Greek Revival

Dwight Manufacturing Company Complex // 1841+

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The Dwight Manufacturing Company is named for Edmund Dwight (1780-1849) of Boston, an industrialist who envisioned an industrial town on the Chicopee River. Dwight, having a country home in Chicopee, had begun a venture with his brother, Jonathan, at Chicopee Falls creating the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, to produce cotton cloth. Due to the company’s immediate success, the Dwights along with other investors formed the Springfield Canal Company in 1831, with the goal to create the “new Lowell”, an industrial community in what is now Chicopee Center. In 1856, the Dwight Mills purchased some earlier mill complexes, creating the Dwight Manufacturing Company and consolidating all their cotton cloth manufacturing into one organization. In addition to the mills, the Company also built employee housing
along Depot and Dwight Streets, a stone’s throw from the mills. The creation of employee housing allowed the Company to attract new employees in particular women and children, nearly all immigrants, who could be housed together. My favorite part of the complex is the entrance gate, built in 1894, connecting the Office and Cloth Building. It is amazing to think of all of the people who passed through this portal, working long hours for a better life. Overtime as production methods changed and technology evolved, nearly all the original mills would be replaced or retrofitted. Despite the changes, the Company could not remain profitable and shut down production in 1927 and ultimately selling the land and equipment in 1930. Some smaller manufacturing has since occupied some of these buildings, but they remain largely (if not entirely) vacant, awaiting a new life.

Edward Bellamy House // c.1840

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The Edward Bellamy House is the only National Historic Landmark in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Its landmark designation was in honor of journalist and Utopian writer Edward Bellamy (1850–1898), whose home it was for most of his life. The house is located on Church Street in Chicopee Falls, an industrial village in town, which developed around mills and the Chicopee River. Built in for Harmon Rowley, a town selectman and local merchant around 1840, the house would later be purchased in 1852 by Rufus King Bellamy, a Baptist minister, moved the family into this house after its construction. The house, where Edward Bellamy spent much of his childhood is a well-preserved example of a late-Greek Revival residence, and today serves as a museum with rented offices that explores Bellamy’s ideas on social reform, economic justice, and the future of society. From this house, Edward Bellamy wrote  Looking Backward, a utopian novel that was instantly popular. Within a year it had sold 200,000 copies, and by the end of the 19th century had sold more copies than any other book published in America up to that time except for Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. His visionary work, which proposed a world free of poverty and class divisions, sparked a nationwide movement and influenced early American socialism. Edward Bellamy died of tuberculosis at his home, ten years after the publication of his most famous book. He was 48 years old. Today, the house stands as a reminder of Bellamy’s lasting legacy and his role in shaping conversations about social progress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cornwall Congregational Church // 1842

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The Cornwall Congregational Church in Cornwall, Connecticut, was erected at 8 Bolton Hill Road in 1842, replacing the colonial-era meetinghouse which had first stood on Old Meetinghouse Hill at Cornwall Center. When members of the church split into two separate congregations due to religious differences, the original congregation moved to South Cornwall in 1790. Another Congregational church was built in North Cornwall for the other group. This wonderful Greek Revival church reflects the enormous popularity the style in the first half of the 19th century. The structure rests on a stone block foundation and is sheathed with clapboard siding. The building incorporates a central entry of paired doors with a Greek Revival surround, flanked by 20/20 windows. The street elevation of the building is dominated by a monumental portico with pedimented gable, broad frieze and fluted Doric columns. The showstopper is the two-stage square belfry, each stage Doric columns and pilasters. The church is active today as the United Church of Christ and is often utilized for town events.

William H. Harrison House // c.1850

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In about 1850, William Hopkins Harrison (1813-1878) purchased farmland from the Pierce Family of Cornwall, Connecticut, and built this stately Greek Revival style home upon it. The house was built around the same time as its neighbor, the Dwight W. Pierce House (last post), also an example of the Greek Revival style, but in a very different finish. The seven-bay residence has its main block at the end with a shallow hip roof and overhanging eaves, showcasing the emergence of the Italianate style form to come into popularity. The solidly Classical pilaster and entablature surround at the entry firmly places the house in the Greek Revival style.

