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47 Florence Road 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: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month / year): March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 22D-061-001 Easthampton NTH.2496 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 47 Florence Road Historic Name: Benjamin Barrett-David Ruggles House Uses: Present: single-family house Original: single-family house and water cure center Date of Construction: ca. 1840 Source: History of Florence Style/Form: Cape Cod form Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: vinyl Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Attached wing and garage Condition: good Moved: no | | yes | x | Date ca. 1851 Acreage: Setting: This is an east-facing house set on a slight rise in the landscape. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [47 FLORENCE ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2496 __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 is a one-and-a-half story house under a side gable roof with no interior chimney. A moved house, its chimney would have been lost at the time of its move and replaced with an exterior wall chimney on the south elevation. It has a Cape Cod form. It is four bays wide and two bays deep, and there is a one-story wing, three bays long, on its north elevation that connects to a single bay garage. The entry is off-center. The vinyl-sided building has two shed-roof dormers on its east façade. Windows in the house have replacement vinyl 6/1 sash. There is a hipped roof porch across the full width of the house’s east façade. It rests on turned posts above a lattice apron. This is a modest house, like many in Florence, and its Cape form was a popular one. 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. This building was owned by Benjamin and Mary Barrett on Spring Street built ca. 1840. At the time they owned the house, it appears that it was near the Anthony and Celeste Henry House at 40 Spring Street. Benjamin Barrett appears in the 1850 census in Northampton as a physician with his wife Mary. The Barretts sold the house to the utopian community, the Northampton Association for Education and Industry who used it to house one of the Association’s founders, David Mack whose role in the community was to teach and oversee the schooling of community members. Following David Mack, the house was occupied by two more community member families - that of George Benson and then the Stetsons, Dolly and James. When the Stetsons left the house to live in the Association boarding house, another community member, Harriet Hayden, who had previously been expelled from the community moved in for her final days. When Harriet died the house was turned over in 1845 to David Ruggles who remained here until his death in1849. Ruggles was one of the country’s foremost black journalists who during his years in New York as a member of the New York Committee of Vigilance helped free over 600 fleeing slaves, including Frederick Douglass, before moving to Florence where he worked on the Underground Railroad and was a member of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. In poor health, Ruggles in Florence became a proponent of hydrotherapy and started his own water cure in 1846 from this house. He treated patients with some success until his death in 1849 and by then had begun building a water cure center on Spring Street. Ca. 1851 the house was moved to the land of a freed slave, Basil Dorsey on the west side of Florence Road, and Hannah Randall, an African American woman, lived here from 1856-1882. She worked at the water cure and lived here after it was moved. By 1895 Patrick Bartley owned the house. He worked for the Florence Sewing Machine Company and lived on Elm Street, presumably renting the house to others. 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. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [47 FLORENCE ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2496 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. The Barrett-Ruggles House is individually eligible for the National Register as the home to David Ruggles, Abolitionist who freed over 600 slaves, established a water cure in Northampton and was one of the nation’s first Black journalists. The house is significant as well for its association with the Northampton Association for Education and Industry.