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133 Nonotuck 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-097-001 Easthampton NTH.2532 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 133 Nonotuck Street Historic Name: Joseph and Henrietta Willson House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1850 and ca. 1880 Source: The History of Florence Style/Form: gable-and-wing Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: shingles Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Garage Major Alterations (with dates): Shingle siding added and windows replaced, ca. 1990. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.271 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house set on a hillside. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [133 NONOTUCK STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2532 __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 Joseph and Henrietta Willson House is a two-and-a-half story, gable-and-wing form house with a wrap-around porch that extends from the south to the east elevations. It is stylistically modest although the large gable-and-wing form was popular during the Queen Anne style. There are ells on the rear of the house that make it complicated in plan. Sash has been replaced with 1/1 and the house sided in wood shingles. The porch rests on posts with simple brackets at the eaves, a form that was used at the end of the 19th century. The house as it appears now is a later 19th century expansion of a ca. 1850 house and represents mill workers’s housing in Florence for its simplicity. 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. Joseph and Henrietta Willson, Arthur and Alvord Willson in 1850 on the US Census appear as a black family who owned this house (in Joseph’s name), worth $300. The Willsons were fugitive slaves and although their exact relationship was not identified on the census of that year, their relative ages would suggest a nuclear family. All four family members had been born in Maryland and the three men were laborers while Henrietta appears to have been working at home. Henrietta was 55, Joseph was 40, Arthur was 23 and Alvord was 18 years old. None of the members of the household could read or write. They lived next door to another family of fugitive slaves, that of Ezekiel and Louisa Cooper with six children. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 caused many of the former slaves living in Northampton to flee. First, though, when the Fugitive Slave Act was made known, men in Florence, where 10% of the population was African-American, attempted resistance. Joseph Willson signed a document with nine others, which called for a meeting in Northampton to resist the Act. By the time the next census was taken, none of the family members shows up in the country. The homes along Nonotuck Street in the early decades of the 20th century were mostly occupied by mill workers. In 1926 Joseph and Lena Sanuta lived here. Joseph worked at the Corticellii Silk Company. He and relatives Adam, Benjamin and Wladlek had immigrated to Florence by 1915 and were living and working together at the Nonotuck Silk Company although they lived elsewhere in Florence. Joseph married and he and his wife Lena, following a pattern of many residents in Florence, moved within the community so that by 1960 they were living at 49 Middle Street and Joseph (also listed as Bladas) was working at t he Veterans Administration Hospital. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES U. S. Federal Censuses of 1850, 1860. David Ruggles Center, African American Heritage Trail, Florence, Massachusetts, 1840-1860, n.d. Sheffield, Charles (ed.) History of Florence 1681-1894, Florence, 1895. 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] [133 NONOTUCK STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2532 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 Joseph and Henrietta Willson House would contribute to a multiple resource listing on the National Register of Historic Places of properties associated with Abolition and the Underground Railroad in Northampton. In these Northampton locations, fugitive slaves lived while they were employed in Florence businesses and from which they fled after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. Here lived the Willson family, fugitive slaves from Maryland. The house is modest but reflects the economic position of former slaves and free Blacks in Florence who were employed and thereby enabled to buy property.