85 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
31B-069-001 Easthampton NTH.
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 85 Prospect Street
Historic Name: Dragon House
Uses: Present: Single-family residence
Original: Single-family residence
Date of Construction: pre-1900
Source: Street Directories; 1900 census
Style/Form: Colonial Revival
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: aluminum
Roof: slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates): Siding added and
windows replaced, cal 1990-2000.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.172 acres
Setting: This house is set in alignment with others
on the street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [85 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 two-and-a-half Colonial Revival style house with a pyramidal hipped roof. It has a cross-gable on the south elevation
and a rear two-and-a-half story ell. The main block of the house is two bays wide and two bays deep and comes close to being
a Four-Square for its simplicity. However, it has a stacked, Colonial Revival style wrap around porch the crosses the west
façade and with a round corner covers a portion of the south elevation. The porch is supported on Doric columns linked by
turned baluster railings. Above the side entry on the west façade, the porch is stacked on the second story. It is one bay wide
under a pedimented roof. The house has been sided in aluminum, which obscures detail that would convey its age and
architectural merit.
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 name Dragon was fairly common in Northampton at the turn of the 19th-20th century and among the those who had that
name were Louis and Victorine Dragon, French Canadians who had emigrated in 1880 and who lived in this house in 1900 with
their four sons and five daughters. Louis supported this large family working as a barber in 1900 but by 1910 he had his own
barber shop and two of his daughters, Valida and Odna, worked as milliners, while a son worked in a hardware store. By 1919
Louis had died and his widow Victorine lived here with their daughter Odna who supported the pair as a dressmaker. The other
members of the family appear to had moved away from Northampton. Victorine and Odna stayed through 1930 but by 1940 had
been replaced by two families: S.A. and Rena Christian, and J. J. and Norma Berinstein. W. A. Christian was a professor at
Smith College and Berinstein was a manager. The house was a two-family if only nominally so, as it was later to revert to one-
family use.
The history of this house is typical of many of those closer to Elm Street in which the houses were built and occupied in the late
19th century to early 20th by merchants and industrialists and were later joined or replaced by academicians from Smith College.
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.
Northampton Street Directories 1919-1940
U.S. Federal Censuses 1900-1930
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.