 The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 9, 2009.The town of Canton, located south of Boston, Massachusetts, was first settled in the 17th century by English colonial settlers involved in the Ponkapoag native "praying town", but its center of development moved to the southwest in the 18th century due to the higher quality of farmland there.Washington Street, the main east-west road through the district, was laid out in 1700 and Pleasant Street in 1723, running south from Washington Street across a dam that impounded Pequid Brook, the southern extent of the district, to form Reservoir Pond.