Month: September 2012

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.

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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.

Sackett Tavern (1776)

by Dan//Colonial, Taverns, Westfield

At 1259 Western Avenue in Westfield is Sackett’s Tavern, a landmark of Connecticut River Valley Georgian architecture. It was built around 1776 for Stephen Sackett, who ran the tavern. In 1800 it was sold to Titus Atwater, who operated a posting house, and it remained in the Atwater family until 1900 until it was purchased at auction by Mathew Pitoniak. For a time it was known as the Washington Tavern because it was believed George Washington had slept there. Left vacant for a time, the tavern was purchased and restored by Mr. and Mrs. William A. Fuller in 1962.