Pleasant-High Historic District

This residential neighborhood next to downtown Methuen, Massachusetts, grew between about 1810 and 1910 on a ridge above the Spicket River. Development began after the 1806 Essex Turnpike was built, when the town was still a small settlement. Later the expanding Methuen Cotton Mills brought mill workers, merchants, managers and professionals to the area, and the Nevins Park subdivision of the 1890s offered homesites to Lawrence mill managers. The district holds about 25 surveyed buildings in late Federal, Greek Revival, Second Empire, Italianate, Queen Anne, Shingle and Georgian Revival styles. Notable landmarks include the granite Gothic Revival First Church Congregational of 1855 and an 1888 Civil War monument with lions and an eagle, which preserves open space at the southern edge. Retaining walls, granite fenceposts and 19th-century wooden fences survive. It is considered the town's largest and most intact group of 19th-century houses and a record of its settlement patterns.