240 Spring 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): March, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
16C-016-001 Easthampton NTH.2549
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence
Address: 240 Spring Street
Historic Name: Emile and Amy Cave House
Uses: Present: single-family house
Original: single-family house
Date of Construction: ca. 1870
Source: Howes Brothers Photograph of 1886
Style/Form: gable and wing form
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: granite
Wall/Trim: clapboard
Roof: metal
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: barn, garage
Major Alterations (with dates):
Windows replaced ca. 2000
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 2.0 acres
Setting: This house is set on a rise in the landscape
behind a stone embankment on a busy street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [240 SPRING STREET]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.2549
___ 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 one-and-a-half story, south-facing house that is gable and wing in form. The gable section has a front-gable roof and is
one bay wide and two bays deep. The west wing is one-and-a-half stories in height and two bays long. The entry in the gable
section of the house has a lattice-sided portico with a small hipped roof. The metal roof of the house has relatively wide eaves
overhang and is thinly boxed. Trim on the house is simple with flat stock window and door surrounds. Windows are
replacement 6/1. Although this house is relatively simple in plan and elevation it is a good example of the vernacular
architecture of rural 19th century Florence and it retains its barn as well as garage.
A Howes Brothers photograph of this house indicates that ca. 1886 there was an off-center door on the east or street side of the
house.
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.
Although Spring Street appears on Northampton maps as early as 1831, it was so sparsely populated that subsequent atlases
did not include the area through 1895, and the Sanborn Insurance Maps do not include the street, due to its rural nature, thro ugh
1930. The earliest documentation of the house is a Howes Brothers photograph taken in 1886 and then there is a gap in
ownership records until 1912 when Mary Grant sold the property to Ulderich Dubois who lived nearby on Spring Street. Mary
and Robert Grant did not live on the property, however, so must have used the property for a rental. Between 1912 and 1922
there is a gap in the ownership but by 1922 the property’s owners according to the street directory of that year were Emile and
Amy Cave. At that time the address of the house was 198 Spring Street and it retained this address through 1983. Emile was
the child of French immigrants and the Caves had come to Northampton between 1920 and 1922, as the federal census of 1920
places them in Vermont where Amy had been born. Emile was working in Vermont as a checker on the railroad and then in
Northampton worked as an automobile mechanic in 1930. The Caves had three children Lawrence, Emile, and Morris. The
Cave family remained in the house through 1960 although Emile had died by 1950 and Amy remained to work the land. Amy
had deeded the property to Lawrence and Morris before 1960, however.
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.
U.S. Federal Censuses 1900-1930.
Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884.
Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860.