Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1993. 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
one of 28 National Register listings in Franklin County · listed in 1993 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Franklin County.
National Register reference number.93000128- 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
24 since 2017
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church between
2017 and 2020, burning about 15 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
Debris and open burning
16
Smoking
3
Recreation and ceremony
2
Other causes
2
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 1,337 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church between 1847 and
1975: 558 Animalia, 443 Plantae, 224 Fungi, 112 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A S Pease, A. Cronquist, A. J. Grout 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.
black sh, [property of T.M. Stoughton, 1871 Beers County map, previously owned by Dr. Roswell Field], S side of Connecticut River, Horse Race, Montague
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
16 workings within 5 miles of Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church: 8 past producers, 4 producers, 3 occurrences, 1 prospect.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Slate, Dimension, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone. 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
Bernardston, the town this property stands in, in 29 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 21 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 3 flood, 2 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.
After receiving eight to ten inches of rain associated with Tropical Storm Irene, major flooding occurred to portions of northwest Massachusetts, from Greenfield northwest through Colrain, Leyden, and vicinity. There were evacuations- exact amount unknown- and there were homes that were condemned. A house on West Leyden Road was reported to have been washed away in Leyden on the Green River. Multiple major routes/highways were affected in western Massachusetts, including Route 2, I-91, Route 20, Route 5, and Route 112 as well as numerous smaller roads. A flood survey along the Deerfield River indicated that in between Routes 5 and I-91, a large swath of farmland was inundated, and many homes within that stretch experienced various degrees of flooding. The Mohawk Meadow Country Club at the junction of the Connecticut and Deerfield Rivers was submerged. A covered bridge on Eunice Williams Drive over the Green River sustained severe damage and was no longer attached to its abutments. In Greenfield, the Arbors Assisted Living facility on Meridian Street was evacuated due to flooding.||The Deerfield River at West Deerfield set a new flood of record at 23.8 feet, the previous record was 17.71 feet set in April of 1987. The North River at Shattuckville set a new flood of record at 17.66 feet, the previous record was 12.32 feet set in October of 2005. In addition the Connecticut River at Montague crested at its highest level since the 1938 hurricane.
A microburst occurred in Leyden and Bernardston resulting in straight-line wind damage along a broken five and a half mile path.||In Leyden, several large trees and wires were downed along Mid-County Road, South County Road, Greenfield Road, and Eden Road. ||In Bernardston, large trees were downed on Railroad Street, Merrifield Road, and North Merrifield Road. Also on North Merrifield Road, a fallen tree destroyed a shed and damaged a portion of a house. Power poles were downed on Route 10 and Merrifield Road.
Heavy rain fell across Greenfield and Bernardston, flooding several roads and washing out several dirt roads in Bernardston and Stetson Drive in Greenfield. All washed out roads were closed.
Trees and wires were downed in several locations in Franklin County including: On Silver Land and Old Amherst Road in Sunderland, on Bald Mountain Road in Bernardston, and on Route 78 in Warwick.
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.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned 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
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) * A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. - B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. X C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. - D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: XA owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes. x B removed from its original location. - C a birthplace or grave. - D a cemetery. - E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. - F a commemorative property. - G less than 50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years. Franklin County, MA County and State Areas of Significanc Enter categories from instruction ARCHITECTURE RELIGION SOCIAL HISTORY COMMUNITY PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT Period of Significance 1739-1942 Significant Dates 1772, 1791, 1824, 1847, 1879 Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) N/A Cultural Affiliation N/A Architect/Builder Connable, Samuel, Sr.
& Jr.; Couch, James; Scott, Moses; Sheldon, Orra Narrative Statement of Significance (Explain the significance of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) 9.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 93000128, 22 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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