Main Street 183-185 (LEEDS).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):
February, 2011 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 10 D-016-001 Easthampton NTH.25 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Leeds Address: 183-185 Main Street Historic
Name: Nonotuck Silk Company Workers’s House Uses: Present: Three-family residence Original: Two-family residence Date of Construction: 1895-1915 Source: atlases Style/Form: Queen Anne
Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboard Roof: asphalt Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): windows replaced, ca. 2000
Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.252 acres Setting: This building faces west towards the Mill River.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [183-185 Main Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH.25 __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. Workers’s housing in Leeds was most frequently built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
in frame construction rather than the more expensive masonry and buildings were both single and two-family. This two-family is two-and-a-half stories in height under a side-gable roof
on which are two chimneys on the ridge. The house has two entries centered on the six bay façade behind a full-width porch that is supported on partially turned, Queen Anne style posts.
Railings have square balusters. There is a side corner porch for each unit on the east elevation and they too rest on turned posts. The windows of the building have been replaced with
1/1 sash with the exception of one attic window in the north gable end that has retained its 2/2 sash. 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 the Form B of 1980, “This large double house was built
early in the t20th century. It was used as a tenement house by the Nonotuck Silk Company. The southernmost of the three factories owned by the Company in Leeds was located just south
of this house, on the bank of the Mill River. The site had originally been used for a small woolen mill which became consolidated with the Shepherd woolen mills in the 1930s as the Northampton
Woolen Woolen Manufacturing Company. After the failure of the Company in the late 1850s, A. P. Critchlow bought this part of the Company’s property. In 1860 he began the manufacture
of buttons from vegetable ivory, the firs to do so in this country. Mr. Critchlow maintained his connection with the business until the early 1870s, but returned after the flood of 1874
had destroyed the mills to rebuild. Business resumed in 1875 under the name of the Mill River Button Company. The Nonotuck Silk Company took over the property in the early 1890s. 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. 1875-1876 Northampton Directory and Historical Register, pp. 45-50.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [183-185 Main Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 2 NTH.25 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. The Nonotuck Silk Company workers’ house in Leeds would contribute to a Leeds Center Historic District. This small industrial
village center was rebuilt after the flood of 1874 had washed away its preceding textile mill buildings, housing and residents. It continued to function as a mill village into the 20th
century and the bridge connected industries on both sides of the Mill River. Architecturally the district is significant as a representative village with boarding house, general store,
mill building, bridge, and workers’ housing. It has integrity of design, setting, association, feeling, workmanship and materials.