Hollis, Thomas, Historic District

Washington Street in central Holliston, Massachusetts, forms the spine of a 143-acre district of homes, shops and civic buildings stretching about a mile between Winter and Highland Streets. The road was laid out in the 1730s, and the district contains the sites chosen in 1724 for the town's first meetinghouse and burial ground. Most of what survives dates from the early 1800s to the Civil War, when boot, shoe and straw goods manufacturing brought wealth and population growth. Prosperous merchants, professionals and manufacturers built substantial houses along the road, including two dozen Federal homes and about thirty Greek Revival houses, many with columned porticos. Fewer Italianate, Gothic and Second Empire houses followed. The earliest building is the Isaac Foster House, built about 1727. A major fire in 1875 led to rebuilding of commercial blocks. The district counts 115 contributing and 59 noncontributing resources and keeps a high degree of architectural integrity.