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615 Riverside Drive 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): June, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 23C-003 Easthampton NTH.2545 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 615 Riverside Drive Historic Name: George and Catherine Benson Cottage Uses: Present: single-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: ca. 1846 Source: Sheffeld, History of Florence Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: parged brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Windows replaced ca. 2005 Condition: good Moved: no | | yes | x | Date 1873-1879 Acreage: 0.2 acres Setting: This house faces south on a narrow lot that is shaded with trees on the east. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [615 RIVERSIDE DRIVE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2545 __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 is a modest house two bays wide and two bays deep and two-and-a-half storied in height. It has a side-gable roof with no interior chimney. Rather the chimney is an exterior wall chimney on the building’s east elevation. There are no windows on the second story of the south façade, but there is a shed-roofed porch on this façade that rests on turned posts that give the building its stylistic designation as Queen Anne, though the porch was not part of the original construction of the building and was probably added after the house’s move. Foundations are high and parged. Windows have simple drip edge surrounds and this trim is found at the main south door surround as well. 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. Though moved in the 1870s, there is strong documentary evidence that this house was owned and occupied by George W. and Catherine Benson between 1841 and ca. 1850 when it was located at the corner of Maple Street and Nonotuck Street. The house historically was known as the Benson Cottage, distinct from the Benson House that was on Main Street, Florence. George W. Benson is noted as one of the founders of the utopian community: the Northampton Association for Education and Industry, though for all the founders it was clearly a family effort. In the late 1830s, George and Catherine Benson lived in Brooklyn, Connecticut and had four children; George was a silk manufacturer and the son of George Benson who was a founder of the Providence Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. George W. Benson was an early Abolitionist as one of the men who provided support to Prudence Crandall when she established a school for African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. One of George’s sisters, Helen, was married to the editor and leading Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. As second generation Abolitionists, the Bensons became involved in the movements for social reform that incorporated Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism and the theories of communitarians Robert Owen, who in 1825 founded New Harmony in Indiana, Charles Fourier, whose principles published in 1840 were behind Brook Farm near Boston, and the writings of John Humphrey Noyes who was later to found the Oneida Community in New York in 1848. Benson met up with others interested in a community that would couple education and industry with its beliefs in social equity - William Adam, David Mack and Samuel L. Hill. In 1841 the four came to see Broughton’s Meadow as a possible community site, and once satisfied, bought the Northampton Silk Company, which would provide the industry with Benson’s guidance, while David Mack, an educator, would establish the schooling. The Bensons moved to their small house as Community members in 1841. The founders formed the formal Association and began soliciting members in 1842. In 1843 the Community, as it was called, had 30 men over 18; 26 women (and an additional 6 women hired from the community to work in the factory), and 46 children under 18. The silk industry, however, didn’t generate enough profits to pay off their debts, and the Association’s financial foundation became ever more precarious. George W. Benson resigned in 1845 as Association president and soon after from the Association entirely in order to buy the silk mill with financial backing of J. P. Williston, Samuel Williston, and Joel Hayden and convert it to a cotton mill, thereby eliminating some of the debt. In 1846 the Bensonville Manufacturing Company bought the brick mill and 100 acres and Benson converted it to cotton. He and his partners hired African-Americans, among them fugitive slaves, providing them an economic stability that in turn fostered an African-American community in Florence. In November, 1846 the Association was ended but the future seemed bright for the manufacture of cotton, and the Bensons in 1847 added on to the house. Accounts suggest that Sojourner Truth lived with the family after 1846 and until she bought her own house in 1850. But in 1848 George was removed by his partners from the cotton mill enterprise for religious reasons and soon was greatly in debt. It is thought that it was in 1848 that the family moved out of the cottage and to the Benson House on Main Street in Florence. They left Massachusetts altogether in 1850. From maps and a bird’s eye view, comments in Sheffeld’s History of Florence, and dendrochronology, it is likely that the Benson Cottage was moved between 1873 and 1879 to this location. By 1884 the house was owned by A. Lyman Williston who with his INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [615 RIVERSIDE DRIVE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2545 wife Sarah, three children and two servants lived further north on River Street and would have rented this house out. Williston was an agent for the cotton mill that was still operating. In 1895 the house was owned by John J. Corbett. Corbett was a contractor-carpenter in Northampton, so the house continued to be a rental during this period. By 1926 the house was owned by Leroy and Emma Handfield. Leroy was a foreman at the Corticelli Silk Company where many of his neighbors also worked. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire Massachusetts, New York, 1873. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Sheffeld, Charles. The History of Florence, Massachusetts, Florence, 1895. Strimer, Steve. A Case for the House at 615 Riverside Drive, Florence, Massachusetts to have been the George W. and Catherine Benson Cottage, ms., David Ruggles Center, Florence, n.d. Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [615 RIVERSIDE DRIVE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 NTH.2545 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 George and Catherine Benson 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 took place. Fugitive slaves were employed in Florence businesses, and after the Fugitive Slave Law they were transported to Canada with Florence citizens as their guides. Here lived George and Catherine Benson who were important in Florence history for their role in creating the Northampton Association of Education and Industry and for their role in the Underground Railroad as active Abolitionists. The house is modest but reflects the principles of the Association members who eschewed personal gain and material goods for social and economic equality among all people.