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70 Dryads Green 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: PVPC Date (month / year): January, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31 A-249-001 Easthampton NTH. 555 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 70 Dryads Green Historic Name: Letitia Webster House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1910 Source: Street Directories Style/Form: Colonial Revival Foursquare Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.117 acres Setting: This house and its neighbor at 72 Dryads Green occupy through-block lots extending on the west to Kensington Avenue. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [70 Dryads Green] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.555 _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. This house is unique on Dryads Green and its surrounding streets. While it shares its Colonial Revival style with a number of houses in the area, its foursquare form is not found among them. It is a two-and-a-half story house under a hipped roof and like its Colonial Revival style neighbors it has clapboards on the first story and shingles on the second story. The house has brick foundations and an asphalt shingled roof with wide eaves and exposed rafters of the Craftsman style. It is five bays wide and three bays deep and across the southern half of the east façade is a porch that extends beyond the house on the south. It is a stacked porch with a two-bay wide section with shingled, arched openings on the second floor. The first floor portion of the porch rests on posts and has a pedimented entry with Tudor Revival style half-timbering in the pediment. The center entry is flanked on north and south by three-sided bay windows of one story. On the south elevation the house has a three-sided bay window of one story. Sash in the house is 6/1 and 1/1. An ornament of note on this eclectic foursquare is its paneled shutters with evergreen cutouts. 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. In the 1880s the land on which Dryads Green now lies was still part of several large properties that faced Elm Street and stretched south to the Mill River. Dryads Green was a farm owned by Daniel Clark whose pastures the street was later to go through. Beginning in 1890 the land was opened up when Kensington Avenue was put in by developer Charles Crouch as Northampton’s growing middle class population made development profitable. The City was, between 1900 and 1915, adding over 400 residents a year. Between 1890 and 1895 Dryads Green was laid out and lots sold on it for development by two brothers-in-law John Sullivan and J. C. Hammond who had the year before laid out Forbes Avenue and were to go on with developments elsewhere in Northampton as well. Dryads Green connected to Paradise Road on the east by making two turns to the north and east and was named for the Green that the developers included in its layout. Two lots extended between Kensington Avenue and the narrow section of Dryads Green that ran in a north-south direction. They were full through-lots between the two streets. This house was soon to be built on one of the two lots ca. 1910. Its first known occupant in 1919 was Letitia Webster, an assistant treasurer at Chauncey Pierce Insurance and Real estate agency and her mother Mary Webster, widow of J. J. Webster. Letitia W ebster was in a position of responsibility at the agency as Chauncey Pierce was a large property owner with six buildings in downtown Northampton and a prominent person in the Village Improvement Society. Her ownership of this house in Northampton’s most prestigious neighborhood reflects her success. Webster was still here through 1930 and continuing to work for Chauncy Pierce, but then in 1934 Mrs. Mary Smith widow of Frederick and a teacher in Northampton moved into the house. Mary continued to occupy it until 1950 and then between 1950 and 1960 Smith College bought the house and Helen and William T. Scott moved in. William Scott was a Smith College professor joining the many others in the neighborhood who were on the faculty of the college and renting college-owned housing. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Northampton Directories 1910-1960. U. S. Federal censuses 1890-1930. Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 1873. Walker, George H. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address State Archives Facility 220 Morrissey Boulevard Northampton 70 Dryads Green Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.555 National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form Check all that apply: Individually eligible Eligible only in an historic district Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district Criteria: A B C D Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G Statement of Significance by ___Bonnie Parsons__________________________ The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. This property would contribute to a potential historic district that would encompass the residential/institutional side streets laid out from Elm Street in Northampton Center between Main Street on the east and the west boundary of Childs Park on the west. This potential historic district is significant according to criteria A and C and would have local significance. These residential streets are significant according to criterion A for their reflection of the development of Northampton from the mid-19th century as a relatively affluent community that supported several private schools for young women, which prepared them after 1875 for attendance at Smith College, and the Clarke School where deaf students were given an education that thoroughly prepared them for the hearing world. The residences in this area made a shift from gentlemen’s estates to accommodation of the growing middle class in Northampton during the 19th century with businessmen, scholars, teachers, doctors, and retired farmers. According to criterion C this district would be significant for the range of historical styles that it includes. Gothic Revival, Italianate, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles are all well-represented within a landscape of individual large lots, and streetscapes that were laid out and developed at one time.