Bridge Street 252.pdf
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. FORM B − BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph Topographic or Assessor's Map Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month /year):
March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 25C-061-001 Easthampton NTH. Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address:252 Bridge Street Historic Name: Jacob
Parsons House Uses: Present: garage Original: single-family home Date of Construction: ca. 1746 Source: Hampshire Gazette, September 20, 1972 Style/Form: Georgian Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material: Foundation: stone Wall/Trim: clapboard Roof: asphalt shingles, metal Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Converted from house to garage,
ca. 1940; two garage bays added ca. 1940. Fenestration altered and dormers removed. Condition: poor Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.227 acres Setting: Set on a corner lot, this
building is east-facing in a mixed commercial/residential stretch of Bridge Street.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [252 Bridge Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH. ___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space
as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics
of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. The Jacob Parsons House is a one-and-a-half story building under a gambrel roof with a center chimney. It is the equivalent
of five bays wide and two deep. It is clapboard-sided and windows on the east have 2/2 sash and on the west 6/6 sash. A two-bay garage was added to the north elevation. While fenestration
has been altered by the replacement of four windows by two picture windows, the form of the original house remains due to its solid construction in the 18th century. This is one of only
three Georgian period, gambrel-roofed buildings remaining in Northampton. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history.
Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. This property is part of Lot 101 that was laid out by the Proprietors of Northampton in
1654 and allocated to Judah Wright and Samuel Wright, Sr. Jacob Parsons, the great grandson of Cornet Joseph Parsons is believed to have bought the lot and built this house at the time
of his marriage to Beulah Hunt in 1746. Jacob died in 1795 and in his will of 1793 he left the house to his wife Beulah along with half his garden, half his homelot and property elsewhere
in town – as long as she stayed a widow. The other half of the property went to his son Israel. Israel’s son Jacob (1790-1857) was a farmer here on Bridge Street. When he died in 1857
he left his 15 year old son Albert R. Parsons under the guardianship of William Converse. Converse lived in this house and was a sheep-shearer described by S. El Bridgman in 1872 in
the Hampshire Gazette and next door at 262 Bridge Street, Albert’s grandfather Israel lived. Five of Jacob Parsons’ lots on Bridge Street were sold in 1860, three years after his death.
By 1860 it was one of two houses – the other being at 262 Bridge Street – in possession of the Jacob Parsons estate. By 1873 Albert R. Parsons had come into full ownership of the two
houses. A. C. Parsons owns the building in 1884 but between 1884 and 1895 the house passed out of the Parsons family and into the ownership of O. T. Keefe. Timothy Griffin was its next
owner in 1909 when he sold it to Mme. Marie von Veltheim. Mme. Von Veltheim transferred the house to Mme. De Naucaze who turned it into a tearoom by 1923. Mme De Naucaze was Belgian
and was an actor who took part in many plays in Northampton at the Academy of Music. She died in 1924. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire Massachusetts,
New York, 1873. Hales, John G. Plan of the Town or Northampton in the County of Hampshire, 1831. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County,
Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New
York, 1860.