35 Park 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 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-025 Easthampton
NTH.2542
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence
Address: 35 Park Street
Historic Name: Sojourner Truth House
Uses: Present: single-family house
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: ca. 1850-1900
Source: African American Heritage Trail
Style/Form: Queen Anne
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: vinyl
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
House raised and reconfigured, ca. 1895
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.343 acres
Setting: This is a west-facing building overlooking
Park Street Cemetery.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [35 PARK STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.2542
__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 house of two-and-a-half stories contains the foundation and framework of Sojourner Truth’s house, which was discovered
by the David Ruggles Center in 2001 during an investigation of its interior structure. In its current condition the house is without
particular architectural merit, its only distinguishing feature being the porch on turned posts with eaves brackets and a small
Queen Anne style stair window on the south elevation. The house is vinyl-covered and has vinyl replacement windows.
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 Sojourner Truth House was identified as being at 67 Park Street from a labeled photograph in the collection of the David
Ruggles Center. A closer reading of the photograph however reveals that the Truth House was not at 67 but at 35 Park Street, a
small Cape house that was later to be expanded to its current size. Sojourner Truth, a former slave, came to Florence in about
1843 at the suggestion of friends who knew about the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian com munity
whose principles included the equality of all people no matter their sex, color, or condition, sect or religion. She stayed in 1843
and became a member of the community. According to a letter written by association member Dolly W. Stetson to her husband
James A. Stetson on March 6, 1845, ”the washing room is a seperate [sic] department Sojourner Director and Mr Fitch assistant
and they wash for all the community that choose to send their washing”. In 1844 she gave her first anti-slavery lecture and within
a few years became a noted public speaker on abolition. Truth wrote her autobiography Narrative of Sojourner Truth in 1850
and with proceeds from sale of the book she bought or built this house in Florence. The mortgage of the house was held for her
by Samuel L. Hill, an Abolitionist, and co-founder of the utopian community in Florence called the Northampton Association of
Education and Industry and founder of the Nonotuck Silk Company. Truth was able to pay off her mortgage to Hill by 1854. She
continued to live in the house until 1857 when she moved to Battle Creek, Michigan where she lived out the rest of her life.
In 1884 the house had been enlarged and by 1895 it had been re-modeled and enlarged and belonged to E. Brackett. By 1926
it was owned by retired couple Edward C. and Ella Waite.
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.
Sheffield, Charles (ed.). History of Florence 1681-1894, Florence, 1895.
David Ruggles Center. African American Heritage Trail, n.d.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [35 PARK STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
NTH.2542
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 Sojourner Truth 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, documented activities in support of the Underground Railroad transporting fugitive slaves to Canada took
place. Here lived Sojourner Truth, former slave and noted Abolitionist.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [35 PARK STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
NTH.2542