138 Elm 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-244 Easthampton NTH.700
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Smith College Campus
Address: 138 Elm Street
Historic Name: J. C. Ward House
Uses: Present: Smith College Faculty Offices
Original: Single-family Residence
Date of Construction: 1865-1871
Source: Registry of Deeds, 228.385, 283,369.
Style/Form: Stick Style
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards, vertical boarding
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.445 acres
Setting: This house is one in a row of similarly-dated and
styled 19th century houses.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [138 ELM STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH. 701
___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
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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 building was designed in the pure Stick Style, a style that did not last long, but which added many decorative architectural
features to the vocabulary of the Queen Anne style that followed. It is a two-and-a-half story house under a steeply pitched,
side-gable roof with a tall, clustered chimney at its center. The building has a two-and-a-half story ell on its south elevation and
a transverse gable bay centered on its north façade that rests on a three-sided, hipped roof porch. All the gables of the main
block and the transverse bay are ornamented with picket-fence siding and in their gables are King Post trusses – both features
often found in the Stick Style. Other elements that defined the style are the stringcourses, beltcourses and paneling that
intended to suggest on the exterior of the building the structural members of plates, sills and braces that made up its interior.
Unadorned wide eaves are supported at their corners by carved consoles. On the west elevation is a three-sided bay windows
stacked above a rectangular bay and on the east elevation is a two-story bay window.
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 1975, “This picturesque cottage was built for J. C. Ward sometime between 1865 and 1871. Ward
purchased the 66 acre tract known as “Paradise” for $9,500 in 1865; the tract was developed by Ward over the second half of
the century. Ward conveyed a parcel of land to E. Hamlin in June, 1871 with ”the two story cottage building erected on said lot.”
Half a dozen cottages were built at this period on the perimeter of Paradise Pond. It seems unlikely that W. F. Pratt designed
this cottage and its neighbor. While the Gazette mentions that Pratt is designing a cottage at Paradise for J. C. Ward in 1866,
this residence probably stood on Paradise Road.”
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.