{"nrhp_refnum":"75000286","name":"Parker Tavern","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"103 Washington St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Reading","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.520176409000044,"lon":-71.10653598499994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-08-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Military","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story saltbox house with an attic at 103 Washington Street in Reading, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, built in 1694 by Abraham Bryant Jr., a blacksmith, and now a museum.","why_significant":"It is described as the oldest documented house in Reading and an outstanding local example of 17th-century building methods. It was home to several figures in the town's history, including Colonel Ebenezer Nichols, and operated as a licensed inn from 1770 to 1785. During the Revolution it housed Colonel Archibald Campbell and his officers as paroled prisoners.","narrative":"Parker Tavern is a two-story saltbox house with an attic on Washington Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in 1694 by blacksmith Abraham Bryant Jr., it is regarded as the oldest documented house in the town and an outstanding local example of 17th-century construction. It has a central brick chimney, a lean-to sloping to the east, wooden shingle siding and a fieldstone foundation. Its occupants included Colonel Ebenezer Nichols, a town moderator, selectman and representative, and Ephraim Parker, whose licensed inn from 1770 to 1785 gave the building its name. During the American Revolution it served as prison quarters for Colonel Archibald Campbell, seven officers and twenty-two servants, captured in Boston Harbor in 1776. The Sweetser family owned it for over a century before the Reading Antiquarian Society acquired it in 1923, restored it between 1923 and 1930, and added a custodian's ell in 1964-65. The Society keeps it as a museum.","period_of_significance":"1600-1699, 1700-1799, 1800-1899, 1900- (specific date 1694)","architect_builder":"Abraham Bryant, Jr., blacksmith","architectural_style":"17th-century saltbox","criteria":[],"status_note":"Preserved and operated as a museum by the Reading Antiquarian Society; condition listed as good and altered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.937984-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/94/7913/63791394/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/75000286.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000286/c940765362-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000286/c940765362-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Swampyank at English Wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parker_Tavern_Reading_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Swampyank at English Wikipedia</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parker_Tavern_Reading_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63791394","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Tavern","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7138380"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/parker-tavern-75000286/"}