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25 Tyler Court 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: PVPC Date (month / year): January, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31B-298-001 Easthampton NTH.2463 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 25 Tyler Court Historic Name: Fayette and Mildred Congdon House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1932 Source: Northampton Street Directories Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: garage Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.212 acres Setting: This house is on a dead-end street and faces south from a ridge giving it views into the distance. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [25 TYLER COURT] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2463 _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 one of four Colonial Revival style houses on Tyler Court, three of which are very similar: 3, 19 and 25 Tyler Court. The fourth, 29 Tyler Court, is a transitional house stylistically from Queen Anne to Colonial Revival. #25 is a two-and-a-half story house under a side-gable roof. It is three bays wide while its similar neighbors are both five bays wide but its floor plan is much the same. The house has an end wall chimney on the east elevation, which also has a one-story, glass-enclosed porch with a shed roof. Like its neighbor at #19, this house has an enclosed entry portico, though smaller and with a front-gabled roof and corner pilasters. Suggesting its 20th century construction date is the use of triple composition windows for the two first floor bays. Windows in the second story have 8/8 sash. To add to the Colonial Revival designation is a pair of quarter round windows on the east gable end at each side of the exterior chimney. 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. Tyler Court was laid out as a new street in 1929 on land that had formerly belonged to Rev. Henry M.Tyler, professor of Greek and Literature at Smith College. Tyler lived at what was then 44 Prospect Street and had sold his property including the house in 1928 to Eugene J. McCarthy. After selling this property Henry Tyler moved to a rental and at the age of 86 in 1930 was president of the Northampton Street Railway Company for just one year as he died in 1931. He had always been active in academic, religious and commercial institutions. He was a deacon and on the Board of Directors of the Edwards Church in the 1890s, was president of the YMCA for a number of years, retired from Smith by 1925 when he became president of the Northampton Institute for Savings. Eugene McCarthy was a very active developer speculating in land in many of the Connecticut River Valley towns: Easthampton, Northampton, Amherst, Hatfield and more. A Northampton resident at 117 South Street with his wife Anna, he was responsible for much of the land development on Crescent Street, in both Florence and Leeds as well. After Tyler’s house was taken down, the lots sold within a few years. Fayette and Mildred Congdon bought this lot in 1931. The Congdons had previously owned a house on New South Street, and Fayette Congdon, who was superintendent of schools in Northampton for 31 years, had his offices on Main Street. Fayette Congdon was known as an exceedingly fine manager of the faculty and students in the school system and a very effective School Board member. During the Depression the City needed additional High School space due in part to a fire in the school but the townspeople rejected an investment in building given the economy, so Congdon initiated the Junior High School program to Northampton and solved a portion of the overcrowding. He also introduced a “Platoon System” with students coming to school in two shifts and got Northampton through its crisis. Congdon was given credit for raising and maintaining high educational standards in Northampton and was called to confer with other communities. Fayette Congdon was interested in the history of the old meetinghouses of New England and often gave talks on them in Northampton and surrounding towns. Fayette Congdon was the first president of the Community Chest, was one of the originall incorporators of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, was on the Northampton Board of Assessors and a First Church member. It was reported that he never asked for a raise but became the highest paid City official with an annual salary of $5,000. After his death in 1936, Mrs. Congdon continued to live in the house through 1960. The development of Tyler Court and its residents is representative of much of the residential composition of the center of Northampton. From large estates on Prospect Street at the end of the 19th century the center was gradually adding new streets with smaller lots in the first decades of the 19th century, although residents remained largely a mix of company owners, educators, and retired or independently wealthy individuals. The concentration of housing on smaller lots was an acceptable change after World War I when the population increased and the concept of the garden suburb grew more common. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [25 TYLER COURT] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2463 BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES U.S. Federal Censuses, 1890-1930. Northampton Directories 1890-1960. Hampshire Gazette July 23, 27 and 29, 1936; Nov. 4, 1931. Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, Plan Book 13, page 71A. Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address State Archives Facility 220 Morrissey Boulevard Northampton 25 Tyler Court Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.2463 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. This property would contribute to a potential historic district that would encompass the residential/institutional side streets laid out from Elm Street in Northampton Center between Main Street on the east and the west boundary of Childs Park on the west. This potential historic district is significant according to criteria A and C and would have local significance. These residential streets are significant according to criterion A for their reflection of the development of Northampton from the mid-19th century as a relatively affluent community that supported several private schools for young women, which prepared them after 1875 for attendance at Smith College, and the Clarke School where deaf students were given an education that thoroughly prepared them for the hearing world. The residences in this area made a shift from gentlemen’s estates to accommodation of the growing middle class in Northampton during the 19th century with businessmen, scholars, teachers, doctors, and retired farmers. According to criterion C this district would be significant for the range of historical styles that it includes. Gothic Revival, Italianate, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles are all well-represented within a landscape of individual large lots, and streetscapes that were laid out and developed at one time.