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85-87 North 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 Please see the continuation sheet. Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month / year): March, 2011 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 17C-245 Easthampton NTH. Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 85-87 North Main Street Historic Name: James and Mary Shannon Two-family House Uses: Present: four-family house Original: Two-family house Date of Construction: 1908-1910 Source: censuses Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Carriage barn Major Alterations (with dates): Window replacement, ca. 2000 Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.36 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house set in alignment with its residential neighbors. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [85-87 North Main Street ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH. ___ 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 two-and-a-half story house under a front-gable roof. It is two bays wide, eight bays deep and appears in its large scale and simple design purposely to have been built as a multi-family house. It has cross-gable bays on the east and west whose eaves make full returns to form pediments. A recessed porch is on the east elevation between the cross-gable bay and a one- story wing. There is a full-width porch across the south façade that is stacked with a second story porch one bay wide. The porch rests on chamfered posts with brackets at the eaves. The first story of the south façade is two bays wide with a pair of windows adjacent to a pair of entry doors. The first and second stories are clapboard sided and there are scalloped shingles in the main gable and sawtooth shingles in the second story porch gable, a practice or the Queen Anne period. The building rests on brick foundations and has two interior chimneys. Only a structural examination could confirm whether stories were added or whether there is an earlier house within the current building. The house has a large carriage shed on its north side. 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 is either on the lot of or incorporates a house that was owned by Charles Calistus Burleigh, anti-slavery activist, (1810-1878) who, according to the census of 1870, was living in a house on North Main Street next door to Charles B. Smith. Burleigh had moved to Florence in 1861 from Pennsylvania. These facts are confirmed by the map of 1873 that indicates the Burleigh and Smith households on North Main Street. With Charles Burleigh in 1870 were his two children Charles, Jr. who was 21 and Theresa who was 19, along with a servant. Connecticut-born Burleigh, as early as the 1820s had become interested in the work of William Lloyd Garrison and by the 1830s was traveling with Garrison. In 1835 Burleigh began as an agent of the American Anti-slavery Society lecturing and attracting large crowds in Rhode Island and later in New York and New England as he spoke on the evils of slavery. He is known as among the 65 or 70 men whose lecturing led to the formation of anti-slavery societies in cities and towns of the North leading up to the Civil War. After moving to Florence, Burleigh and his brother William H. Burleigh also joined the Temperance Movement through the 1870s until his death in 1878 in Florence. Prior to coming to Florence Burleigh was elected to Congress as a Free Soil candidate in 1848 and held his seat until 1856. In Northampton he was a permanent speaker at the Free Congregational Society where he would have articulated his positions and have brought about a rise of Free Soil sentiment. A minister and a published author, Burleigh’s presence in Florence was important to its politics and social policies. Prior to 1883, the large lot on which the Burleigh house at 85 North Main Street was located was divided into lots 10, 11, and 12. Lots 10, 11 and part of 12 were sold by Theresa, in 1883 after her father’s death, to Elbert and Clara Couch who remained in it through 1895. In 1896 the Couches sold the property to James Shannon. Shannon lived on South Street and rented 85 North Main Street to Albert and Georgianna Bernache, their four children and a boarder, until 1908 when he m oved into 85 North Main Street, a single-family house. Between 1908 and 1910 the house became a two-family with James Shannon in 85 and Fred Tilley at 87 North Main Street. As the house shows no exterior signs of an 1870s origin, it is highly likely that this house replaced the earlier single family house or was a considerable expansion of the earlier house. This is a question that deserves further research as Burleigh is a highly significant person in U.S. history. 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. Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, Book 208, Page 404; Book 308, Page 71, Book 486, Page 265; Book 883, Page 205. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Northampton Street Directories, 1893, 1895-1896, 1908. U.S. Federal Censuses, 1860-1930. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [85-87 North Main Street ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH. 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] [85-87 North Main Street ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 NTH.