Month: November 2012

A.A. Burdett House (1852)

by Dan//Clinton, Houses, Italianate

The house at 260 Church Street in Clinton was built in 1852 by Oliver Stone, a local contractor, for Henry Kellogg, director of the Clinton Gas Light Company. Alfred A. Burdett, a local druggist, bought the house in 1867. As related in The Spatula, An Illustrated Magazine for Pharmacists, Vol. VIII, No. 10, June 1902:

To Alfred A. Burdett belongs the distinction of having been the longest in business of any man in Clinton, Mass. Mr. Burdett, who recently passed his 75th mile-stone, opened the first drug store in Clinton in 1849, and still retains his connection with the business, which is carried on by his son Oscar A. Burdett at the old stand on High street. His son Henry is likewise a pharmacist, with a store on the same street. Mr. Burdett and his wife observed the 53d anniversary of their marriage not long ago. He has served a term in the Massachusetts Legislature, and has held many positions of trust in his own town, having been selectman, town treasurer and a member of the school committee. Mr. Burdett has carefully preserved the record of his very first day’s business, on Feb. 25, 1849. On that day his total sales were $1.08, divided as follows: candy, 14 cents; cigars, 9 cents; medicines, 31 cents; fancy goods, 44 cents; valentines, 10 cents. The profits were reckoned at 55 cents.

Central Block, Waltham (1856)

by Dan//Commercial, Italianate, Waltham

The building at 627 Main Street in Waltham was built by George Miller in 1856 and was designed by his son-in-law, architect Henry Hartwell. The building was briefly the Waltham Hotel, but after the civil war the upper floors were remodeled for offices and club rooms with commercial shops continuing on the first floor. Called Miller’s Block, it originally had a central arched passageway leading to livery stables in the rear (the ground floor facade was much altered in the 1940s). In 1867, Miller sold the building to Samuel B. Whitney, who renamed it the Central Block. Alvin Jewell, a pioneering weathervane manufacturer, was killed while erecting a new sign on the building when the scaffolding collapsed. The selectmen of Waltham met in he building until 1875 and Waltham’s first telephone exchange was located on the first floor.

J.D. Bartlett House (1865)

by Dan//Houses, Italianate, Westfield

The Italianate residence at 27 King Street in Westfield was built around 1865. In 1870, J.D. Bartlett is listed as the owner. This may be the same J.D. Bartlett who is mentioned in several sources as a local historian. Vol. 2 of “Our County and its People” A History of Hampden County, Massachusetts (1902) mentions “J. D. Bartlett, of Westfield, who has spent much time in gathering facts for a history of the town,” and Rev. John H. Lockwood, in Vol. 1 of his Westfield and Its Historic Influences (1922), mentions “the historical notes of J. D. Bartlett, gathered with such patience and at such personal cost.”

Children’s Chime Tower (1878)

by Dan//Monuments, Romanesque Revival, Stick Style, Stockbridge

The Children’s Chime Tower (or Chimes Tower) is a memorial tower in Stockbridge. It was built in 1878 and was a gift to the town by David Dudley Field, a wealthy New York lawyer and son of Rev. D.D. Fields of Stockbridge. Field gave the tower in memory of his grandchildren and, in accordance with his instructions, its chimes are rung at 5:30 every evening between “apple blossom time and the first frost on the pumpkin.” The tower is believed to have been built on the site of Stockbridge’s original meeting house of 1739. The wooden portion at the top of the tower represents the Stick style of architecture. Clocks are mounted in the central gables on all four sides of the roof.

Sessions House (1710)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Northampton

Sessions House is a colonial residence at 109 Elm Street in Northampton that is now used as a Smith College dormitory. It was built around 1710 (or perhaps as early as 1700) by Captain Jonathan Hunt (1665-1738) and was the first house in Northampton to be built outside the early settlement’s protective stockade. The house has a staircase that was originally designed as a secret passageway for the family to hide in during Native American raids. The house passed to the Henshaw family by marriage and was later owned by other families. Eventually, around 1900, it passed to Mrs. Ruth Huntington Sessions, who ran it as off campus housing for Smith College students. Born in Cambridge in 1859, Ruth Huntington moved with her parents to Syracuse, New York when her father, Frederic Dan Huntington, became Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. In 1880, her family sent her to Europe, where she studied piano under Clara Schumann. In 1887 she married Archibald Lowery Sessions and moved with him to New York City. A social activist and writer (her memoir, Sixty Odd: A Personal History, was published in 1936), Sessions (d. 1946) spent her summers at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House in Hadley, given to her by her father, and her winters in Northampton. She sold the Northampton house to Smith College in 1921. Continue reading “Sessions House (1710)”

Steiger Building (1899)

by Dan//Commercial, Holyoke, Neoclassical

The Steiger Building, at 259-271 High Street in Holyoke, is a Beaux Arts structure built in 1899. The elaborately ornamented building, designed by G.P.B. Alderman, housed Steigers Department Store. It has an asymmetrical facade due to the fact that the southern 25 feet were purchased by Albert Steiger in 1901 and thus that section was built two years after the rest of the building. Continue reading “Steiger Building (1899)”