Tag: Museum

Brick Dwelling, Hancock Shaker Village (1830)

by Dan//Apartment Buildings, Federal, Hancock, Houses, Outbuildings

Brick Dwelling

The Brick Dwelling at Hancock Shaker Village replaced two earlier dwelling structures, dating to the 1790s. The Brick Dwelling was built in 1830-1831 and was designed by Elder William Deming. The building’s basement was used for the kitchen and food storage and the first floor contained various waiting rooms, with the large dining room and the meeting room at opposite ends. The upper floors contained the separated brethren and sisters retiring rooms (Elders and Eldresses retiring rooms were on the second floor). The restored Brick Dwelling can be visited as part of the Hancock Shaker Village museum.

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Round Stone Barn, Hancock Shaker Village (1826)

by Dan//Hancock, Outbuildings, Vernacular

Round Stone Barn

This week we look at buildings at the Hancock Shaker Village, which was active from 1783 to 1960 and is now a museum. The Village‘s most iconic building is the Round Stone Barn, a large dairy barn erected in 1826. It replaced an earlier barn complex which had burned in 1825. A circular shape was used for the barn because of its functionality. As described by “H.C.” in the New York Farmer and reprinted in The Genesee Farmer (Vol. V, No. 49, December, 1835):

The great object of agricultural curiosity at Hancock, is their magnificent stone barn, two stories in height and ninety-six feet in diameter. The great mow is in the centre, and is said to he capable of containing between three and four hundred tons of hay. The floor or driveway is on tho outside of the circle, and the team goes round and comes out at the same door at which it enters. Several teams can stand on the floor and be unloaded at the same time. In the centre of this mow a large post or mast is erected, reaching from tho ground to the roof. At the apex of the roof is a small cupola. Around this post, slats or strips of plank are placed at a small distance from it, to prevent the hay from coming in immediate contact, and the hay at the bottom, being raised by an open frame from the ground, a perfect ventilation is formed, and the steam from the new hay is in this way effectually carried off.

A fire destroyed much of the barn in 1864, but it was rebuilt. Around 1870, the 12-sided upper level loft superstructure, which provides interior ventilation and illumination, was completed. In the twentieth century, cracks began appearing in the masonry. In 1968, the walls were dismantled, the foundations shored up and the walls rebuilt using the original stones. The Round Stone Barn‘s exterior woodwork’s yellow paint color was restored in 2009. Continue reading “Round Stone Barn, Hancock Shaker Village (1826)”

Susan B. Anthony Birthplace (1817)

by Dan//Adams, Federal, Houses

Susan B. Anthony Birthplace

[Note–This is a non-partisan post, but some of the links lead to pages reflecting representing strong opinions on both sides of the abortion issue.] The famous women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony was born in 1820 in a house in Adams. The house had been built by her father, Daniel Anthony, in 1817. He was a cotton manufacturer and abolitionist who raised Susan in the family’s Quaker religion. The family left the house in 1827 and moved to New York State. Their former home, located at 67 East Road in Adams, passed through several owners. From 1926 to 1949, The Society of Friends Descendents owned the house and operated a museum about Susan B. Anthony. After a few unsuccessful attempts by later owners to again make the house a museum, it was purchased at auction in 2006 by Carol Crossed, of the pro-life group Feminists for Life. The restored house opened to the public in 2010 as the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum. It did not open without controversy, however, as there were objections to the museum’s presentation of Anthony’s position on abortion.

William Cullen Bryant Homestead (1785)

by Dan//Colonial, Cummington, Houses, Italianate, Victorian Eclectic

William Cullen Bryant Homestead

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was a major poet and for 50 years was editor and publisher of The New York Evening Post. He was born in a log cabin in Cummington. When he was two, Bryant‘s father, Dr. Peter Bryant, moved the family to a house in Cummington that the doctor’s father-in-law had built in circa 1783-1785. The house became young William Cullen Bryant‘s boyhood home and is now called the William Cullen Bryant Homestead. In 1865, after the old farmhouse had been out of the family for 30 years, Bryant purchased and extensively altered it in to reflect Victorian stylistic tastes. He began by raising the original section of the house, creating a new ground floor. He also added a gambrel-roofed study, a replica of his father’s medical office, which projects from the front facade, and constructed an addition to the house’s original rear ell. The renovated house would serve as his summer home until his death. It is now owned by the Trustees of Reservations and can be toured by the public. Continue reading “William Cullen Bryant Homestead (1785)”

Thomas Smith House (1757)

by Dan//Agawam, Colonial, Houses

Built c. 1757, the Thomas Smith House stands at 251 North West Street in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam. Thomas Smith was born in Suffield (now in Connecticut, but then in Massachusetts) in 1725, married Esther Ball in 1755, and died in 1814. The house, previously known as the Matthew Noble House (Noble, one of Agawam’s earliest settlers, first owned the land on which the house was built), was purchased by the Agawam Historical Association in 2002. Remarkable for the fact that it has not been significantly altered since it built, the Association has restored (pdf) the the house with funding from the Agawam Community Preservation Act. It is now a living history house museum.

Shepherd House (1796)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Northampton

Built by Seth Russell in 1796, the house at 66 Bridge Street in Northampton is part of Historic Northampton’s complex of buildings. It is known as the Shepherd House because Susan Monroe Shepherd purchased it in 1856 and lived there with her husband, Henry Shepherd. Their son, Thomas Monroe Shepherd (1856-1923), left the house to the Historical Society, now called Historic Northampton. The late colonial-style house was much altered over the years by its various owners. The Gothic-style front porch was added in 1840 and the columned porch on the west side was added in 1899. The house is now rented as the headquarters of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.