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260 Main 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): March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 10B-81 Easthampton NTH.20 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Leeds Address: 260 Main Street Historic Name: Nonotuck Silk Mill Company Uses: Present: Apartments Original: silk mill Date of Construction: 1880 Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette, Sept. 21, 1880 Style/Form: High Victorian Gothic Architect/Builder: Eugene C. Gardner, architect, Springfield Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: brick, wood, granite Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Shed in parking lot Major Alterations (with dates): Windows replaced, windows in-filled, mill converted to housing, ca. 1990. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 2.2 acres Setting: This mill in the small village center of Leeds faces east, and on its west is the Mill River. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [260 MAIN STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.20 _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. The Nonotuck Silk Mill building is a fine example of a high-style industrial building designed by one of the region’s most accomplished architects, Eugene C. Gardner. Rather than a utilitarian mill building, Gardner designed a three-and-a-half story building under a gambrel or dual-pitched gable roof that is slate-covered. The roof is side-gabled and the east façade is fourteen bays wide and the side elevations are four bays deep. The mill has a four-and-a-half story tower centered on its east façade topped by an open wood pavilion under a pyramidal hipped roof. Entry into the tower is reached by a wood, double-ramped portico with a pedimented, shed roof. The portico is supported on heavy piers and the portico eaves in the pediment have brackets for ornament. The ornament of the building is largely created by its brickwork and the tarring of bricks for contrasting bands of black. A stringcourse runs between second and third stories and is composed of angled bricks between tarred brick bands. The same treatment forms lintels above the segmentally arched windows of the third story and a stringcourse across the gable ends beneath three arched windows. On the tower between third and fourth stories is a stringcourse laid in a checkered pattern of tarred bricks. Windows at each story have varying lintel patterns created by brick angles and tarring. At the building’s cornice level bricks have been laid to create an enlarged dentil row above a frieze with paired brick slits above a row of finer brick dentils. Windows in the building are replacement vinyl. A one-story wing that has a low-pitched gable roof extends from the north elevation of the mill building. It is two bays wide and five bays deep and its north entrance is sheltered by a gabled portico on curved braces. 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: “The Nonotuck Silk Company, incorporated during the 1860’s, owned this industrial site and the series of mill structures at Leeds center throughout the 19th century. The Silk Company, one of the city’s most successful industrial enterprises, had large holdings in Florence as well as in Leeds; local businessmen Samuel Hill, Samuel Hinckley, A. T. Lilly, and others were involved in the running of the company. Sewing silk, crochet, knitting, and embroidery silk, and later, silk hosiery and silk underwear were marketed by the company on a nationwide basis. The local industry borrowed both techniques and machines and workmen from England; office of the Nonotuck Silk Company were maintained in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. For a number of years, a foreign office and branch manufactory in Canada were in operation. A portion of the factory complex was for a time leased to the Northampton Emory Wheel Company. The present factory structure stands on the site of previous buildings leveled by the Great Flood of 1874, which resulted from the collapse of the Williamsburg dam.” 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 ] [260 MAIN STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.20 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 Nonotuck Silk Mill building in Leeds would contribute to a Leeds Center Historic District. This small industrial village center was rebuilt after the flood of 1874 had washed away its preceding textile mill buildings, housing and residents. It continued to function as a mill village into the 20th century with a bridge connected industries on both sides of the Mill River. Architecturally the district is significant as a representative mill village with boarding house, general store, this mill building, bridge, and workers’ housing. It has integrity of design, setting, association, feeling, workmanship and materials. The mill is further significant as the work of architect Eugene C. Gardner of Springfield.