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57 Henshaw Avenue 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-123-001 Easthampton NTH.624 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 57 Henshaw Avenue Historic Name: Maria and Emma Bliss House Uses: Present: two-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1892-93 Source: Registry of Deeds, atlas of 1895 Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Secondary entry added to north elevation ca. 1970. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.195 acres Setting: This house is on a section of Henshaw Avenue that is densely built up. It is in alignment with its neighbors on a tree-shaded street. Two mature evergreens shade its entrance and the yard is surrounded by a wooden railing fence. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [57 HENSHAW AVENUE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.624 ___ 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 two-and-a-half story Colonial Revival house has some of the finest ornament among the houses on Henshaw Avenue and adjoining streets. It is a two-and-a-half story house under a truncated hipped roof. It is sided in clapboards, rests on brick foundations, and has an asphalt shingled roof. The house has an idiosyncratic plan and elevations with its entry through a small, one-story porch that opens to the west but is on the south elevation. The west façade adjacent to the porch is three bays wide, composed of a three-sided, two-story bay window under a three-sided roof, and two windows with 1/1 sash at first floor level, a single window at second floor level. Fluted Ionic pilasters frame the main block of the building and support an entablature below the eaves with a wide frieze in which is carved festooning. The decorative festooning appears again between first and second stories of the three-sided bay window, and on the north elevation at the second story within a medallion between two stair hall windows. Carrying out the Ionic order found at cornerboards are fluted Ionic piers of the entry porch. The entry porch is enclosed on its eastern half where, on its south elevation, are two Colonial Revival style oval windows with molded surrounds. On the west elevation of the roof is a dormer with a swan’s neck pediment, and on the north side of the roof is a second dormer, completely different, with a hipped roof. 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. Henshaw Avenue was begun as a street north from Elm Street after 1860 and reached #37 Henshaw Avenue. It was extended in the later 1880s further north to its junction with Crescent Street in its present configuration. It then began to develop in greater earnest and this house was one of the results, constructed in 1892-93 for Emma and Maria Bliss who were sisters. They appear to have been independently wealthy, the daughters of Esther Bliss of Northampton. In 1900 they had their aunt Julia Cook (92 years old) living with them, a nurse Alice McElroy, and a servant Magnolia Jones from North Carolina. In 1920 Maria was no longer in the house, but Emma lived with her 83-year-old brother William, a niece Bertha, along with a maid. Bertha was to inherit the house and in 1930 lived here alone with a single maid. By 1934 Bertha had left the house and in her place were Matthias and Elizabeth Schmitz. Matthias was a professor of German at Smith and was not here very long as they were replaced by Ottiwell T. Dewhurst and his wife Helen. Ottiwell was an optometrist and the couple lived here through 1950, followed by Mary and George Emerson who were in the house in 1960. George was a college professor. The house was divided into a two-family after 1960. From the Bliss sisters who were not occupied but ran a relatively large household, to the Schmitz and Dewhursts, then Emersons, this house has initially held independently wealthy families followed by the growing middle class of business and academics, a social and economic pattern that characterizes much of this section of Northampton. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 1873. 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. Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address State Archives Facility 220 Morrissey Boulevard Northampton 57 Henshaw Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.624 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.