Category: Longmeadow

Thomas Bliss II House (1717)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Longmeadow, Taverns

Bliss House

The Thomas Bliss II House in Longmeadow was built around 1717. In 1758, the house was converted into a tavern by Nathaniel Ely and served in that capacity until 1833. The house originally stood across Longmeadow Green from its current location. It was moved in 1855 to make way for the construction of Nathaniel Ely’s new mansion. Later in the nineteenth century, the house was lived in by Dr. Lester Noble, a dentist. He had a very interesting career, playing an important role in the famous Parkman Murder Trial. As described in “Our county and its people”: A history of Hampden County, Vol. I (1902), edited by Alfred Minott Copeland: Continue reading “Thomas Bliss II House (1717)”

Richard Salter Storrs House (1786)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Longmeadow

Storrs House 02

Richard Salter Storrs was the second pastor of Longmeadow’s First Congregational Church. Storrs, whose second wife, Sarah Williams, was the granddaughter of the congregation’s first pastor, Rev. Stephen Williams (one of the Deerfield captives of 1704), built his house in Longmeadow in 1786. The house remained in the Storrs family for many years and in the 1860s, Rev. Storrs granddaughter, Lucy Storrs Barber, ran a private girls’ school in the house. His grandson was Richard Salter Storrs III, minister at the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, New York. In 1907, this Rev. Storrs’ sister, Sarah Williams Storrs, left the family property in Longmeadow for use as a library (a building behind the house was used from 1916). In 1930, the Storrs House was moved to an adjacent site just to the south when a new library building was constructed (completed in 1932). At this time, the home’s original back kitchen ell was removed and not replaced. The Library continues to own the house, but in 1911, the Longmeadow Historical Society (founded in 1899) purchased the home‘s contents and offers tours of the building’s restored interiors.

Continue reading “Richard Salter Storrs House (1786)”

Stebbins-Hammatt House (1795)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Federal, Houses, Longmeadow

Stebbins-Hammett House

The Stebbins-Hammett House began as a brick house, painted red, built in 1795 for Benjamin Stebbins, in the year following his marriage to Lucy Colton. In the twentieth century, the house was owned by the Hammatt family (Julia B. Hammatt was a graduate of Wellesley in 1925). The house was eventually completely rebuilt in wood, with the exception of the two original brick front rooms on the first floor.

Brewer-Young House (1884)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Longmeadow

Brewer-Young House

The Brewer-Young House in Longmeadow is a Colonial Revival mansion built in 1884 as a residence for Rev. Samuel Wolcott. The house was next occupied, in 1889, by State Senator George Brewer, who covered the exterior of the house with brown shingles. It was sold, in 1922, to Mary Ida Young, wife of Wilbur Fenelon Young, the inventor of the liniment Absorbine. Young had the brown shingles removed.

Captain Simon Colton House (1734)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Longmeadow

Old Red House on the Green

The Captain Simon Colton House is a classic saltbox house built on Longmeadow Green in 1734. The house has an ell extending to the south which was built to meet a stipulation of Capt. Colton’s second wife that she would marry him only if he made her a seperate bedroom. The house operated as a tavern around the time of the Revolutionary War. It was owned for a time by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, but was later sold with the requirement that the facade remain unchanged and that the house, known as the “Old Red House on the Green,” always be painted red. The house is featured on the Town Seal of Longmeadow.

Cordis House (1832)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Longmeadow

Cordis House

The Cordis House in Longmeadow is a late Federal-style house with Greek Revival elements, built at 715 Longmeadow Street in 1832. It was originally constructed as a parsonage, occupied first by Rev. Jonathan B. Condit, who is described in Proceedings at the Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Town of Longmeadow (1883), as “youthful, singularly winning, ornate, magnetic—for personal attractions most admired of all the occupants of our pastorate, before or since.” The house was then occupied by Condit’s successor, Rev. Hubbard Beebe. In 1845, the house was bought by Thomas Cordis, a Boston merchant, and has ever since been occupied by the Cordis family. The brick house’s elaborate porch ironwork was added in the late nineteenth century.