21 Willow Street
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
Please see attached map.
Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons
Organization: PVPC
Date (month / year): October, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
23C-077 Easthampton NTH.248
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village) Bay State in Florence
Address: 21 Willow Street
Historic Name:
Uses: Present: single-family residence
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: 1874-1884
Source: Atlases of 1874 and 1884
Style/Form: Queen Anne
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles
Roof: slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates): Window openings of front
bay window have been made smaller, ca. 1970.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.107 acres
Setting: This house is in a neighborhood of 19th century
houses with a few lots of 20th century houses as infill. It is a
tree-shaded, narrow street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [21 WILLOW STREET ]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.248
___ 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 the best-preserved houses in the Bay State neighborhood of Florence. It is a two-and-a-half story Queen Anne
style house under a side-gable roof with a transverse front gable. It has a corner porch on turned posts with brackets at the
eaves. The transverse gable section of the house has a three-sided bay window on its north façade and there is an unusual
rounded bay window on the west elevation. The house has retained its visually lively exterior surface with clapboards on the first
floor and wood shingles of varying patterns separating stories and ornamenting gable ends. Between first and second stories
are wavy shingles and in the gable ends are scalloped and sawtooth shingles. Stringcourses separate the materials. There is
one interior chimney in the house and its roof has boxed eaves without returns. There is a Queen Anne style multipaned door
and a similar window at the second story over the porch. Sash in the house is largely 1/1. At the attic level of the transverse
gable bay are 9-light fixed windows with hooded lintels.
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.
From the Form B of 1976, “Between 1854 and 1860 a bridge was constructed across the Mill River near the silk and cotton mills
of Florence. This opened up land on the southern side of the river for residential development. A subdivision plan was prepared
and streets laid out. By 1873 Bridge (now Bliss) and W ater (now Willow) Streets and their connector (now Scanlon Street) had
been laid out, along with 53 lots and nearly 30 residences. The land had been owned by the Nonotuck Silk Company and many
of the dwellings housed workers for this company or one of Florence’s other industries. By the end of the 19th century this had
become a small neighborhood.”
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.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [21 WILLOW STREET ]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
NTH.248