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25 Maple 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 23A-136-001 Easthampton NTH.2522 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 25 Maple Street Historic Name: Mrs. Mary Mann House Uses: Present: four-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: 1873-1884 Source: atlases Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: asbestos siding Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: garage Major Alterations (with dates): sided, ca. 1970; windows replaced. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.514 acres Setting: This house occupies a large corner lot in Florence Center. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] 25 MAPLE STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2522 ___ 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 large, two-and-a-half story house under a front-gable roof with a two-and-a-half story wing for a T-shaped plan. The house is asbestos shingle sided, which covers much of the original ornament and stylistic features. However, a number of features remain that give it a late Stick Style/Queen Anne stylistic denomination. The main block of the house is three bays wide and the wing is four bays wide and the house scale is large. The main entry is beneath a hipped roof portico, while there is a secondary entry in the wing through a porch on Queen Anne turned posts. On the slate roof of the wing is a through-cornice window with a front-gabled braced arch over it – an unusual window treatment that is not a dormer. The roof has a wide overhang and brackets support the eaves while barge boards ornament the eaves in the gable end. Sash in the house has been replaced with 1/1. 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. Arnold and Mary S. Mann first appear in Northampton censuses in 1880 when Arnold is listed as a retired machinist and Mary was keeping house. She was several decades younger than her husband. By the late 1880s, Arnold had died and Mary had established a greenhouse business in Florence with the greenhouses on this property east of the house. Mrs. Mann also owned a number of houses in Florence that she rented out. Her business was known as Le Bon Ton Greenhouse and it operated into the first decade of the 20th century under Mary Mann’s direction. She was active in local affairs as a member of the Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin Agricultural Society and in 1903 she was Treasurer of the Hill Industrial School and Florence Kindergarten, which had been founded by Samuel Hill and further endowed by A. T. Lilly. According to The History of Florence published in 1895 Mrs. Mann started her greenhouses in 1887 and by 1895 had about 12,000 square feet of glass in the greenhouses. One of Florence’s leading women in business, she employed a foreman and 4- 6 helpers. By 1926 the house was occupied by Mrs. Sarah J. Hazen who was the widow of James Hazen, and their daughter Elizabeth who was a teacher. Elizabeth owned the house by 1935. She was teaching in Waterbury, Connecticut at the time. So this house had a fairly long history of being woman-owned. 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] 25 MAPLE STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2522 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 Florence Center Historic District. The potential historic district of Florence Center is significant as the commercial, residential, institutional center of the village that developed from 1657 when it was set off as Northampton’s “Inner Commons” as agricultural land and 1681 when the first sawmill was erected at a falls on the Mill River. The agricultural and industrial village developed through the 18th and 19th centuries around industry on the Mill River, agriculture on the alluvial flood plain and the Strong Tavern and later Cottage Hotel at the intersection of Main and Maple Streets. It is significant for the silk industry that flourished through the Civil war as an alternative to slave-picked cotton and for the establishment of the Northampton Association for Education and Industry, a utopian community that existed 1843-1847. Association members after its close continued in Florence their principles of equality by running the Underground Railroad through the village and harboring fugitive slaves. It is significant as the home of Sojourner Truth. 19th century industry in the Center included the Florence Sewing Machine Company, which built its own housing. Architecturally the Center is significant for the range of Gothic Revival, Italianate, Stick Style, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style homes, for its commercial blocks and library in the Revival styles of the late 19th century. Gothic Revival and Italianate style churches are architect-designed in high style versions. The potential district has integrity of workmanship, design, feeling, association, and materials.