Rust’s Block is a building at 207-211 Main Street in Northampton. It was built in 1867-1868 by Theodore Rust, whose grocery store, Rust & Sons, was located in the building, along with many other businesses over the years. Until about 1900, there was a public hall upstairs called Rust’s Hall. Rust bought the land, which had originally been part of the Judge Joseph Lyman estate, in 1867. Rust’s Block and Cracker Barrel Alley are located where the Lyman Mansion one stood.
The house at 28 Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton was built in 1885-1886 by C.H. Jones of Springfield for E.F. Crooks. C.H. Jones was a painter, artist and architect who designed other buildings in Northampton, including the Lilly Library in Florence. Edgar F. Crooks was the superintendent of the factory in Northampton of Belding Brothers & Co., silk manufacturers.
The house at 109 Bridge Street in Northampton is a fine example of an Italianate-style residence. It resembles an earlier Italianate house, designed by William F. Pratt and built in 1856 on nearby Pomeroy Terrace [the William Lawrence House, which burned down in 1982], but the Bridge Street house dates to much later, around 1875.
At 51 Main Street in Northampton is an 1851 sandstone Italianate building designed by William Fenno Pratt. The building is home to Smith Charities, an organization which aids indigent children and women. As explained in the American Journal of Education, Vol. 27, No. 7, (July 1877):
This large and comprehensive system or charities was founded by Oliver Smith, Esq., of Hatfield, who died Dec. 22, 1845. His estate was valued, at the time of his death, at $370,000. In his will, he directed that a board of trustees should be constituted in the following manner: The towns of Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, and Williamsburg, in Hampshire County, and Deerfield, Greenfield, and Whately, in Franklin County, shall choose at each annual meeting a person who shall be called an elector. The electors were to choose three persons who should constitute a board of trustees, who were to have the control and management of all the funds.
Some of Smith’s heirs contested his will, resulting in a trial in July 1847. As the above article relates, “Two days were occupied in the trial, Rufus Choate arguing the case for the heirs-at-law, and Daniel Webster for the will. The courthouse was crowded to overflowing, and ladders were put up to the windows, so eager were the people to see and hear the great orators.” As described in Early Northampton (1914):
The heirs—among them Austin Smith (a nephew of Oliver Smith and a brother of Sophia Smith, founder of Smith College)—wished to break the will, claiming that while the law required three competent witnesses to such a document, only two of the witnesses of the Oliver Smith will were in fit condition to sign it. Oliver Smith, another of the heirs, also a nephew of Oliver Smith, Sr., and executor of the will, determined, against his own interests, to uphold it, and engaged Daniel Webster, with Judge Forbes as junior counsel. Charles Delano was also retained—the latter two being Northampton lawyers. Webster, by his remarkable personality and brilliancy, and by his judicious handling of the witnesses, gained the case, in spite of the utmost efforts of his able antagonist, Mr. Choate.
In 1847, Marvin Marcy French (1820-1896) was one of the first people to acquire a plot of land on the newly opened Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton. The original section of his house, 44 Pomeroy Terrace, was built in 1848. The house is architecturally notable for the extensive additions made to the structure for Mr. French in 1870 by architect William F. Pratt, who may or may not have designed the earlier part of the house. In an 1883-4 Directory, M.M. French is listed as a vice-president of the Northampton Institution for Savings.
Designed by William F. Pratt, the house at 74 Bridge Street in Northampton was built in 1866 as the First Parish parsonage. It was later owned by the Shepard, Parsons and Damon families and was an inn. Today, it is the Historic College Inn of Northampton.
