224 Prospect Street
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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): April, 2011
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
24D-230-001 Easthampton NTH.
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 224 Prospect Street
Historic Name: David and Jenny Simison House
Uses: Present: Three-family house
Original: Single-family house
Date of Construction: ca. 1895
Source: map of 1895
Style/Form: Colonial Revival/French Second Empire
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards and shingles
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Garage
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.476 acres
Setting: This house occupies a slightly elevated
lot that is shaded by mature trees.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [222 Prospect 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 fine example of a Colonial Revival style house but has an eccentric architectural feature – a mansard roof. The use of
a mansard roof was infrequent after about 1880, so its appearance on a Colonial Revival house is unusual. The house is two
bays wide and it has an enclosed entry within its full-width porch. Doric columns support the flat roof of the porch and are
connected by square profile railing balusters. The house is clapboard on the first story and shingles above and there is a slight
jetty between stories, typical of the Colonial Revival. Dormers on the roof are pedimented. There is a two-story enclosed porch
under a shed roof on the east elevation, the second story of which may have acted as a sleeping porch.
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 had a relatively uncomplicated history of ownership. Built by 1895, its first owners were David and Jennie Simison.
David was the child of Irish immigrants and Jennie’s parents had been born in New England. David worked as a clerk in the
Post Office, which he continued to do through 1920. That year they had taken in a boarder who was a telephone operator and
Jennie’s mother had moved in with them. By 1930 the couple had an 8 year old son, Jennie’s mother and the boarder had left
and David changed his job to that of a shipper in a cutlery factory.
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.