Dwight W. Pierce House // c.1850

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On land he acquired from family, Dwight Wellington Pierce (1816-1901) erected this large, temple-front Greek Revival estate just outside Cornwall Village in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Mr. Pierce farmed this land and built barns across the street from his residence on Popple Swamp Road, where he kept his livestock. The Pierce house is unique in Cornwall as a temple-front Greek Revival style house and features a two-story portico with four Doric columns, the center two are rounded and fluted with the ends square. The elongated house is seven bays wide and must have been quite the sight when it was built in the mid-19th century.

Cornwall Hollow Baptist Church // 1844

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During the nineteenth century several small, rural settlements dotted the landscape of Cornwall, Connecticut. The hamlet of Cornwall Hollow this building, the Baptist Church, and contained a tannery, store, gristmill, sawmill and cemetery. The church at Cornwall Hollow was erected following dissolution of the Baptist congregation at nearby Cream Hill in 1843. A new church constitution was adopted in 1844 and this new meetinghouse erected the following year. At its height the congregation included 100 members. The Greek Revival style church once had a belfry, but it was removed sometime in the 20th century, likely due to repair costs. The interior included a curved ceiling, and windows line the side elevations. The congregation saw dwindling numbers and closed in the early 20th century. It is now privately owned, but lovingly preserved.

Foster-Beck House // c.1845

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This attractive Greek Revival style residence with later porch was likely built in the 1840s and is one of the finest homes in the village of West Cornwall, Connecticut. The house was likely built for Stephen Foster (c.1816-1863), a merchant and railroad contractor who had constructed a portion of the Housatonic Line railroad near West Cornwall, further opening the village up to trade. Stephen and his wife, Helen, lived here for some time until around 1860 when they relocated to a larger, Italianate style mansion nearby. In 1867, this property was purchased by George Beck, a German immigrant and partner of the Vollmiller Shear Shop, who manufactured metal shears and scissors in West Cornwall. It is likely that Beck was owner of the house at the time the wrap-around porch with scroll-sawn columns.

Myron Norton House // 1840

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The Myron Norton House, built in 1840, is located in the central village in Goshen, Connecticut. Built of stone, the house is unique as the only example of a stone house in the village, and the only Greek Revival house that departs from the usual gable-roofed form, having a square plan and hipped roof with monitor. The home was built for Myron Norton (1788-1853) and his wife, Caroline (Marsh) Norton, who outlived her husband by 23 years, living here until her death in 1876. Myron Norton made his fortune patenting and selling pineapple cheese molds, where he pressed the curds from local cows in wooden pineapple-shaped molds to give them the desired shape. It is the house that cheese built!

Lavalette Perrin House // c.1844

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The perfect whimsical blending of the Classical Greek Revival and the intricate details of the Carpenter Gothic styles can be found under one roof in Goshen, Connecticut; this is the Lavalette Perrin House. Built c.1844 for Lavalette Perrin (1816-1889), who graduated from Yale in 1840, and became licensed to preach in 1843. Reverend Perrin was in his late 20s when he accepted the call to become the pastor of Goshen’s Congregational Church in 1843. Upon arriving to town, he had this residence built soon after, blending two differing styles in a blissful composition. Perrin remained in Goshen until he was called to New Britain in 1858, where he remained until his death. Unique architectural features of the home include the flushboard siding, pilaster-and-lintel framed doors and windows (very rare in this form), and wave-like bargeboards. What a special home!

Goshen Congregational Church // 1832

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The town of Goshen, located in Litchfield County, is located in the northwestern part of Connecticut was first settled by European colonizers in 1738, with the town incorporating a year later. The community was named after the Land of Goshen, a part of ancient Egypt in the Bible. Goshen primarily grew as rural and agricultural in character, with limited industry and commercialization compared to other nearby towns. The town center village was home to the Congregational Church as far back as 1750. In 1832, the present Congregational Church was built from plans by Benjamin E. Palmer, a carpenter-builder who also built the Windham County Courthouse in Brooklyn, Connecticut. The church blends both Federal and Greek Revival styles, and Palmer likely took inspiration from Asher Benjamin’s design guidebooks. The church retains much of its original character even with the altered steeple, porte-cochere, and conversion of three-door facade to a single-entrance in 1894.