Henry Alexander, Jr. House (1811)

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The Alexander House in Springfield was originally built at the corner of Elliott and State Streets in 1811 for James Byers. The design of the house has been attributed to Asher Benjamin and it was built by Simon Sanborn, Springfield’s master builder of the first half of the nineteenth century, who designed many of the city’s old mansions. In 1820, Byers sold the house to Colonel Israel E. Trask, who also owned a plantation in Mississippi. The artist, Chester Harding, briefly lived in the house from 1830 to 1832, as did the railroad superintendent General James Barnes, in 1839. After Trask’s death, in 1835, his family occupied the house until 1862, when it was sold to Henry Alexander, Jr. In that year, Alexander became mayor of Springfield and he resided in the house until his death in 1878. In 1874, he moved the house to a new location nearby on State Street. The house was acquired by the SPNEA (Historic New England) in 1939, and moved again in 2004 to Elliott Street to make way for the construction of a new federal courthouse. The house will be sold, with perpetual preservation restrictions to protect its architectural features.

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