaubunagungamaug. Although |discontinuous, the total path length was 4.7 miles. The approximate |path width was 50 yards. Damage photos led to estimates of maximum |wind speeds of 80 to 85 mph, which puts this on the upper end of |the EF0 category of the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The time, based on |radar and eyewitness accounts, was from 1015 AM to 1024 AM EDT. ||More specifically, when the tornado touched down near Backwater |Brook, it snapped several trees in half in a convergent fashion. |It caused minor backyard damage at a nearby property before felling |numerous trees and power lines near the intersection of Riverside |Drive and Ryler Court. Tree damage was also reported at Wilsonville |Road and several trees were snapped in the backyard of a house near |Wagher Road and Forest Hill Drive. A tree was partially snapped near |Denis Drive at Labby Road before causing minor damage near Woods |Grove. Finally, multiple residents witnessed a waterspout over Lake |Chaubunagungamaug before dissipating near Killdeer Island.
In Webster, multiple trees and wires were down on Highland Street. One tree fell onto the side of a house. One utility pole was snapped. Also, multiple wires were down on School Street.
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
4,362 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
Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: nationally statewide Xlocally D Applicable National Register Criteria Criteria Considerations (Exceptions) Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions) Architecture Education Community Planning and Development G Period of Significance 1835-1935 Significant Dates 1835 Cultural Affiliation N/A Significant Person N/A Architect/Builder Wood, Harvey State significance of property, and justify criteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significance noted above.
The District Five or Fenner Hill Schoolhouse is a well-preserved example of a Greek kevival aistrict school, constructed at the nelght 1n popularity ot decentralized schools and during the first period of municipal construction in the newly formed town of Webster. are the embodiment of the independent school districts that characterized this period and that provided local institutions below the level of the town meeting. The building posseses integrity of design, materials, workmanship, ocation ana association. The District Five Schoolhouse meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places at the local level.
The Fenner Hill School is located in Webster, Massachusetts, a town formed to contain the industrial villages established by Samuel Slater in the first decades of the nineteentn century. The Town of Webster is located along the French River and encloses within 1t Lake webster or Chargoggagogmanchaugagogchaubunagungamaug, the area of one of a few regional foci for Native American Nipmuck settlement. The area is further distinguished as the location of multiple grants of land to individuals for service to the colony, dating to the earliest rewards to investors in the stock company that settled Massachusetts Bay.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 91000697, 17 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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