The historic district is essentially X-shaped, radiating away from the central junction on the four roadways. Its center is dominated by the Federal-style John Eliot Church (1828), and the Gothic former John Eliot Congregational Church (1862), and the Renaissance Bacon Library, built in 1880 to a design by Robert G. Shaw. The library is built partly over the grounds of the colonial-era Indian burying ground, one of the places of particular archaeological significance in the district. The village also includes the homes of two important 19th-century writers: one of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another (a National Historic Landmark) of Horatio Alger.
