26-28 Norwood Avenue
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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
30B-19 Easthampton NTH.431
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Bay State
Address: 26-28 Norwood Avenue
Historic Name: Miss M. E. Day House
Uses: Present: Two-family residence
Original: Two-family residence
Date of Construction: 1884-1895
Source: Atlases
Style/Form: Queen Anne
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboard
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Garage
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.285 acres
Setting: This house faces east on a residential
street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [26-28 NORWOOD AVENUE]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.431
___ 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 the better preserved of two, once-identical, workers’ two-family houses. It is one-and-a-half stories in height under a
front-gable roof on which two chimneys are located on the roof ridge. The house is divided along the ridge into two units with
entries to each half on the east façade behind a Queen Anne style porch. The porch’s shed roof is supported on slender posts
with brackets at its eaves. The façade is four bays wide with its two entries in the outer bays and it is the equivalent of four bays
deep. Windows have 2/2 sash and plane surrounds. There is a one-story ell on the west with a side porch opening on the south
elevation. Uncomplicated in plan and elevation, the two workers’ houses represent a relatively rare house form in Northampton.
In Florence similar duplexes were constructed but had kitchen wings of one story that differentiated them.
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 1980: “This one and a half story cottage was one of the few 19th century double houses built in Bay State.
Other than the brick block at the curve in Riverside Dive, most of the residential development of the 19th century took the form of
single-family houses, generally one and a half story cottages.” Owned by Miss M. E. Day on the map of 1895, this house and its
next door neighbor made a pair of two-family houses that were rentals. Miss Mary E. Day was the youngest child of Joseph and
Charlotte Day who had four sons and a daughter. Joseph worked as a grinder at the nearby cutler factory in Bay State. By
1900 Joseph was no longer listed in the census and Mary was a spooler in the silk mill, living at home with her mother Charlotte.
Charlotte listed her occupation as a landlord, so it appears that she tended to the two rentals that were in Mary’s name.
Charlotte and Mary lived nearby in Bay State on Hinckley Street.
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.