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115 Elm Street 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 31B-195-001 Easthampton NTH.2444 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 115 Elm Street Historic Name: Miss Annie C. Bridgman House Uses: Present: multi-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1890-1895 Source: atlas of 1895 and Directory of 1890 Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: fieldstone Wall/Trim: aluminum Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Siding added ca. 1960. Replacement windows added ca. 1990. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.35 acres Setting: This house is set back from Elm Street on a tree- shaded lot. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [115 ELM STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2444 ___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. This property is part of a Local Historic District. 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 two-and-a-half story house with a truncated hipped roof. It has fieldstone and brick foundations, is asbestos shingle- sided, and has an asphalt shingled roof. The house is Colonial Revival in style and has the large proportions of the late Colonial Revival. At the time of its construction it was designed to interpret the early Colonial architecture embodied in its next door neighbor at 109, the Georgian style Jonathon Hunt House, of ca. 1700. It is three bays wide on the first floor façade and four bays at the second floor. A wrap-around porch crosses the south to the east facades and is marked at its entry by a pediment. At the porch’s south east corner is a polygonal gazebo, a decorative feature more often found in the Queen Anne style than th e Colonial Revival. The porch has ¾ length Doric columns that rest on high brick footings to compensate for the land that slop es down towards the east. The roof of the house has a broad eaves overhang that is decorated with scrolled brackets. There is a hipped dormer on the west elevation and three interior chimneys. Sash in the house is replacement vinyl 6/1. 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. Built between 1890 and 1895, the Miss Annie C. Bridgman House was constructed on the lot of the ca. 1700 Jonathan Hunt House at 109 Elm Street. The Hunt property was among the first lots laid out by the Proprietors of Northampton in 1654 as Lot Number 6 on Elm Street. This house was the first addition to that lot and was in the 1890s owned by Sidney and Marion Bridgman. Marion was Sidney’s second wife and Annie a daughter by his first wife. By 1895 Sidney E. Bridgman and Marion had moved over to the new house at 115 Elm Street while the co-owner of the S. E. Bridgman and Company bookseller’s store, Annie, was living primarily in Boston. Both houses, were however, identified as being owned by Annie Bridgman on the atlas of 1895. Sidney Bridgman was active in Northampton as bookseller – his was the main bookstore serving college students - printer, and engraver as well as a deacon, clerk and treasurer at the Edwards Church in Northampton. Marion had been active - before her marriage to Sidney - in New York as chief soprano at the Broadway Tabernacle and was active in Northampton’s organizations as well. She was one of the founders of the Northampton chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and was president of the Women’s Missionary Society. She and Sidney supported missions abroad from the Edwards Church and traveled a great deal. Sidney lectured in Northampton about their travels and they drew many literary figures to their house at 115 Elm Street. For 25 years Sidney was superintendent of the Edwards Church Sunday School. After about 1900 he took in as business partner Clifford H. Lyman. Sidney died about 1906 and his widow Marion continued to live in this house until her death at 93 in 1923. She boarded Clifford Lyman for a number of years. The Bridgman House at 115 was sold not long after Mrs. Bridgman’s death and the Hunt House bought by Smith College and changed into Sessions House in 1921. By 1925 this house was occupied by Clara S. Knapp. Clara Knapp was a boarding house proprietor. In 1912 she ran” The Pierpont” on Park Street, which she continued through 1920 with two sisters and a brother-in-law, then moved to 115 Elm Street. There were several boarding houses or public dormitories that housed students and working people too. The Knapps continued to run the boarding house until at least 1934, at which time Clara Knapp appears to have retired from taking in boarders, but remained in the house through 1940. Between 1940 and 1950 the house was divided into six apartments and was occupied by men and women who worked in Northampton businesses, or in Chicopee at Westover Air Base, or in West Springfield as mechanics. By 1960 the property was largely rented to instructors and teachers at Smith College, although it was not owned by the college. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Hampshire Gazette, November 30, 1895, supplement. Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 1873. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [115 ELM STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2444 Massachusetts Historical Commission. Reconnaissance Reports, “Northampton”, 1982. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Northampton Directories 1910-1960. Sanborn Insurance Maps, Northampton, 1915. U. S. Federal censuses 1890-1930. Walker, George H. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884.