71 King 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
32A-121 Easthampton NTH.854
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 71 King Street
Historic Name: Catholic Society Parsonage
Uses: Present: office building, residence
Original: parsonage
Date of Construction: 1866
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette, Oct. 30, 1866
Style/Form: Italianate
Architect/Builder: William Fenno Pratt, architect,
Northampton Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards
Roof: slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Ell additions on rear, ca. 1980.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.899 acres
Setting: This building faces west on one of Northampton’s
major commercial thoroughfares.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [71 KING STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.854
___ 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.
The Catholic Society parsonage follows the Italianate style and form designed by architect William Fenno Pratt elsewhere in
Northampton for residences. Examples are the Lathrop House at 81 Bridge Street, the Lyman House at 333 Elm Street, and the
First Parish parsonage at 74 Bridge Street, all three of which share the Catholic Society’s two-and-a-half story height under a
side-gabled roof with a centered cross-gable. There are two interior chimneys on the roof and the building has two ell
extensions on the east elevation that were later additions as well as a one-story enclosed side porch on the south. The main
block of the parsonage is five bays wide and it is the equivalent of four bays deep. An entry porch with a flat Italianate roof has
brackets at the eaves and was glass-enclosed in Colonial Revival style with fanlights over side windows and double-leaf entry
doors. Windows have 6/6 sash and they have drip molding lintels. Pointed arch windows appear in the center cross-gable and
the end gables of the house. They are not typical of the Italianate style in general, but were used by Pratt at some of his other
buildings too.
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 Form B of 1975: “Willliam F. Pratt, local architect, drew the plans for this dwelling, the Catholic Society Parsonage, in
1866. The Catholics in Northampton first worshipped on King Street. A church was built there about 1845 and the parsonage in
1866. By the 1870’s, the Catholic population was large enough for a separate parish to be organized for Florence, Haydenville,
and Leeds. In 1880, the Florence church was completed and in 1881, a new church was begun in Northampton on the hill
where the Mansion House had stood overlooking the old New Haven-Northampton Canal. About 1887, a parsonage was added
below the new Gothic church; by this time the Catholic worshippers had begun to organize according to their national
backgrounds and the French and Polish Catholics had located in separate places of worship.”
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.