Constructed out of stone quarried from nearby Lyme, New Hampshire, the Child Farmhouse is one of a handful of stone houses in East Thetford, Vermont. This house is a particularly fine example of a Cape Cod with Federal detailing, as translated into granite construction. The home features stone lintels over the door and window openings. It was built for Bela Child (1786-1866), likely after the death of his first wife, as a new home for his second. The family operated a massive farm along the Connecticut river.
Burton Hall was constructed in 1845 as a boy’s dormitory for Thetford Academy on a lot given by Orange Heaton (who lived nearby), just north of the original Academy Building. The structure was named Burton Hall in memory of Asa Burton, one of the Academy’s founders. The structure was sold by the Academy by about 1860 for $200, to a J.H. Huntington, who moved it across the street to its present site to replace his house which had burned the year prior. In the late 1930’s, Dwight Goddard, the owner of the home at the time, gifted the building back to the Academy since which time it has been known as Goddard Hall.
Fun Fact: Buildings historically were much more likely to be moved than demolished as the cost of building materials was much more than labor. Today, the opposite is true so many developers and owners prefer to demolish.
This transitional Federal house in Thetford was built around 1795 for an Isaac White. The house was later owned by Orange Heaton (who’s name perfectly fits the color of the leaves in the photo). The design is refined, yet stately with the enclosed, gabled, projecting entrance porch. Louvered panels and an elliptical louvered fan frame the door.
Thetford Academy opened in February 1819, after the constitution of Vermont called for free elementary schools in each town, a school in each county for studies above the elementary level, and one university for the state. These schools prepared students in classical languages, mathematics, “natural philosophy,” and the arts for entrance into colleges and universities, and careers in ministry, law, medicine, and teaching. By the time Thetford Academy was founded, girls were being admitted to some academies (usually in the summer term) for studies which were advanced beyond the common schools, but which were not intended to prepare for college. Thetford Academy admitted both boys and girls from its founding. The school thrived beginning on it’s first day of classes, growing almost annually with new buildings constructed to house new classrooms and dormitories.
The first academic building, erected in 1818 by Fitch, was crowned by a bell tower and featured separate entries for boys and girls. It was destroyed by fire on November 14, 1942. Fueled by high winds, the fire also destroyed the girls’ dormitory and the library. Undeterred, the school rebuilt nearby beginning with this Colonial Revival building, known as the White Building. Later buildings were added to create the campus we see today.
This unique double-house was constructed in 1817 for Capt. William Harris Latham and Dr. Thomas Kendrick, brothers-in-law, merchants and partners in a store which stood until it was destroyed by fire about 1845. Latham served as a Captain in the War of 1812, and later was an important benefactor of the nearby Thetford Academy, donating money and building materials for the original construction. Wallpaper from this house depicting the City of Leon was donated by a previous owner, Mrs. Charles Vaughan, to the Currier Gallery in Manchester, NH. The homes are an excellent example of the Federal style with a vertical board at the center of the main house facade demarcating the property line. Blind fan transoms and multi-light double-hung windows add a lot of charm to the historic homes.
Attempts were made to organize the Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont as early as 1771, making this congregation among the five earliest in the state. As was typical of the day, the meetinghouse was intended to serve both public and religious functions, before the separation of church and state. Following the customary dispute over the location of the meetinghouse in town, the structure was erected on the Town Common, marking the beginning of the village of Thetford Hill. Construction began on the meetinghouse in 1785, being completed within a couple years. Sometime between 1807 and 1812, the Congregational Church ceased to be supported by taxes as the separation of church and state resulted in the sale of the meetinghouse and its subsequent move in 1830, from the town-owned common to its present site just north of it. In 1830, the pavilion, tower, and pilasters were added to give the church a Greek Revival flair. The church is reportedly the oldest meetinghouse in the state still in continuous service.
After the completion of the Waban Station, providing opportunity for residential and commercial development due to transit to and from Boston, two men sought to develop the area into attractive housing lots. In 1886, Dr. Morrill Wyman, founder of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, sold the old Wyman Farmhouse (still extant) and 150 acres of farmland to real estate speculators. The speculators, Charles Page and Frederick Henshaw, proceeded to subdivide the land into 87 house lots, creating this suburban neighborhood in Waban we know today. Frederick Henshaw sought to build his own home adjacent to the old farmhouse and hired H. Langford Warren (who then owned the farmhouse next door), esteemed architect and then Dean of the Harvard School of Architecture to complete designs. The Queen Anne mansion with its bold octagonal bay commands the corner lot and is a well-preserved significant home in the neighborhood.
This stunning High School building in Agawam was built in 1921 as the town’s first high school. William Pynchon purchased land on both sides of the Connecticut River from the local Pocomtuc Indians known as Agawam, which included present-day Springfield, Chicopee, Longmeadow, and West Springfield, Massachusetts. The purchase price for the Agawam portion was 10 coats, 10 hoes, 10 hatchets, 10 knives, and 10 fathoms of wampum. Agawam and West Springfield split in 1800, with Agawam incorporating as a town on in 1855. The town stayed fairly rural until the 20th century with the proliferation of the personal automobile and suburbanization from the industrial and urban center of Springfield. This increase required a new, modern high school to be constructed in town. The building was converted to a middle school in 1972.
In most Massachusetts cities and towns, habitual truants (children who stayed away from school) and juvenile delinquents had normally been committed to local almshouses and prisons. By 1873, state law updated policies to “humanize” the children and guide them on a better path. Habitual truants (age seven to fourteen), habitual absentees (age seven to sixteen), and habitual school offenders could be committed to a county truant school for a term of up to two years. At least one of these types of schools were found in each of Massachusetts’ counties, which seemed to get more crowded every passing decade. In the early 20th century, the outlook on shaping children’s growth changed and to reflect this, the truancy schools were renamed “Training Schools”.
