16 Arnold Avenue
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
FORM B − BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
Topographic or Assessor's Map
Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons
Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
Date (month / year): June, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
31D-63 Easthampton NTH.755
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 16 Arnold Avenue
Historic Name: Eliza Marindin House
Uses: Present: 6 apartments college housing
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: 1895-1915
Source: atlases
Style/Form: Queen Anne/Colonial Revival
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: vinyl
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates): vinyl siding added, porch
replaced, trim removed from eaves, 2009. Windows
replaced pre-2009.
Condition: fair
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.193 acres
Setting: The last house on a dead end street, this building
is close to the Smith College Engineering Building.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [16 ARNOLD AVENUE]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.755
___ 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 Eliza Marindin House is transitional stylistically between the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles, and is the best
preserved of the houses on Arnold Avenue, but the strength of its style has been lessened by the recent application of vinyl
siding, replacement porch, and replacement windows. This is a large house, two-and-a-half stories in height beneath a steeply
pitched hipped roof, often used in Northampton on Colonial Revival style houses. To add to its volume there is a front-gabled
pavilion centered on its north façade and transverse gable bays on its east and west elevations, along with a south two-and-a-
half story south ell. The complicated volume of the house is an aspect of the Queen Anne style as are the 6/1 window sash in
the two front dormers on the roof. The north façade of the house is only three bays wide, a feature of the Colonial Revival style
as proportions enlarged considerably during the Colonial Revival stylistic period. A stacked porch crosses the full width of the
façade at the first floor level and is one bay wide at the second floor. It is supported on posts and both posts and railings are
replacements of earlier columns, pedestals and railings. At the second floor, a door in the pavilion exits to the porch. The door
has a Queen Anne style hood on consoles and a Queen Anne style side porch on its rear ell. Colonial Revival style modillion
blocks that ornamented the eaves previously have been removed.
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.
According to the 1980 form: “Arnold Avenue was said out in the late 1890s through the West Street homestead of Colonel J.
Parsons. It was a short dead end street with four of the present six houses erected by 1915 and the other two by 1930. This
house first appears on the 1915 atlas with the first known occupant being Mrs. Eliza Marindin, who is listed here in the 1922
directory.”
Eliza Marindin in 1910 lived in Northampton on Waverley Avenue with her four children, her mother, four boarders and two
servants and presumably the boarders furnished a portion of their income as Eliza, a widow, did not work outside the house. By
1922 Eliza and two of her children had moved to Arnold Avenue and shared this house with two servants, a Jamaican maid
Emma Dixon and an Irish cook Catherine Curran. Interestingly, Eliza, Emma and Catherine all worked in a boarding house
while Josephine was an at-home maid. This house was not the boarding house, rather, Eliza was the matron of one, while
Emma and Catherine worked with her, and daughter Josephine ran this house. By 1930 Eliza no longer appears in the census
in Massachusetts, but Josephine has become a dietician and lives in Manhattan.
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.
Registry of Deeds, Book 8738 Page 129.
Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884.
Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860.