{"nrhp_refnum":"75000242","name":"Abbot, Benjamin, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"9 Andover St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Andover","county":"Essex County","state":"MA","lat":42.646474037000075,"lon":-71.15251492799996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-02-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A First Period farmhouse at 9 Andover Street in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts, traditionally dated to 1685 and certainly built before 1720. It was enlarged in four stages over roughly two centuries.","why_significant":"The house is argued to be an extremely well preserved First Period dwelling and the earliest surviving home of the locally important Abbot family, the most prolific family of Andover's settlement period. It is also architecturally significant because it retains most of its original fabric, including the garret overhang, early 18th-century panelling, mud and plaster walls and great fireplaces.","narrative":"Standing on the west side of the Shawsheen River in Andover's Old South Parish, this farmhouse is traditionally dated to 1685 and was certainly built before 1720. It is believed to have been built for Benjamin Abbot when he married Sarah Farnum. Abbot was a farmer and fence surveyor. The house began as a one-room dwelling with an end chimney and grew in four stages, adding a two-room section, a rear lean-to, a small extension for well access, and finally a raised lean-to, an ell and a barn. It remained in the Abbot family until 1933. It is valued as the earliest standing house of the Abbot family, which had more men on Andover tax lists between 1705 and 1767 than any other. Its heavy pine and oak frame, front garret overhang, raised-panel fireplace wall, mud-and-straw walls and great fireplaces survive in remarkably original condition.","period_of_significance":"1685?","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"New England Colonial (First Period)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed in good condition, altered, on its original site, and in use as a private residence.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.214555-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/78/7946/63794678/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/75000242.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000242/37db93c75a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000242/37db93c75a-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Daderot","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Abbot_House_-_DSC03462.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Abbot_House_-_DSC03462.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794678","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Abbot_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4888171"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/essex-county/abbot-benjamin-house-75000242/"}