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Chestnut Street 47.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 23A-311-001 Easthampton NTH. Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 47 Chestnut Street Historic Name: Eliphalet and Sarah Bray House Uses: Present: two-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: 1860-1873 Source: maps of 1860 and 1873 Style/Form: Italianate Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: board and batten Roof: asphalt Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Added wing, ca. 1990 Condition: Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.227 acres Setting: This house faces west on a residential street that is near the intersection with Florence’s main commercial street. INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [47 Chestnut Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH. __x_ 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. This is a one-and-a-half story house with a front-gable roof. It is three bays wide and four deep and there is a shed roof addition of one story on the south elevation of the house and a two-story ell on the east for a T-shaped plan. The house is board-and-batten sided and rests on brick foundations. The boxed eaves of the house have a wide overhang, though they are without either Gothic Revival style barge boards or Italianate style brackets. A full width porch on posts with simple brackets at the eaves and a square baluster railing crosses the west façade. A pediment is placed over the entry to the porch and the house has a side entry with a glass and wood paneled door. A through-cornice dormer on the south elevation rests above a three-sided bay window at the first floor level. The bay window has paired brackets at its eaves, and the dormer has an Italianate style arched window with 1/1 sash. There is a similar dormer on the north elevation. Sash throughout the house is replacement 1/1. This is a modest house that has retained much of its original character in a neighborhood of similarly modest workers’ houses that are also well-preserved. 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. Chestnut Street was laid out between between North Main Street and Bridge Road between 1850 and 1854. It was developed during the 1860s and 70s by the Florence Sewing Machine Company, which had built a large factory at the corner of Chestnut and North Main Streets and needed to provide housing for its workers. The 1860 map shows the street with only one house on it on the west side of the street. In 1873 this is one of three houses on the east side of Chestnut Street, not identified by owner name. On the west side of the street were five houses of the Florence Sewing Machine Company and two privately-owned houses. It appears that the house was on land previously owned by D. G. Littlefield. Littlefield and his wife Maria and daughter Ellen were in Northampton in 1860. D. G. Littlefield was a manufacturer and had $10,000 worth of personal property when most people owned a few hundred dollars. By 1884 the house was owned by E. Bray. Eliphalet Bray in 1880 was a 70 year old carpenter. His wife Sarah died in that year. The house is not covered on the atlas of 1895. By 1926 Margaret and Benjamin Cushway lived here and shared the house as a two-family with William J. and Mable O’Brien. Benjamin was not working and O’Brien was a policeman. 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. Sheffeld, Charles (ed.) History of Florence, 1895. Federal Census of 1880. INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [47 Chestnut Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH. National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form Check all that apply: Individually eligible Eligible only in an historic district Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district Criteria: A B C D Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G Statement of Significance by _____Bonnie Parsons___________________ The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. This property would contribute to a Florence Center Historic District. The potential historic district of Florence Center is significant as the commercial, residential, institutional center of the village that developed from 1657 when it was set off as Northampton’s “Inner Commons” as agricultural land and 1681 when the first sawmill was erected at a falls on the Mill River. The agricultural and industrial village developed through the 18th and 19th centuries around industry on the Mill River, agriculture on the alluvial flood plain and the Strong Tavern and later Cottage Hotel at the intersection of Main and Maple Streets. It is significant for the silk industry that flourished through the Civil war as an alternative to slave-picked cotton and for the establishment of the Northampton Association for Education and Industry, a utopian community that existed 1843-1847. Association members after its close continued in Florence their principles of equality by running the Underground Railroad through the village and harboring fugitive slaves. It is significant as the home of Sojourner Truth. 19th century industry in the Center included the Florence Sewing Machine Company, which built its own housing. Architecturally the Center is significant for the range of Gothic Revival, Italianate, Stick Style, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style homes, for its commercial blocks and library in the Revival styles of the late 19th century. Gothic Revival and Italianate style churches are architect-designed in high style versions. The potential district has integrity of workmanship, design, feeling, association, and materials.