Buildings Archives - Page 270 of 320

Hubbard Memorial Library, Ludlow Mass

April 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Hubbard Memorial Library in Ludlow, seen in 1903. Photo courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

The library in 2015:

Ludlow’s current public library building was built in 1889 as a gift to the town from the estate of the late industrialist Charles Townsend Hubbard, the founder of the Ludlow Manufacturing Company. Hubbard may not have been as prolific a library builder as fellow 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (who funded 2,509 libraries to Hubbard’s 1), but he played a significant role in expanding the selection of books available to Ludlow’s citizens, many of whom worked in his factory. The first public library in Ludlow opened in 1881 with around 400 books, but when the building opened in 1889 the town accepted a donation of 1,500 books from the Ludlow Manufacturing Company. By 1912, the library’s holdings were around three to four thousand.

As time went on, the interior was altered to provide adequate room for the growing collections, although today the exterior looks essentially unchanged from the 1903 scene. This is probably in part due to one of the stipulations in the original agreement to accept the building from the Hubbard estate, that “the building is to be forever maintained in proper repair at the expense of the town as a public library and reading room.” I don’t know exactly how enforceable a “forever” clause is in this case, or what would happen if the town did decide to move the library, but stipulations aside, it is a historically and architecturally significant building that has become a Ludlow landmark, so I doubt it would be going anywhere anytime soon.

Old Post Office Block, Ludlow Mass

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Old Post Office Block at the corner of East and Sewall Streets in Ludlow in 1903. Photo courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

The building in 2015:

These views were taken from about the same spot as the ones in this post, just turned a little further to the right. The building here is the old Post Office Block, which was built in 1901, and not surprisingly housed the Ludlow Post Office for nearly 60 years. Although Ludlow’s original town center is further away, this area along the Chicopee River grew in population in the late 1800s thanks to the factories that developed here in Ludlow and across the river in Indian Orchard. Many of the postal customers of the early 1900s would have been workers across the street at the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates factory; some of the buildings from this facility still exist today, including the iconic clock tower directly behind where this photo was taken.

This building wasn’t just a post office though; it also had other commercial tenants, and it was one of the first large commercial buildings in the town. The size of the building reflected the dramatic spike in population; between 1890 and 1900, Ludlow’s population nearly doubled, and would more than double again by 1920. The post office hasn’t used the building in over 50 years, but it remains in a remarkable state of preservation 112 years later.

East Street, Ludlow Mass

April 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking west on East Street from the corner of State Street in Ludlow in 1904. Photo courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

East Street in 2015:

This part of East Street in Ludlow hasn’t changed much in the past 111 years, aside from the obvious changes in transportation. The road has gone from a dirt road to a paved, four lane route through town, and a row of parallel-parked cars contrasts with the horse-drawn carriage that is hitched up along the curb in the 1904 view. The old Post Office Block on the right is still there, as is Library Park beyond it. However, just out of view, the left-hand side of the street has changed a lot. The area between the road and the Chicopee River is now a modern commercial development, but in 1904 it was part of the massive Ludlow Manufacturing facility, some of which survives to this day, directly behind where these photos were taken.

Jeremy Warriner House, Springfield Mass

July 21, 2015April 15, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Jeremy Warriner house at 43 Bliss Street in Springfield, probably around 1893. Photo from Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield (1893)

The location in 2015:

Jeremy Warriner was a tavern owner in Springfield in the first half of the 19th century. He operated Warriner’s Tavern at the corner of Main and State Streets, and he later opened the Union House, which is still standing as of April 2015, but is scheduled to be demolished later this year. By the 1840s, Warriner was living in this house on Howard Street, just a block away from the Union House. During his time here, he hosted at least one distinguished visitor. In 1851, famed Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind traveled around the United States performing to enormous crowds, and one of her stops was Old First Church in Springfield. While in Springfield, she stayed at Warriner’s home, and one of his employees, Julia Lee, gives an account of the visit in her letter that I included in this post. I have included part of her description below:

After uncle Jerry gave up keeping the tavern and went over on Howard street to live I went with him, and Jenny Lind when she came here in 1851 stayed with Jerry and had her meals sent down from the hotel. There was Quincy, Harrison Gray Otis and Mr. Cabbot and lots of others. I liked Jenny Lind the best of all. She was beautiful and the school children all came around to see her and she was so polite to everybody.

