At 141 Mill Street in Springfield is a Stick-style house built in 1875. It was the home of Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, who in 1847 had begun his forty-year tenure as pastor at South Congregational Church. Rev. Buckingham was the brother of William A. Buckingham, Governor of Connecticut during the Civil War, about whom he wrote a biography.
Julius Henry Appleton (1840-1904) of Springfield was president and treasurer of the Riverside Paper Company. According to the Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts, Vol II (1910):
under his management the business grew from a capacity of two tons a day to twenty-three tons a day when he retired, after continuous service of twenty-seven years, on the formation of the American Writing Paper Company in 1899. […] Mr. Appleton was a prominent member of the South Church. In politics he was a Republican. He was a member of the city council in 1869 and 1874, and in the council of Governor Crane in 1901 and 1902. He served on the state board of health seven years. He was a director of the Springfield City Library, and on his retirement from active business, gave generously to the Holyoke City Library and the City Hospital and House of Providence of that city. As a trustee of the Horace Smith estate he was interested in the distribution of aid to institutions and individuals so quietly that its extent was little appreciated by the general public.
Julius H. Appleton’s Queen Anne/Stick Style house, at 313 Maple Street in Springfield, was built around 1886.
David Ames, Jr., a Springfield paper manufacturer, was the son of Col. David Ames, first superintendent of the Springfield Armory. The David Ames Jr. House, at 241 Maple Street, on Ames Hill in Springfield, was built in 1826-7 and was the work of Chauncey Shepard, a prominent local architect and builder. In 1867, Solomon J. Gordon, a New York City lawyer, purchased the property and Shepard was hired to remodel the house he had built forty-one years earlier. Gordon lived in the house until his death in 1891. Today the house is known as Young House and is part of the campus of the MacDuffie School.
Both civilians and military personnel worked at the Springfield Armory, with the military presence increasing during the Civil War and in the following years. Requiring more housing for junior officers, a duplex house was built for the purpose on Armory Square in 1870. The house is unlike other Armory buildings, having been designed in the Second Empire style with a Mansard roof.
The Long Storehouse at Springfield Armory is a 764-foot structure, built in four stages between 1846 and 1863. It was constructed as part of Maj. James Ripley‘s improvement campaign and was originally a storehouse for the wood used in making gun stocks. The building’s third stage provided stables for the Armory’s horses and the entire structure has also been known as a casern, or cavalry barracks. As described by Albert Harleigh Kirkham in King’s Handbook of Springfield
Whilst digging for the foundations of the long storehouse which stands upon the terrace overlooking Pearl and Worthington Streets, the remains of 12 or more soldiers dressed in regimentals were uncovered. During the 1812 war, the United-States Armory being a Government post, the United-States soldiers were often quartered in the barracks and in the dwelling-houses which were on “public ground.” The houses were commonly occupied by Armorers; but, at a short notice that soldiers were coming, they moved out, and the soldiers moved in, and they remained in these comfortable quarters a longer or shorter time, “according to orders.” A portion of the ground now occupied by the storehouse was then used as a graveyard; and soldiers were often buried there, and buried, too, in their uniforms.
We end Springfield Armory Week at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts with three posts today. Our first post is about the building which is today known as Garvey Hall. In 1862, three buildings at the east end of Armory Square at the Springfield Armory were joined together and connected by a new third story. One of the buildings was built around 1817-1819 and the others two, the North and South Shops, in 1824. A tower was built on the newly combined structure to match the tower of the Main Arsenal, located at the opposite end of armory square. The building was used for administration, as well as for storage and occasionally research and light manufacturing. In 1984, it became the administrative offices of Springfield Technical Community College and was renamed in honor of STCC’s founding president, Dr. Edmond P. Garvey Continue reading “Administrative Building, Springfield Armory (1862)”
Another of the early arsenal buildings at Springfield Armory is the East Arsenal, constructed in 1836. Originally a storehouse for arms, the East Arsenal, like the neighboring West and Middle Arsenals, was converted to other uses after the completion of the Main Arsenal in 1851. The former East Arsenal was later enlarged and attached to the Armory’s administration building, thus enclosing the southeast corner of Armory Square. The building is now known as Garvey Hall South and is part of the campus of Springfield Technical Community College.
