{"nrhp_refnum":"88000424","name":"Huguenot Fort","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"Fort Hill Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Oxford","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.09845830750007,"lon":-71.84684342037951,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1988-04-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Historic - Non-Aboriginal","Military","Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An archaeological site of a stone fort built by 1694 by Huguenot settlers on a hill off Fort Hill Road in Oxford, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on 8.68 acres of town-owned land.","why_significant":"It is the most visible and intact remnant of a short-lived French Protestant settlement on the Massachusetts Bay Colony's interior frontier. It is probably the first stone fort in Massachusetts, and most of the site remains undisturbed. It offers research potential on seventeenth-century fort design and on a French community within an English region.","narrative":"On a high hill in southwestern Oxford, Massachusetts, lie the ruins and buried remains of a stone fort built by French Protestant (Huguenot) settlers by 1694. The settlers arrived in 1687 and left in 1696, with a possible return between 1699 and 1704. The fort had a rectangular plan with two diagonally opposed bastions, a blockhouse, a powder magazine and a well. It is probably the first stone fort built in Massachusetts. Excavations and restorations in 1884 and around 1925 disturbed parts of the interior. Test excavations in 1983 and 1984 found the massive north wall intact and the southern third of the interior undisturbed. Artifacts included pipestems, earthenware, a lead cloth seal and a flintlock part. The site was listed for its archaeological potential, its rare surviving early fort design, and its record of a French community on the English frontier during King William's War and Queen Anne's War.","period_of_significance":"1687-1704","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C","D"],"status_note":"Ruins and buried remains, partly obscured by saplings, vines and leaf cover; owned by the town and used for outdoor recreation.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:02.084344-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/7972/63797200/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/88000424.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88000424/b1f73f6ddf-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88000424/b1f73f6ddf-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OxfordMA_HuguenotFortPark.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:Magicpiano</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OxfordMA_HuguenotFortPark.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797200","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot_Fort","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5934700"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/huguenot-fort-88000424/"}