Old Chapel, UMASS (1885)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Romanesque Revival

One of the most historic buildings on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst is the Old Chapel. This campus icon is a Richardsonian Romanesque structure, constructed of gray Pelham granite with Longmeadow brownstone trim. Designed by Stephen C. Earle, it was built in 1884-1886, when UMASS was the Massachusetts Agricultural College. It originally had a library on the first floor, a chapel above and a museum for the College’s natural history collection In 1935, the building was renovated by the WPA to house the History and English Departments. Later, it was home for the Department of Music and Performing Arts, and for the UMass Marching Band, which left the building in 1996. Since then, the interior has remained vacant, although the exterior of the Chapel was restored in 1997-1999. This included a complete re-building of the bell tower, with damaged stones being replaced by granite from the original Pelham quarry, which is still owned by Umass, and brownstone from a quarry in Utah. Continue reading “Old Chapel, UMASS (1885)”

Barrett Hall, Amherst College (1860)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Greek Revival, Italianate

Barrett Hall, on the campus of Amherst College, was built as Barrett Gymnasium in 1859-1860. Amherst College had the first department of Physical Education in the country. Constructed of Pelham granite, the gymnasium was designed by Boston architect Charles E. Parkes and was named for Dr. Benjamin Barrett of Northampton, who made the largest financial contribution towards building and fully equipping it. The building served as a gym until Pratt Gymnasium was built in 1883. In 1907, Barrett Hall was converted to become the home of the modern languages department.

257 Main Street, Amherst (1878)

by Dan//Amherst, Houses, Stick Style

The dating for the house at 257 Main Street in Amherst, across the street from the Dickinson Homestead, is a little confusing based on the sources immediately available to me. The 2005 guidebook to the Dickinson Historic District describes it as the Cyrus Kingman House, built in the 1850s. Cyrus Kingman was a businessman who established himself in Pelham and then moved to Amherst in 1850, when he purchased the general store that stood where the Town Hall is today. Kingman’s daughters, Martha and Ellen Mary, school friends of Emily Dickinson, died within two weeks of each other in 1851. The surviving daughter, Jane Juliette., and Kingman himself died in 1854. His widow was still living in the house in the early 1870s. Zillow.com has a date for the house of 1878. While Zillow dates are not always accurate, the 1870s seems a more likely period for a house built in the Stick style. Today the house is a bed & breakfast called the Amherst Inn.

Morgan Hall, Amherst College (1853)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Italianate

Morgan Hall, on South Pleasant Street in Amherst, was built in 1852-1853 and was Amherst College’s first library building. Designed by Henry Sykes, it was the campus’ first building made of stone. It was expanded in 1882-1883, at which time the building was officially named for New York Banker, Henry T. Morgan. Melvil Dewey served as Acting Librarian from 1874 to 1877, during which time he applied his decimal library classification system to the college’s collection. William Isaac Fletcher, Librarian from 1883 to 1911, was a nationally known bibliographer, educator and author of Public Libraries in America (1894). With the construction of the Converse Memorial Library in 1917, Morgan Hall was converted to classroom nd administrative use (it houses several college departments). In 1960, Astronomy Department’s Bassett Planetarium was installed, the gift of Preston Rogers Bassett. On the lower floor of Morgan Hall is a cannon from the 1862 Civil War Battle of New Bern, North Carolina. It is a memorial to President William A. Stearns‘ son Frazar Stearns, who was killed in the battle.

Snell House (1820)

by Dan//Amherst, Federal, Houses

The Federal-style house at 317 South Pleasant Street in Amherst was built in 1820. On December 7, 1827, when the house was owned by Rev. Stephen S. Nelson, it was here that the first meeting of the Amherst branch of the First Baptist Church in New Salem was held (Rev. Nelson served as moderator of the meeting). After later becoming a branch of the Baptist Church in Northampton, it became the First Baptist Church in Amherst in 1832. From 1831-1931 the house was owned by the Snell family. Ebeneezer Snell was a mathematics professor at Amherst College who kept the earliest continuous weather records in the world. This was continued by his daughter and by the College today. The widow’s walk on the roof of the house was added in 1854.