The house at 37 Chestnut Street in Salem was erected by master builder Jabez Smith in 1816-1817 for sea captain and merchant George Nichols. The house was also owned, from 1827 to 1845, by David Pingree and William A. Landers.
A striking landmark on the campus of Amherst College is Stearns Steeple, which stands in front of the Mead Art Museum. It is the only surviving part of the College Church, built in 1873. A gift of William F. Stearns, son of College president William A. Stearns, the Gothic church was designed by William A. Potter of New York. The Steeple’s bells, cast in 1871, were given by George Howe as a memorial to Amherst men lost in the Civil War. Stearns’ gift required that the building only be used for religious purposes, but Sunday services were transferred to the College Chapel in 1933 and discontinued in 1946, with the result that the church was no longer used regularly. It was razed in 1949 to make way for new buildings, although the steeple was spared as a monument to the church. To become a freestanding structure, the steeple was enclosed using materials from the demolished church.
At 51 Main Street in Northampton is an 1851 sandstone Italianate building designed by William Fenno Pratt. The building is home to Smith Charities, an organization which aids indigent children and women. As explained in the American Journal of Education, Vol. 27, No. 7, (July 1877):
This large and comprehensive system or charities was founded by Oliver Smith, Esq., of Hatfield, who died Dec. 22, 1845. His estate was valued, at the time of his death, at $370,000. In his will, he directed that a board of trustees should be constituted in the following manner: The towns of Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, and Williamsburg, in Hampshire County, and Deerfield, Greenfield, and Whately, in Franklin County, shall choose at each annual meeting a person who shall be called an elector. The electors were to choose three persons who should constitute a board of trustees, who were to have the control and management of all the funds.
Some of Smith’s heirs contested his will, resulting in a trial in July 1847. As the above article relates, “Two days were occupied in the trial, Rufus Choate arguing the case for the heirs-at-law, and Daniel Webster for the will. The courthouse was crowded to overflowing, and ladders were put up to the windows, so eager were the people to see and hear the great orators.” As described in Early Northampton (1914):
The heirs—among them Austin Smith (a nephew of Oliver Smith and a brother of Sophia Smith, founder of Smith College)—wished to break the will, claiming that while the law required three competent witnesses to such a document, only two of the witnesses of the Oliver Smith will were in fit condition to sign it. Oliver Smith, another of the heirs, also a nephew of Oliver Smith, Sr., and executor of the will, determined, against his own interests, to uphold it, and engaged Daniel Webster, with Judge Forbes as junior counsel. Charles Delano was also retained—the latter two being Northampton lawyers. Webster, by his remarkable personality and brilliancy, and by his judicious handling of the witnesses, gained the case, in spite of the utmost efforts of his able antagonist, Mr. Choate.
The former Springfield Masonic Temple, located at 339-341 State Street, was built between 1924 and 1926. Before its construction, the Springfield Masons used an earlier Masonic Hall at the corner of Main and State streets. The 1924 Temple is a Springfield landmark, with a monumental neo-classical exterior built of Indiana limestone with terra cotta trim. The facade features Egyptian Revival details, including four columns above the doorway, and symbols characteristic of masonry. Above the colonnade is a frieze with the dates A.L. 5924 and A.D. 1924, and the Latin inscription: “Aedificatum Ut Lux Splendesceret” (“Erected That Light Might Become Brighter”). In 2007, the Masons sold the building to the International Communion of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church, under the leadership of Archbishop Timothy Paul Baymon. The building is now used as a church called the Basilica of the Holy Apostles.
Gaylord Memorial Library in South Hadley was built in 1904 on what had been the village cemetery. To make way for the library, the graves were moved to Evergreen Cemetery on Hadley Street; all except for the grave of John Preston, the original donor of the land. Preston had received the grant of land for his services as a soldier in the French and Indian War. The Library was donated by William H. Gaylord and was designed by Putnam and Cox of Boston. It was dedicated on May 18, 1904 and Gaylord and his wife, Betsey Stone Gaylord, both died on December 22, 1904. The Gaylord Library was operated independently, but from 1968 to 1995, it was run as a branch of the South Hadley Public Library. Facing closure by the town due to a lack of money, the Library has since operated independently again, although with more limited hours.
Kirby Memorial Theater at Amherst College was built with funds from a charitable trust set up by Dr. Ellwood R. Kirby (1854-1920). Kirby, a Philadelphia physician, is depicted administering anesthetic to the surgery patient in Thomas Eakins 1889 painting The Agnew Clinic. The Theater was built in 1938-1939 and was designed by James Kellum Smith of McKim, Mead & White, with the help of S.R. McCandless, a theater designer. The James W. Boyden House, which had served as a college boarding house and cafeteria, was moved from the site in 1937 to 58 Woodside Street to make way for the Theater.
In 1847, Marvin Marcy French (1820-1896) was one of the first people to acquire a plot of land on the newly opened Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton. The original section of his house, 44 Pomeroy Terrace, was built in 1848. The house is architecturally notable for the extensive additions made to the structure for Mr. French in 1870 by architect William F. Pratt, who may or may not have designed the earlier part of the house. In an 1883-4 Directory, M.M. French is listed as a vice-president of the Northampton Institution for Savings.