Nonotuck Street 193-195.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-253 Easthampton NTH.226 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 193-195 Nonotuck Street Historic Name:
Bensonville Manufacturing Company Housing Uses: Present: Two-family residence Original: Two-family residence Date of Construction: pre-1860 Source: Atlases Style/Form: Raised Cape Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Fenestration altered, windows replaced,
ca. 1990; chimneys removed. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.245 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house set on a raised lot, back from Nonotuck Street
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [193-195 NONOTUCK STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH.226 ___ 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 house like that at 179-181Nonotuck Street is an early version of workers’ housing in which
a single-family, raised Cape house form was adopted for two-family use by adding one-story kitchen wings at each side. The result was a very compact house for two families, but was not
often repeated as mill owners needed to attract and keep workers by housing that adapted to families of greater size. This is a one-and-a-half story, house under a side-gable roof and
has lost its chimneys on the main block but has retained a chimney on each of its attached, one-story kitchen wings. Two windows in the eastern half of the main block have been replaced
by a stock bay window, changing the historic fenestration of the clapboard-sided house. Rather than a single entry as was built at 179-181, this house has a pair of adjacent entries
in its center bay sheltered by a hipped roof portico on posts. The wings that are three bays long have full-width porches across their south facades. The porches are supported on Doric
columns suggesting that they are replacements from ca. 1880-1910. Despite its changes, this house represents an important phase of workers’ housing design. 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 1980: “This is one of the better preserved of a number of double cottages with side ells built on Nonotuck Street in the mid 19th century. Nonotuck Street was laid out in 1836
to give access to the recently established silk mill on the Mill River. The street is located along the slopes of the Mill River terrace. In the mid 1840’s, a cotton mill was established
on the river and this became the basis for the Bensonville Mfg. Co., later the Greenville Mfg. Co. This company owned most of the land along Nonotuck Street and workers’ housing was
erected on the northern side. Mostly these were single cottages, but several double cottages were built. This double house first appears on the 1884 atlas, and seems to have replaced
two smaller cottages.” By 1830 Nonotuck Street as an extension westward of Elm Street was in place and in the area that was to develop on the Mill River into Florence textile mills was
an oil and saw mill. The rest of the area was sparsely populated by farms. With establishment of the Northampton Association for Education and Industry in Florence in 1842, the village
began to grow as new members and their families arrived to work in the Association’s silk mill and attend its school. Most of the Association members lived in the “factory boarding house”,
as the multi-purpose building was called, but the Association also owned a few houses on Nonotuck Street, one on Spring Street and two on Meadow Street. At the closing of the Association
its mill was bought by George W. Benson and several other investors and became the Bensonville Manufacturing Company. Benson bought land on Nonotuck Street and sold lots to people who
worked in his mills for housing and used other houses for rental. Benson lost his part in the cotton manufacturing business over a religious issue, and it became the Greenville Manufacturing
Company and the housing was a part of the company’s property. This house was identified in 1860 as part of the Greenville Manufacturing Company Housing and once again as such on the
map of 1873. By 1884 A. L. Williston had taken over the Greenville Company and with it the housing. Williston sold the company to the Nonotuck Silk Company in 1886. The houses were sold
off. 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.