Warriner’s house was still standing in 1905 when the Howard Street School was built two houses away, and it appears on city atlases as late as 1920, but it is not included among the 1938-1939 WPA photos of Howard Street, which suggests it was probably gone by then. Most recently, the site has been used as a parking lot, but the 2015 photo shows construction equipment getting ready to begin work on the MGM Springfield casino. The Howard Street School in the background will be demolished soon, pending final approval from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Warriner’s Tavern, Springfield Mass

August 2, 2023April 15, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The former Warriner’s Tavern on State Street in Springfield, around 1893. Photo from Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield (1893)

The location in 2015:

The scene in 2023:

The building in the first photo was built around 1773, and was originally located a half a block away at the corner of Main and State Streets. It apparently had a number of different names over its long lifespan, but it was built by Thomas Bates and operated as the Bates Tavern for many years. However, probably its most notable owner was Jeremy Warriner, and under his ownership starting in 1820, the tavern was variously referred to as the United States Hotel, Eagle Tavern, Warriner’s Tavern, and “Uncle Jerry’s.” He appears to have sold it by the 1840s, and in 1847 the building was moved to its location on State Street.

During Warriner’s ownership, when the tavern was still located on Main Street, it was one of Springfield’s premier taverns along the stagecoach lines, and hosted many distinguished guests, but it was also part of the Underground Railroad. Many runaway slaves became employees here, and in 1907 the Springfield Homestead published the recollections of Julia Lee, the daughter of Mary Sly, who was one of the runaway slaves. Lee’s narrative provides a fascinating account of the Underground Railroad and life in Springfield during the mid 19th century:

I don’t know just when I was born, but I know where I was born. I was born in the old Springfield house, as it is now called, Frank Foot tells me that Emil Wunsch is going to pull it down and put up a big block there. Frank says to me, “Julia, they ought to give you that old house.” Yes I was born there, when it used to stand on the corner of State and Main streets. It was the United States Hotel then and Uncle Jeremy Warriner used to run it. The Springfield house is only the front part of the old tavern, which was a great deal larger than the Springfield house. An Irishman, who lived over on Central street, bought the back part, and it used to run way to a Mr. Sykes’, when Uncle Jerry gave up keeping hotel there.

The way I happened to be born there, my mother, Mrs. Mary Sly, was a cook with Uncle Jerry. She came from Natchez, Miss. up here, and mother was born in New Orleans. Father was a West India man. Uncle Jerry had all colored help men and women. Aunt Phoebe’s (Mrs. Warriner’s) aunt used to do the cooking. A colored girl, Emily, did all the pastry. Jane Hall and I helped wait on table. I used to feel quite proud when some of those big folks would come in on the stage and when they’d sit down at the table would say, “Where’s Julia, I want Julia to wait on me.” Those folks were generous about tipping, too. They would leave money around under the plates, often 25 cents and sometimes as much as a dollar.

I used to know some of the biggest folks in the country. Daniel Webster would stop over on his way to and from Boston. Webster always had a parlor and bedroom. I used to carry his meals up to his room. He kept by himself a good deal and was always busy. Rufus Choate used to come here, too. My! How that man would walk the floor. Lots of brides used to come and we had bridal chambers for them. They would send on ahead for rooms and sometimes Jerry would have the band come and serenade them at night. I couldn’t begin to tell all the people who would come. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe I remember and Mrs. Samuel Colt of Hartford, and Fanny Elsley, the great dancer, and Henry Clay, I most forgot him, and P.T. Barnum and Jennie Lind and Louis Kossuth. After uncle Jerry gave up keeping the tavern and went over on Howard street to live I went with him, and Jenny Lind when she came here in 1851 stayed with Jerry and had her meals sent down from the hotel. There was Quincy, Harrison Gray Otis and Mr. Cabbot and lots of others. I liked Jenny Lind the best of all. She was beautiful and the school children all came around to see her and she was so polite to everybody. When Uncle Jerry went to what is Chandler’s hotel now I went too. I stuck by the Warriners as long as they lived.