The former Hampden County Truancy School in Springfield was outgrown and outdated. The county petitioned the state for a new school on open land, and a site was acquired in nearby Agawam. The choice of location was intended to provide a rural farm environment and to avoid the temptations of the city. The isolated location, surrounded by farmland, ensured that students could not easily walk away from the school to rejoin their friends and families. Despite the remote location, the Hampden County Commissioners report of 1918 noted that 36 boys still ran away from the training school a total of 69 times and that 5 were still at large at the end of the year.
Starting in the 1940s, the County Training Schools were seen as a waste of taxpayer money and many staff at these institutions were under-educated themselves to deal with emotional or social issues that some of the children exhibited. Many county schools were closed, with the Hampden County Training School closing in 1972.
The school building and grounds sat vacant for over a decade until funding was released to renovate the building for use as a police academy training center in 1984. The exterior of the building remained relatively unchanged during this time, and many of the original classroom spaces were left as found. The building served in this capacity for over twenty years until it was closed in 2005. In 2017, Soldier On, a private nonprofit organization that provides housing and supportive services for military veterans, rehabilitated the former school and now provides 51 permanent housing units here. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (a report where much of this information came from) and was rehabilitated using Federal Tax Credits.
The Classical Revival-style Hampden County Training School was designed by the prolific Holyoke-based architect George Perkins Bissell Alderman. Alderman was well known throughout western Massachusetts and Connecticut for his monumental, classically derived designs for residences, schools, commercial blocks, civic buildings, and churches.
One of the most photographed buildings in North End is arguably this tenement block, built in 1895 at the corner of Prince and Salem Streets. As the North End continued to redevelop into a diverse immigrant community, tenement houses were constructed by those with the means, providing housing at low cost to those who arrived to Boston in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Max and Etta “Ethel” Lebowich, Russian Jews, immigrated to Boston, settling in the Jewish quarter of the North End and opened up a dry goods store at the corner. The business did well, and the couple redeveloped their land and hired Swedish-born architect Charles A. Halstrom, to design the prominent apartment house. The Renaissance Revival building features massive pressed metal oriels and brick and stone construction. I am unsure if the oriels are truly copper, which would have been fairly expensive for a tenement building, or if they are pressed tin. Any insight would be much appreciated.
Tucked away off Main Street in North Adams you’ll find this charming little church. The Universalists were organized in North Adams in 1842, restoring an existing church near the Hoosic River. The congregation chose a site for a new church in 1852, and erected a white wooden chapel. It is unclear if the church was outgrown or a fire destroyed it, but the Unitarian society voted to build this church for a cost of approximately $25,000 in 1892. Architect Henry Neill Wilson of Pittsfield drew the plans, and the firm of Porter and Harnam of North Adams constructed the church. Due to the declining population in town in the mid-20th century, the church struggled and was sold to a private owner. The building began to decay by the 1970s and was later sold in 1996 to Barbara and Eric Rudd to house artist Eric Rudd’s installation entitled “A Chapel for Humanity”. The building is currently used as the Berkshire Art Museum Annex.
Located on Main Street in North Adams, you’ll find this monstrous commercial block looking like it belongs in New York, not in Western MA. North Adams in the early 20th century was booming as an industrial center with a rapidly growing population. Due to this, business owners had the capital and clientele needed to erect large commercial buildings. A man named Jencks Kimbell owned a couple large parcels of land on Main Street and ran a livery stable there until his death in 1858. The business was ran by his sons until their death and the property was willed to their widows Clara and Lydia who saw the potential for the site to make them money. In 1902, the two widows erected this magnificent block on Main Street, with a stone facade. Built on top of a quicksand pit, it was the first building in North Adams to be built on steel pilings. I could find no information on the architect, but it is Eclectic to say the least! It has Romaneque arches, monumental pilasters with Corinthian capitals, and a Swan’s neck broken pediment at the parapet.
This stunning Stick style house in North Adams was built for Charles Cutting (1850-1940), founder of the C. H. Cutting Company, a prosperous clothing company in town. The company started as a partnership between 20-year old Cutting and a Mr. Silsby, who retired just a year after co-founding the company. Cutting used his business connections to help establish other local clothing companies including the Bay State Clothing Company in Adams, the Orange Clothing Company in Orange, MA, and the Athol Clothing Company in (you guessed it) Athol. With his wealth, he had this amazing Victorian home built on East Main Street where he lived until his death in 1940.
Located on Trinity Park in Wesleyan Grove (aka the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association), this 1878 church served the year round Methodist community in Oak Bluffs. The Trinity Methodist Church is a towered, Victorian Gothic structure of some distinction. Edward M. Hyde, a Methodist minister who had trained in architecture and art, designed it. The property that the church and Parish House sit on belongs to the Association, but the buildings are maintained by the congregation. Interestingly, should the congregation disband, the buildings would return to the Association.
This charming little cottage in Oak Bluffs was built in 1876 for Charles N. Jones, a resident of Medford, MA who had a home built there in 1872. His family’s summer cottage on Martha’s Vineyard was designed by the Ripley Brothers, Alonzo and Walter, carpenters who lived in town and designed and built many of the charming little summer homes there. The home features a wrap-around porch, a covered balcony at the second floor, and pierced board balustrade and cornerboards. Oh, and the paint scheme is perfect!
