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15 Jewett 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: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month / year): April, 2011 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31A-119-001 Easthampton NTH. Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 15 Jewett Street Historic Name: Thomas and Mary Ruddy House Uses: Present: Single-family house Original: Single-family house Date of Construction: ca. 1910 Source: Sanborn Insurance map of 1910 Style/Form: Colonial Revival Four Square Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboard Roof: asphalt shingled Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Windows replaced, ca. 1990. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.107 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house on a short, residential street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [15 Jewett Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH. _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 good example of the house form known as a Four Square, which as its name suggests is a square house with four equal elevations. In this case it is Colonial Revival in style with wide eaves extending from its truncated hipped roof and a full- width south façade porch on Colonial Revival posts with railings of square balusters. Three bays wide and three bays deep, the floor plan of the house was given variety by two three-sided bays on the east and west elevations and a side entry on the west with column support. There are hipped roof dormers on the three visible sides of the roof. This is a very neat house, spacious but not extravagant and represents housing for the middle class in 1910. 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. Jewett Street was in place in 1895 but had no houses until 1910 when all the houses that are on the street now were in place. Thomas Ruddy who may have been the first owner of the house in 1910 was in a rooming house and worked on Elm Street. By 1920 he and Mary Ruddy were in this house and Thomas was working as a gardener. He switched to being a janitor at the post office in 1930 and by 1940 he was an assistant supervisor in a Smith College office while Mary was working as a clerk at the Prophylactic Brush Company in Florence. Thomas retired soon after and died before 1950. Mary continued to live here, however. The Ruddys represent the growing middle class in Northampton. 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 ] [15 Jewett Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH. 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 on the south side of 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.