45 Meadow 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
Please see attached continuation sheet.
Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons
Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
Date (month / year): March, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
22B-013-001 Easthampton NTH.2526
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence
Address: 45 Meadow Street
Historic Name: Mrs. Christina Frederick House
Uses: Present: single-family house
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: 1860-1873
Source: maps of 1860 and 1873
Style/Form: side-hall entry
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.2 acres
Setting: This is a south-facing house on a westward
sloping lot shaded by trees on a residential street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON [45 MEADOW STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.2526
_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 relatively small house that is very well-preserved and maintained, and represents 19th century housing for those
workers in Florence who lived in single-family homes rather than boarding houses. It is one-and-a-half stories under a front-
gabled roof. The house is on a sloping lot so that its basement is entirely exposed on the west and a granite block embankment
holds back the slope on the south. The clapboard-sided house has an asphalt shingle roof and is three bays wide and four bays
deep for a rectangular plan. The entire south façade is covered by a porch at the first story whose hipped roof rests on pos ts
with scroll-cut brackets at the eaves. The porch has a second floor portion, two bays wide that also is supported on posts.
Railings at both levels are narrow, square balusters that are also used for the porch apron. Trim at windows and door surround
is simple flat stock and window sash is 2/2.
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.
This house was built between 1860 and 1873 when a series of four houses went up on the north side of Meadow Street. The
first known owner of the house was Christina Frederick. Widowed at 38, Frederick, an immigrant from Wittenberg Germany, had
five children to support: Adolph, Emma, Mena, Florinza and Anna. The two oldest children at 19 and 18 were working in the
Nonotuck silk mill; the remaining three were at home or in school. As all the children had been born in Haydenville, it is likely that
the family had been working in textile mills prior to their move to Florence.
The residential development of Florence where factory workers lived in single-family houses as opposed to the boarding houses
found in many industrial communities was in part shaped by the members of the Northampton Association of Education and
Industry. That utopian community folded in 1846, but many of its members and leaders remained in Florence and advocated for
“family-centered” living in which families lived together in their own homes.
In 1925 Mary and Watras Walenty lived here and Watras worked at the Northampton Cutlery Company. By 1930 Charles W.
and Grace Dewey occupied the house. Charles was a clerk at the Corticelli Silk Mill and the couple continued to live here
through 1960.
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.
Sheffeld, Charles. The History of Florence, Florence, 1895.
U. S. Federal Censuses 1870-1910.
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 [45 MEADOW STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
NTH.2526