Built 1717 NRHP Reference # 80000620 Added to NRHP 5 March 1980 | MPS Worcester MRA Opened 1717 | |
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Location 136 Plantation St., Worcester, Massachusetts Architectural style Timber-frame Vernacular Similar Wachusett Reservoir, DCU Center, Green Hill Park, Salisbury Mansion and Store, Elm Park | ||
The Benjamin Flagg House is a historic house located at 136 Plantation Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. Built c. 1717, it is considered the oldest structure in the city. It was home to a number of generations of influential Flaggs, including American Revolutionary War Captain Benjamin Flagg (1724-1818). The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Description and history
The Flagg House occupies a triangular lot on Worcester's east side, bounded on the west by Plantation Street and on the east by Ingleside Avenue. The house is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, three bays wide, with a side gable roof, large central chimney, and clapboard siding. Its center entrance (facing west toward Plantation Street) has modest trim, with a four-light transom window above.
The house is assumed to have been built about 1718, when Benjamin Flagg II purchased a large tract of land in the area; however, it is not known how much of the building is his original construction, and how much may have been later alteration. According to Caleb Wall's Reminiscences, Flagg's son, also named Benjamin, "commanded the company of militia, who marched with Col. Timothy Bigelow's company of minute men for Lexington, on the alarm, April 18, 1775, afterwards Colonel in the revolutionary service, filled important town offices, and died in Worcester, October 8, 1818, aged 95... Col. Flagg's location was on Plantation Street, on a farm of 150 acres..." The house was sold out of the Flagg family in 1850.