Holyoke Die Cut Card Company (1873)

by Dan//Holyoke, Industrial, Renaissance Revival

At 439 Dwight Street in Holyoke a factory was constructed in 1873 by George W. Prentiss on land he acquired in 1871 for his Prentiss Wire Mills. His company produced piano, broom and industrial wire and produced the first wire stitcher for book binding in the United Stats in 1875. The building today looks different from that depicted in early illustrations. The current structure may have been significantly altered (with the removal of the original roof) or completely rebuilt (perhaps around 1900, which is the date given the building in the Holyoke On-Line Property Viewer). The factory was later home to the Holyoke Die Cut Card Company. Now vacant, the building, which is along Holyoke’s Canal Walk, may be restored in the future.

Buschmann’s Block (1873)

by Dan//Commercial, Second Empire, Westfield

John C. Buschmann emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1852 and moved from Feeding Hills to Westfield in 1857. He established a wholesale tobacco business in 1860 and soon built the Railroad House Hotel (later replaced by the Bismarck Hotel) in Depot Square in Westfield. In 1873, he built Buschmann’s Block at 36 Union Avenue in Dept Square. He used the building as a warehouse and offices for his tobacco and other businesses, which included coal, wood and ice. Buschmann’s Block later became a whip manufacturing plant, a furniture store and then a flower shop. In 1995, the building became home to Pilgrim Candle, which expanded to include the Bismarck Hotel building next door in 2001.

State Normal Training School (1899)

by Dan//Romanesque Revival, Schools, Westfield

At 27 Washington Street in Westfield is a building constructed in 1899-1900 as the State Normal Training School, where student teachers gained experience from 1900 to 1956. Designed by the architectural firm of Gardner, Pyne & Gardner of Springfield, the building is one of only two nineteenth-century structures which survive from the State Normal School at Westfield, later called Westfield State Teachers College, which is today Westfield State University. This school was first established by Horace Mann in 1838 in Barre and became the first coeducational public training school in the nation. The school closed in 1841, but reopened in Westfield in 1844. In 1956, the training school building became a regular elementary school called the Washington Street School. It later was used by the Westfield District Court until 2002. The vacant building was reacquired by Westfield State University in 2006 and then sold to a developer in 2011 to become market-rate student housing.

Hotel Nonotuck (1915)

by Dan//Holyoke, Hotels, Renaissance Revival

The Hotel Nonotuck opened in Holyoke in 1915 and featured such amenities as a fine restaurant and the rooftop Indian Garden, advertized as a “Glass Enclosed Restaurant” that “Affords Comfort from Wind and Chill” and provides a “Wonderful View of the Picturesque Connecticut” with “Perfect Cuisine” and “Dancing.” The building became a Roger Smith Hotel in the 1940s and from the ate-1960s was known as the Holyoke House. Continue on to see some more pictures of this historic building: Continue reading “Hotel Nonotuck (1915)”

Chapin Mansion (1880)

by Dan//Holyoke, Houses, Queen Anne

The house at 181 Elm Street in Holyoke was built around 1880. From 1882 to 1884, it was the residence of Clemens Herschel, who worked as a hydraulic engineer at the Holyoke Water Power Company from 1879 to 1889. During that time, Herschel designed a new testing flume for hydraulic turbines, waterwheels, pumps, and meters. He also invented the Venturi meter, used to measure the flow of water, which he first tested in 1886. By that same year, the house had become the residence of Edward Whitman Chapin, a lawyer who began practicing law in Holyoke in 1865 and was appointed an associate justice of the Holyoke district court in 1877. He later served twenty years as presiding justice of the court. He was a member of “The Club,” which focused on literary endeavors and was organized at his home on On November 15, 1890. Judge Chapin married Mary Beebe in May 1866 and had four children. He died in 1924 and the house was passed on to his two unmarried daughters, Clara M. and Alice M. Chapin. Today, the Edward W. Chapin House is called Chapin Mansion and is operated by the Valley Opportunity Council as a residence for homeless veterans.

Col. Lewis Fowler House (1825)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Westfield

The house at 35 West Silver Street in Westfield originally stood across the street. It was built, reputedly using ballast bricks from a Dutch ship, c.1825 by Colonel Lewis Fowler on the site of his family’s earlier homestead. The Fowler House was moved to its current site in 1875 by Cutler Laflin to make way for his new mansion. As related in The Westfield Jubilee (1870):

Another prominent citizen was Col. Lewis Fowler, son of Justus Fowler, brother of Alvin Fowler. He built the red brick house on the corner of Silver and South Maple streets, on the site of the old family mansion. He was never married. He was a farmer, a man of reading and information, a useful and faithful officer of the town, a representative, and died in the year 1849 at the age of fifty-one.

Continue reading “Col. Lewis Fowler House (1825)”

Second Baptist Church, Holyoke (1885)

by Dan//Churches, Holyoke, Romanesque Revival

The Second Baptist Church of Holyoke was organized in 1849 and the new society’s first place of worship was Gallaudet and Terry’s Hall, at the corner of High and Lyman streets. They soon moved to Chapin Hall, where services were held until 1855, when the vestry of their new brick church was built on Main Street. The church was completed in 1859, but was destroyed in a fire in 1863. The church was rebuilt and rededicated in 1865. Their next church, at the corner of Appleton and Walnut streets, was built in 1885. In 1986, the church moved across the Connecticut River to become the Second Baptist Church of South Hadley. Their former church building in Holyoke is now the Iglesia de Dios Incomparable. UPDATE: The church was ordered temporarily closed by the city building inspector in 2018 after a partial collapse of the steeple.