Meadow Street 45.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 Please see attached continuation sheet. Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: Pioneer Valley
Planning Commission Date (month /year): March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 22B-013-001 Easthampton NTH.2526 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village)
Florence Address: 45 Meadow Street Historic Name: Mrs. Christina Frederick House Uses: Present: single-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: 1860-1873 Source:
maps of 1860 and 1873 Style/Form: side-hall entry Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.2 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house on a westward sloping lot shaded by trees on a residential
street.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON [45 MEADOW STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH.2526 _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 relatively small house that is very well-preserved and maintained, and represents 19th
century housing for those workers in Florence who lived in single-family homes rather than boarding houses. It is one-and-a-half stories under a front-gabled roof. The house is on a
sloping lot so that its basement is entirely exposed on the west and a granite block embankment holds back the slope on the south. The clapboard-sided house has an asphalt shingle roof
and is three bays wide and four bays deep for a rectangular plan. The entire south façade is covered by a porch at the first story whose hipped roof rests on posts with scroll-cut brackets
at the eaves. The porch has a second floor portion, two bays wide that also is supported on posts. Railings at both levels are narrow, square balusters that are also used for the porch
apron. Trim at windows and door surround is simple flat stock and window sash is 2/2. 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 house was built between 1860 and 1873 when a series of four houses
went up on the north side of Meadow Street. The first known owner of the house was Christina Frederick. Widowed at 38, Frederick, an immigrant from Wittenberg Germany, had five children
to support: Adolph, Emma, Mena, Florinza and Anna. The two oldest children at 19 and 18 were working in the Nonotuck silk mill; the remaining three were at home or in school. As all
the children had been born in Haydenville, it is likely that the family had been working in textile mills prior to their move to Florence. The residential development of Florence where
factory workers lived in single-family houses as opposed to the boarding houses found in many industrial communities was in part shaped by the members of the Northampton Association
of Education and Industry. That utopian community folded in 1846, but many of its members and leaders remained in Florence and advocated for “family-centered” living in which families
lived together in their own homes. In 1925 Mary and Watras Walenty lived here and Watras worked at the Northampton Cutlery Company. By 1930 Charles W. and Grace Dewey occupied the house.
Charles was a clerk at the Corticelli Silk Mill and the couple continued to live here through 1960. 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. Sheffeld, Charles. The History of Florence, Florence, 1895. U. S. Federal Censuses 1870-1910. Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City,
Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON [45 MEADOW STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 2 NTH.2526