Elm Street 17.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 31D-103 Easthampton NTH.765 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Northampton Center Address: 17 Elm Street Historic
Name: St. Mary of the Assumption Uses: Present: Catholic Church Original: Catholic Church Date of Construction: 1881 Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette Style/Form: High Victorian Gothic
Architect/Builder: P.W. Ford, architect, Boston Exterior Material: Foundation: granite Wall/Trim: brick, limestone Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with
dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 1.08 acres shared with adjacent adjacent parsonage Setting: Building is set on a corner lot that slopes down to the east
on a street of college and residential buildings.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [17 ELM STREET ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH.765 ___ 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 Boston architect P. W. Ford designed St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church in the
High Victorian Gothic style making reference to the similarly-styled College Hall that had gone up previously on the other side of Elm Street. Whereas College Hall looked to the Italian
Gothic for its inspiration, St. Mary of the Assumption took its inspiration more specifically from Venetian Gothic architecture. The front-gabled church has side aisles on east and west
and two corner towers of unequal height at each side of its south façade. Four entries into the church are through the towers and shallow center narthex. Separated by engaged buttresses,
the openings are pointed arches with alternating voussoirs of brownstone and limestone for highly polychromatic Venetian effect. The tympana of the arches are filled with trefoils in
a tracery. At second story level above the narthex is a large pointed arch window of stained glass that occupies the entire width of the nave. The window has quatrefoil tracery above
an arcaded pattern. The window surround alternates brick and brownstone voussoirs and a second pointed arch of brick and brownstone rises outside it. Along the nave above the side aisles
is a clerestory row that is copper-sided. The aisle windows, separated by engaged buttresses, are eight in number and repeat the pointed arches with patterned voussoirs. The exposed
basement windows on the east elevation have three-pointed arches with granite keystones and granite springing blocks. There is a transverse gable bay half way down the aisle on the east
elevation and a shallow wing at the northeast corner. The two towers are three stages under spires of different heights. They are ornamented with corner pinnacles and the smaller of
the two had aediculae at its upper level. 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. From Form B of 1975: “The Roman Catholics in Northampton—at first chiefly French men and women—first worshipped on King
Street. The “Catholic Society” built there a church and a parsonage in 1866. By the 1870’s the Catholic population was large enough that a separate parish was organized for Florence,
Haydenville, and Leeds. In 1880 the Florence church was completed and in 1881 Saint Mary’s was under construction on the Hill above the Edwards Church, on the sire of the old Mansion
House. It is worth noting that in 1866 landowners on upper Elm Street—Protestant pillars of the community—purchased a lot on the corner of Elm and Prospect Streets to prevent the Roman
Catholics from locating there.” P. W. Ford designed St. Philip’s Roman Catholic Church in Boston, St. Raphael the Archangel Parish in Manchester, N.H., Church of the New Jerusalem in
Cambridge, and worked mainly in the greater Boston area, but also in Connecticut. His work appears primarily to have been ecclesiastical, but not exclusively so. 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.