Former First Baptist Church of Northampton (1904)

by Dan//Churches, Northampton, Romanesque Revival

In 1822, Benjamin Willard, an itinerant Baptist missionary, began preaching in Northampton. He soon organized a Baptist church, which was formally recognized by the Baptist Association Church Council in 1826. A church building was constructed by builder Isaac Damon on West Street in 1828-1829. A fire on December 29, 1863 damaged the building, and services were held in Northampton Town Hall for a year and a half while repairs were made. A new church, at the corner of Main and West Streets, was completed in May 1904 and dedicated May 22, 1904. In 1988, the First Baptist Church of Northampton joined the First Congregational Church to form the First Churches of Northampton, with worship continuing at the Congregational meeting house. In 1993, the former Baptist Church building was sold to Eric Suher of Holyoke. Restoration of the long vacant building has proceeded slowly, but Suher is continuing with plans to convert it into a conference and banqueting facility.

Stebbins-Lathrop House (1790)

by Dan//Houses, Italianate, Northampton

The house at 81 Bridge Street in Northampton was built in 1790 by Asahel Wright and was sold to James Bull in 1809. It was later owned by a physician, Dr. Daniel Stebbins. Through his correspondence with missionaries in China, Dr. Stebbins was one of the earliest people in the area to import silkworm eggs in 1842. Stebbins had 12 acres of mulberry trees behind his home and he and his daughters fed the leaves to the worms. Dr. Stebbins brought a silk weaver from Lyons, France to weave his family’s silk. After Dr. Stebbins’ death in 1859, his daughter Clarissa resided in the house with her husband, Henry Lathrop. They hired the architect William F. Pratt to redesign the originally Federal-style house in the fashionable Italianate style, an altered appearance it maintains today.

John L. Draper House (1895)

by Dan//Houses, Northampton, Queen Anne

At 2 Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton is an impressive (and impressively situated) Queen Anne mansion, built for John L. Draper in 1895. Draper, a wealthy retired merchant, held a competition for the design of his house. The winner from among the three competing local architects who submitted plans was Curtis Page, whose design included an impressive three-story tower, behind which is a decorative chimney built of Longmeadow stone and red brick. A developer restored the house and converted it into condominiums in the mid-1980s.

Northampton City Hall (1850)

by Dan//Gothic, Northampton, Public Buildings

Northampton‘s distinctively Gothic City Hall was designed by William Fenno Pratt and was built in 1849-1850. Conceived as a novelty, the building was in danger of being torn down in 1923, but was saved when voters decided to remodel rather than completely replace it. One result of that remodeling was the loss of the building‘s second floor auditorium, which had hosted many famous speakers and entertainers over the years. Further restorations of City Hall occurred in 1985 and 1993.

Duckett House (1810)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Northampton

Duckett House is a dorm on the campus of Smith College in Northampton. The house, located at the corner of Elm Street and Bedford Terrance, was built as a private residence for the Clark family about 1810. It was sold to Mary L. Southwick in 1886, who ran a boarding house for Smith students in the building until 1918. It was next owned by the Alumnae Association and in 1921 became part of the Burnham School for girls. The building was acquired by the college in 1968. As a dormitory, it was named for Eleanor Shipley Duckett, philologist and medieval historian, who was a Smith College professor and author of such books as Alfred the Great and his England (1957) and The Wandering Saints of the Early Middle Ages (1959). Additions to Duckett House were constructed in 1973 and the mid-1990s. Both of these modifications included connecting Duckett to neighboring Chase House, another c. 1810 residence (with later mansard roof) that is now a Smith College dorm. Chase House was named for Duckett’s lifelong companion, Smith College professor and novelist Mary Ellen Chase. Chase House had also served as the main building of the Burnham School and was known as Burnham House.

36 Pomeroy Terrace, Northampton (1885)

by Dan//Houses, Northampton, Stick Style

The house at 36 Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton was built in 1885 by David Crafts and Edwin Clapp on a lot they had purchased from the 1884 subdivision of the Samuel Wright estate. The house initially served as a rectory for St. John’s Episcopal Church on Bridge Street, but ownership was retained by Crafts and Clapp until 1889, by which time their net costs had been paid. In 1893, when a new church was built on Elm Street, the house was sold to Dr. William Spencer, a dentist.