Padanaram Village Historic District

Padanaram Village occupies a peninsula on Apponagansett Bay in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, about three miles south of New Bedford. Its 150 acres contain 242 structures, 166 of them contributing, laid out on a grid of streets. Most are two- and three-story Federal-period houses from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when shipbuilding, whaling and saltmaking made the village a busy maritime center. Greek Revival houses followed in the second quarter of the 19th century. After the Civil War the village turned into a summer resort and yachting center, adding Queen Anne, Shingle Style and Colonial Revival buildings, including the Lawton Inn, the Romanesque Revival Southworth Library and the New Bedford Yacht Club. It is the historic core of Dartmouth and keeps the town's largest collection of 18th and early 19th century buildings. Because many homes stayed in the same families for generations, intrusions are few. Postwar cottages and a fire station and restaurant on Bridge Street are the main noncontributing additions.