Nonotuck Street 225.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, 2011 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 23A-281 Easthampton NTH.2533 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 225 Nonotuck Street Historic
Name: Bensonville Workers’s House Uses: Present: David Ruggles Educational Center Original: single-family house Date of Construction: pre-1860 Source: atlas of 1860 Style/Form: Italianate
Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: vinyl Roof: asphalt Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Apartment/studios added to north elevation 2010 Major Alterations
(with dates): Siding added and windows replaced, ca. 2008 Condition: good Moved: no | x | | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.508 acres Setting: This building faces south on a tree-shaded lot.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [225 NONOTUCK STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation
sheet 1 NTH.2533 ___ 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 modest workers’ house that yet reflects an improvement in housing over the double houses
that were built on Nonotuck Street at 179-181 and 191-193. The double houses were an early effort to provide multi-family housing for workers but proved to be less suitable than single-family
houses such as this or the larger two-family houses that were two-and-a-half stories in height. It is one-and-a-half stories in height under a front-gable roof on which is centered a
chimney. There is a one-story ell on the north elevation. Three bays wide and three bays deep it has a rectangular plan to which has recently been appended an addition of two stories
for artists’ housing and studio space. The main block, however, is three bays wide behind a full-width Italianate style porch on posts with brackets at its eaves. The door surround is
flat stock and window surrounds are obscured by vinyl siding. The building has vinyl replacement windows. 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. 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 and by 1895 this particular house belonged to P. Daley. 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.