Reading is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, 16 miles (26 km) north of central Boston. The population was 25,518 at the 2020 census.
The Nathan Appleton Residence, also known as the Appleton-Parker House, is a historic house located at 39–40 Beacon Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designated a National Historic Landmark for its association with revolutionary textile manufacturer Nathan Appleton (1779–1861), and as the site in 1843 of the wedding of his daughter Frances and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The house is an excellent early 19th century design of Alexander Parris.
The Governor Stephen Hopkins House is a museum and National Historic Landmark at 15 Hopkins Street in Providence, Rhode Island. It was the home of Stephen Hopkins, a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
The Bellingham–Cary House is a historic house museum at 34 Parker Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The house, built in 1724, may incorporate in its structure the 1659 hunting lodge of colonial governor Richard Bellingham, and is the only surviving 18th-century building in the city. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The Parker Tavern is a historic house museum in Reading, Massachusetts, United States. Built in 1694, it is the oldest extant structure in Reading. The saltbox was built by Abraham Bryant, a farmer and blacksmith, and Ephraim Parker operated a tavern on the premises in the 18th century. It has been a local history museum since 1923, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Shawsheen Village Historic District is a historic district in northern Andover, Massachusetts. Shawsheen Village was completed in the early 1920s as a planned corporate community. Conceived by William Madison Wood of the American Woolen Company, the village was designed a team of architects including Adden & Parker, Clifford Allbright and Ripley & LeBoutillier of Boston and James E. Allen of Lawrence. John Franklin, a civil engineer for the American Woolen Company was responsible for designing the village, under the direction of Wood. Buildings from the original Frye Village were also incorporated into the design which included a railroad station, shops, apartment buildings, factories, parks and numerous single-family dwellings. The village was located just up the road from the Company's main factories in nearby Lawrence.
The Woburn Street Historic District of Reading, Massachusetts encompasses a two-block section of late 19th century upper-class housing. The 10-acre (4.0 ha) extends along Woburn Street from Summer Street to Temple Street, and includes sixteen houses on well-proportioned lots along an attractive tree-lined section of the street. The historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The Benjamin Beard House is a historic house in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in the early 1850s, it is a well-preserved example of a distinctive local variant of Greek Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Capt. Nathaniel Parker Red House is a historic house at 77–83 Ash Street in Reading, Massachusetts. It is a 2+1⁄2-story vernacular Georgian house, five bays wide, with entrances on its north and south facades. The southern entry is slightly more elegant, with flanking pilasters and a transom window. The house was built sometime before 1755, and was already a well-known landmark because it was painted, and served as a tavern on the coach road. The Tavern served as a meeting place for many revolutionaries and minute men, notably Marquis de Lafayette, and Alexander Hamilton. The house remained in the hands of militia captain Nathaniel Parker and his descendants into the late 19th century. The construction of the Andover Turnpike in 1806–07, bypassing its location, prompted a decline in the tavern's business.
The Eaton–Prescott House is a historic house at 284 Summer Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts. Its oldest portion was probably built before 1757. By that year it had acquired a leanto section, since removed or incorporated into the main structure of the house. It is now a principally Georgian style house, although its door surround dates to the Greek Revival period of the 1830s-1840s. The house stands on land that was in the Eaton family as far back as the late 17th century.
The Ephraim Weston House is a historic house in Reading, Massachusetts. It is incorrectly listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Ephrain Weston House, at 224 West Street. It was built in the early years of the 19th century by Ephraim Weston, a local real estate developer and businessman; he operated a local general store and a shoe manufacturing business, one of the early such businesses in the town. It is a two-story wood-frame structure, with a hip roof and two chimneys. The main facade faces south, and has a single-story porch extending across its width, supported by square posts. The building corners are pilastered, and a single-story bay projects from the west side. The house is locally distinctive as a rare Federal period house with a hip roof and later applied Italianate styling.
129 High Street in Reading, Massachusetts is a well-preserved, modestly scaled Queen Anne Victorian house. Built sometime in the 1890s, it typifies local Victorian architecture of the period, in a neighborhood that was once built out with many similar homes. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Joseph Parker House is a historic house at 107 Grove Street in Reading, Massachusetts. The 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame house was probably built around 1795, when it first appeared on local maps. It is predominantly Federal in its styling, with smaller second-story windows and boxed cornices. Its center entry surround is a Greek Revival feature, with an architrave surround with corner blocks and half-length sidelight windows. The house's notable occupants include Loea Parker, who died in the War of 1812, and F. Howard Gilson, an early experimenter in photography. From 1910 to 1932 it was owned by the Fathers' and Mothers' Club, which used it as a country retreat for urban youth.
The former Reading Municipal Building is a historic building at 49 Pleasant Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in 1885, this two-story brick building was the town's first municipal structure, housing the town offices, jail, and fire station. In 1918 all functions except fire services moved out of the building. It now serves as Reading's Pleasant Street Senior Center. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Walnut Street School is a historic school building at 55 Hopkins Street in Reading, Massachusetts. A two-room schoolhouse built in 1854, it is the town's oldest public building. Since 1962 it has been home to the Quannapowitt Players, a local theatrical company. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Jonathan Green House is a historic first period Colonial American house, built c. 1700–1720. It is located at 63 Perkins Street, Stoneham, Massachusetts. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It is one of the oldest structures in Stoneham, and one of only two structures in Stoneham preserving a nearly intact early eighteenth century form.
The House at 21 Chestnut Street is one of the best preserved Italianate houses in Wakefield, Massachusetts. It was built c. 1855 to a design by local architect John Stevens, and was home for many years to local historian Ruth Woodbury. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
Kilham & Hopkins was an architectural firm in Boston, Massachusetts formed in 1899 or 1900 by its founding members, Walter Harrington Kilham and James Cleveland Hopkins. The firm later became Kilham, Hopkins & Greeley after William Roger Greeley joined the firm in 1916, and Kilham Hopkins Greeley and Brodie after Walter S. (Steve) Brodie joined the firm in 1945.
The Ossian Wilbur Goss Reading Room is a historic library building at 188 Elm Street in the Lakeport section of Laconia, New Hampshire. The architecturally eclectic single-story brick building was designed by Boston architect Willard P. Adden and built in 1905-06 after the collection of the former Lakeport library was moved to the recently built Gale Memorial Library in the center of Laconia. Its construction was funded by a bequest from Ossian Wilbur Goss, a local doctor who had died without natural heirs. The building officially became a branch of the Laconia library system in 1909, and continues to be administered in part by trustees of Goss's legacy. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Willard P. Adden (1868–1958) was an American architect in practice in Boston from 1905 until his retirement in the early 1940s.
