The most impressive Second Empire-style house in Westfield is the Edwin L. Sanford House, at 33 West Silver Street. According to earlier research, an earlier house, built by A. J. Bradley circa 1857-1870, was moved when Edwin L. Sanford, president of the Sanford Whip Company, bought the property in 1869. A more recent date given for the Sanford House is circa 1865-1870.
Holyoke‘s most striking old factory building was constructed by the Albion Paper Company at what is now 15 Water Street. An earlier mill building on the site, belonging to the Hampton Company, was acquired by the Albion Company after the latter was formed in 1869. The Albion Company was sold to D.H. & J.C. Newton in 1877, who rebuilt the mill complex with substantial additions in 1878. The building features two mansard-roofed towers (the second one added post-1887), whose bells summoned workers for their shifts. The company manufactured book paper and engine sized flat paper. After experiencing accumulating large debts in the 1890s, the company was incorporated into the American Writing Paper Company in 1899. Another adjacent mill building, which was built circa 1880 by the Nonotuck Paper Company and later became the Mt. Tom Division of American Writing Paper Company, was destroyed by a fire earlier this year.
The E. N. Childs House is a French Second Empire-style house at 54 West Street in Worcester. It was constructed circa 1868. Childs was a boot manufacturer. As related in Charles G. Washburn’s Industrial Worcester (1917):
In 1853 E. N. Childs came to Worcester from Millbury, and engaged in business with Albert Gould for one year. In 1854 Albert S. Brown became a partner. They did business as Childs & Brown until 1857, when Mr. Brown retired, and A. G. Walker was admitted under the firm of E. N. Childs & Co. In 1862 Mr. Walker retired and Mr. Childs continued under the same firm name until 1881. During the preceding few years his sons were interested with him in the business.
The house is now owned by Becker College. In the past it was a dormitory, but now it houses the Maintenance offices.
Now standing isolated on block that once contained a row of houses, 284 Maple Street is the sole survivor of an affluent neighborhood in Holyoke. Nothing is now known about who built the house (c. 1880) or who first lived in it. The concrete steps are not original. Today the building houses a law firm.
The building at 1 Canal Street in Holyoke was built in the early 1870s to serve as an office for the Holyoke Water Power Company. Incorporated in 1859, the company took control of the property of the Hadley Falls Company, which had first begun construction of the dam and canal system that powered Holyoke’s industries. Originally a one-story structure, between 1875 and 1885 the building’s bellcast mansard roof with dormer windows was raised and a second level added. A number of additions were made to the building in later years to serve the company’s expanding operations.
Citizens’ Hall is a mansard-roofed Second Empire building located in the former industrial village of Curtisville, now called Interlaken, in the town of Stockbridge. Designed by Charles T. Rathburn, Citizens’ Hall was built in 1870 as a district schoolhouse, with a public meeting hall on the second floor. Used less frequently as a meeting place after the town’s district schools were consolidated, the building was restored in the 1970s by Old Curtisville, Inc. (pdf). IS183, a non-profit community art school founded in 1991, leased Citizens’ Hall before merging with Old Curtisville, Inc. in 2005. As the building‘s new owners, IS183 completed exterior repairs in May, 2009.
John C. Buschmann emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1852 and moved from Feeding Hills to Westfield in 1857. He established a wholesale tobacco business in 1860 and soon built the Railroad House Hotel (later replaced by the Bismarck Hotel) in Depot Square in Westfield. In 1873, he built Buschmann’s Block at 36 Union Avenue in Dept Square. He used the building as a warehouse and offices for his tobacco and other businesses, which included coal, wood and ice. Buschmann’s Block later became a whip manufacturing plant, a furniture store and then a flower shop. In 1995, the building became home to Pilgrim Candle, which expanded to include the Bismarck Hotel building next door in 2001.
