Washington St.
MACRIS NWB.AB · area form, 1973
Washington Street runs parallel to High Street and Merrimac Street. The form finds its houses smaller and set closer together and nearer the street than those on High Street, with more gambrel-roofed colonial houses and fewer Federal ones, but a similar range of styles from colonial to Victorian.
The street was assembled in pieces. The section between Green and Market Streets was laid out in 1782 as Union Street; a way between Winter and Boardman Streets was laid out in 1800 as Washington Street; and Boardman to Olive Street followed in 1823 as Adams Street. In 1852 the three were voted the single name Washington Street.
The survey names the green clapboard house at the southeast corner of Washington and Market Streets as the oldest on the street; Paul Noyes bought its land in 1769. The Female High School held its first session in a building at Court and Washington Streets on 5 February 1844.
Summarized from the Massachusetts Historical Commission's area form. See the MACRIS record ↗
