83 North 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, 2011
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
25C-182 Easthampton NTH.401
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 83 North Street
Historic Name: Pratt House
Uses: Present: Single-family residence
Original: Single-family residence
Date of Construction: 1850-1860
Source: map of 1860
Style/Form: Italianate
Architect/Builder: Thomas Pratt, attributed
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: asbestos
Roof: not visible
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Siding added, ca. 1950
Condition: fair
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.324 acres
Setting: This house faces south rather than
towards the street on which it is located.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [83 NORTH STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.401
___ 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-story house under a flat roof with wide eaves overhang in the Italianate style. A row of over-scaled dentils
ornaments the cornice line on the main roof and on the porch roof. The house is on brick foundations and is currently sided in
asbestos shingles. It is five bays wide and three deep, and has an added, half-width porch on the south façade that is supported
on Colonial Revival style columns. Adjacent to the porch is an angled bay window of one story. Windows of the south façade’s
first story have crown molding lintels and the main entry has an Italianate braced hood over a transom light. The house has a
two-story wing on the east that is three bays long. This house is unusual in its combination of Italianate and Colonial Revival
styles.
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.
From Form B of 1976: “Thomas Pratt, local architect and designer of numerous Federal and Greek Revival style residences in
Northampton, was born in 1784 in eastern Massachusetts and began his career as an architect and builder in Northampton in
1807. Several substantial monuments remain: Dewey House and Capen House, Smith College, two Greek Revival residences,
and the architect’s own residence on North Street. William Fenno Pratt, his son, also practiced the profession, beginning in
1837 with Miss Dwight’s Gothic seminary, a vigorous exercise in the picturesque.
The structure was probably built shortly after Thomas Pratt acquired the ½ acre tract from Elijah Hayden and Thomas
Clark in 1811. The home remained in the Pratt family throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
This house as it currently appears would not have been built in 1812. The assumption of the 1976 form that a house was built
soon after the land was purchased does not necessarily follow. The 1831 map is inconclusive, but the house does appear on
the 1860 map, a date that is consistent with its style and brick foundations, which in 1812 would have been granite.
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.
Registry of Deeds: 1784.204, 1745.111, 1060.264, 902.147, 344.61, 146.136, 114.53, 102.348, 67.512, 33.255