46 Chestnut Avenue
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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
11A-005 Easthampton NTH.29
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Leeds
Address: 46 Chestnut Avenue
Historic Name: Nonotuck Silk Company Workers’s
housing Uses: Present: single-family house
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: 1873-1884
Source: atlases
Style/Form: eclectic
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards
Roof: slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Garage
Major Alterations (with dates): Entrance porch replaced,
ca. 2005.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.506
Setting: House sits high on a corner lot above the mill
village of Leeds.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [46 Chestnut Avenue]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.29
___ 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 represents the type of superior workers’s housing that the Nonotuck Silk Company constructed for its management-
level employees, and it is among a number of such houses in this section of Leeds. The house is gable-and-wing in plan, two-
stories in height, and both the front-gable and the wing are two bays wide. There is a one-and-a-half story ell on the west that
has a side porch on posts that support a shed roof. In the northwest angle of the gable and the wing is a two-story tower with a
truncated mansard roof. It contains the entry to the house and has two rondel windows at second story level. Windows in the
house have 2/2 wooden sash and their surrounds are flat stock with a drip mold lintel. The same surround is found on the main
entry. Stylistically, this house is eclectic as a combination of French Second Empire with the mansard tower, and Italianate
features such as its wide eaves overhang, and rondel 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.
From the Form B of 1980, “This house is located on a corner lot in the subdivision planned by Nonotuck Silk Co. atop the hill
overlooking the village of Leeds. William Moore, an overseer for the company, is listed here on the 1884 atlas.”
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.