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45 Middle 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 23A-270 Easthampton NTH.2529 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 45 Middle Street Historic Name: Florence Sewing Machine Company workers’s housing Uses: Present: single-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: 1861-1870 Source: census and atlases Style/Form: modified Italianate Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: concrete Wall/Trim: concrete, vinyl Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): wing attached to transverse gable ca. 1900. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.313 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house on a quiet, residential street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [45 Middle Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2529 _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 one of three once-identical cement houses in a row on Middle Street of one-and-a-half stories under a front-gable roof. Of the three houses, this is probably the least altered or added to. Like the others, however, the main block of the building is only two bays wide and one of the bays is a large, fixed-light window, an unusual feature for the early date of the house. The house is the equivalent of four bays in depth. There is a transverse gable bay on the west elevation, and the house’s wide, thinly boxed eaves are Italianate in style. The house has a wrap-around porch on turned posts with brackets at the eaves and a square baluster railing. There is a rear ell on the building. The cement construction of the houses seems to place them as the earliest examples of construction in this material in Northampton and suggests the progressive nature of their builder. 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. The three houses at 39, 45 and 49 Middle Street were built by the Florence Sewing Machine Company as workers housing. They were constructed between 1861 when the company was founded and 1870 when their occupants appear in the census of that year. They were built when the company owners D. G. Littlefield, Samuel L. Hill and Leander Langdon had established the company and were hitting their peak of sewing machine production, becoming the sixth largest sewing machine company in the country. On the map of 1873 M. H. Ware appears at this address. In the census of 1870 M. H. Ware is Moses Ware who worked in a machine shop, presumably that of the Florence Sewing Machine Company. His wife Lizzie, and children Arthur and Mary made up the family on what was then Center Street. By 1880 Moses had changed his occupation to that of a butcher and Arthur worked with him as a meat clerk; the Florence Sewing Machine Company was nearing its end. Elizabeth kept house, Mary was still in school and the Wares had two boarders, a school teacher and a woman working in the silk mill. By 1895 Moses and Elizabeth were no longer in Florence but Arthur and Lydia Ware were in the house. Arthur continued the family business started by his father as a meat and provisions merchant. Middle Street was still called East Center Street in 1895 through 1900. In 1926 Merritt J. and Margaret O’Brien lived here. Merritt worked in partnership in the Berneche and O’Brien barber shop. The O’Brien family was here through 1960 when Margaret occupied the house alone after Merritt’s death. 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. Strimer, Steve. The Ruggles Center, Florence research oral history. 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 Middle Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2529 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [45 Middle Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 NTH.2529 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. On Middle Street many of the houses are further distinguished as being among the earliest workers’ housing made of concrete in Northampton. The potential district has integrity of workmanship, design, feeling, association, and materials.