32 Bright Street
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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): March, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
31B-137 Easthampton NTH.630
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 32 Bright Street
Historic Name: Charles and Rose Chesney House
Uses: Present: single-family house
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: 1881-1885
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette, 1/23/1883; 5/15/1883;
6/17/1884. Style/Form: eclectic
Architect/Builder: William Fenno Pratt & Son, attributed
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: aluminum
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.176 acres
Setting: This house faces north and has a fenced-in yard
shaded by mature trees.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [32 BRIGHT STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.630
__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.
The James F. Shaughnessy House is a one-and-a-half story house with a jerkin head roof and one interior chimney. It is three
bays wide and two deep and has a one-and-a-half story rear ell under a shed roof. This house closely resembled the Bright
Street houses at #33, and #28 that also were built in the early 1880s in an eclectic style that mixed Stick Style with Queen Anne.
While those two have been sided so that many of their features are no longer visible, this house has been sided more carefully
so that its varied exterior siding is suggested. There is aluminum siding now where clapboards were previously used on the f irst
floor and wood shingles remain at the second floor level. A broad belt course separates the two. The wide frieze beneath the
eaves remains as does the shed roof porch on Queen Anne style turned posts with wood shingles in its side frieze and Stick
Style braces at the eaves. The porch railing has turned balusters. Stick Style trusses decorate the centered, front-gable dormer
on the north roof and its paired windows have Queen Anne style molded surrounds with corner blocks. This house best
represents the appearance of Bright Street architecture as it developed at the turn-of-the-century.
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 1980 form, “Parker R. Whitcomb purchased a large tract of land known as the Bright Estate from Professor Benjamin
Blodgett about 1881. Whitcomb proceeded to erect a number of cottages on the property. By January 1883 Whitcomb had built
several cottages on “Bright Street” and planned to build others; in June 1884, a total of nine cottages had been built along the
new street. Whitcomb rented the dwellings whose style and proximity to the center of Northampton made them popular;
residential development of the section of State Street south of Summer Street to Main occurred at this time, with brick and
wooden single family homes predominating. Whitcomb retained the cottages in Bright Street until the early 1900s; in 1905 he
sold #32, known as lot #3, to Charles Chesney. “ Charles and Rose Chesney and their daughter Greeta were still here in 1910.
Charles was a millwright working in a local sawmill at a time during which many houses were going up in Northampton and
milled lumber was in demand. By 1920 the Chesneys had been replace by James and Mary Shaughnessy and their son Robert.
James was a clerk in the Post Office. The Shaugnesseys were in the house through 1937, but by then James had retired.
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.
Registry of Deeds, Hampshire County, Book 551, Page 131; Book 600, Page 252.