{"nrhp_refnum":"73000854","name":"John Eliot Square District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"John Eliot Sq.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.334228739000025,"lon":-71.09594378399999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1973-04-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Military","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An irregular, roughly 9.5-acre historic district around John Eliot Square in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts, made up of buildings dating from the mid-eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, including a Federal meetinghouse, houses, a school, and commercial and apartment blocks.","why_significant":"The square has been the center of Roxbury since the town's founding in 1630 and has been the site of the First Church since 1632. The district's buildings show a mixture of architectural styles and of residential, religious, civic and commercial uses. Key buildings include the 1804 First Church, the oldest frame church building in the city, and the Dillaway-Thomas House, linked to the siege of Boston.","narrative":"John Eliot Square District occupies about 9.5 acres at the fork of three streets in Roxbury, Boston. It groups buildings from the mid-1700s through the 1800s around a landscaped square. The centerpiece is the First Church in Roxbury, built in 1803-04 in the Federal meetinghouse style and described as the oldest frame church building in the city. The congregation has used the site since 1632. Nearby stand the Dillaway-Thomas House, built between 1750 and 1754 and possibly used by General John Thomas during the siege of Boston, and Ionic Hall, a Federal brick mansion. Later Victorian buildings include the Dudley School, the curved Cox Building of 1870, the Hotel Eliot of 1875, and the Marcus Garvey House, a former hotel later used as a settlement house. The square was the center of Roxbury from its founding in 1630, and the district preserves a varied mix of religious, civic, residential and commercial architecture.","period_of_significance":"c. 1750-1873","architect_builder":"Timothy Palmer and William Blaney (conjectured, First Church); J. H. Besarick (Hotel Eliot); George Cox (Cox Building); Captain Stoddard of Hingham (Ionic Hall); Rev. Oliver Peabody (Dillaway-Thomas House)","architectural_style":"Mixture of styles: Federal meetinghouse, Georgian, Federal, High Victorian Gothic","criteria":[],"status_note":"Buildings are in mixed use (residence, church, school, community services); the Dillaway-Thomas House lost its roof to a recent fire, and the form marks condition as ranging from excellent to deteriorated.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:53.518202-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/15/7969/63796915/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/73000854.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73000854/2bf908dde9-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73000854/2bf908dde9-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Church_in_Roxbury_in_2012,_Roxbury_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Church_in_Roxbury_in_2012,_Roxbury_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796915","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eliot_Square_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6231586"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/john-eliot-square-district-73000854/"}