What good times we all had in those old days at the United States! Uncle Jerry had two or three spans of horses and used to take his guests around and then at night they would gather around the big fire places and go into the parlor and dance. I was strictly temperate and Jane Hall and I used to march in the front of the cold water processions they used to have. To be sure Uncle Jerry kept a bar but I didn’t see many getting full, same as they do now.

Uncle Jerry made lots of money, he kept such a good house. People would come there and he would say he was full and they would say “Well Jerry, we are going to stay here anyway.” It was because he set such a good able you know. People would room all around and come there to take their meals. Jerry used to make a specialty of venison suppers, served with spiced gravy and jelly, with little chafing dishes placed around the table. There was always something to drink, too. Lots of Springfield people used to come there for suppers, too, Sam Bowles, Homer Foot, George Ashman, Judge Shurtleff and I can’t remember how many others.

Southern people used to be there and I will never forget one family and the time we had. It was this way: Mrs. Jerome Bonaparte of Baltimore had a head waiter, William Gordon, who ran away and came up north. Uncle Jerry always harbored all the slaves; In fact our house was one of the underground stations and would have eight or ten hid away sometimes. Well, this Gordon, was in our house, when who should appear but Mrs. Bonaparte and her family. They knew their waiter was up north somewhere and my! the fuss they made, but they didn’t get their slave. Uncle Jerry was too smart for them.

After I got though here I went to Cincinnati and lived with a Mr. Hawkins, a Quaker who also kept runaway slaves escaping from Kentucky.

Uncle Jerry treated me with the best of any one I ever met and in summer he would take me to the summer resorts same as if I was one of the family. All my relatives are dead and I feel as if I wished I could see the Warriners again. You like my picture? Well I am sorry to disappoint The Homstead, but I had just one picture and some on stole that out of my album and I vowed then that I would never have another taken.

The event that prompted the publishing of this story was the planned demolition of the old tavern. Another 1907 article, this one appearing in the Springfield Republican, quoted a resident who lamented, “Oh the ceaseless march of improvements! they may soon build the tower of Babel again.” The building was demolished to make way for the United Electric Company building, which stands on the location today. However, the “march of improvements” continues, and most of the building will soon be demolished to build the MGM Springfield casino, which will retain the State Street façade as an entrance, but is otherwise planning to take down the rest of it.

There is one other MGM connection to the old tavern, though. In her letter, Lee mentioned how Warriner left the old tavern and went to Chandler’s Hotel. This was originally known as the Union House, and Warriner was the original owner after it was built in the mid 1840s. The building still stands today, at the corner of Main and Bliss Streets. It is one of the oldest commercial buildings in downtown Springfield, but it is scheduled to be demolished this year as part of the casino development.

2023 update: I have included a third photo, showing the scene following the construction of the MGM Springfield casino.

Randolph Beebe House, Wilbraham Mass

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Randolph Beebe House on Beebe Road in Wilbraham, around 1913. Photo from The History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts (1913).

The house in 2015:

This house on Beebe Road in Wilbraham was built around 1785-1790 and was originally occupied by Daniel Chappel, although he didn’t live here for long. The next family, Nathan and Mary Mack, lived here from around 1790 to 1810, and their daughter earned a place in local folklore in this house. According to the account given in The History of Wilbraham Massachusetts in 1913, Mary discovered that her young daughter was playing with a rattlesnake in her lap. She rescued her daughter from the snake and covered it with a tub until Nathan returned home. He then killed the snake, cut off the rattles, and gave them to his daughter, who kept them in the family for several generations as an odd family heirloom.

By the time the 1913 photo was taken, the house was owned by Randolph Beebe, whose father in law, Thomas Gilligan, had previously owned it since around 1860. Randolph died in 1923, and the house was apparently vacant for some time, although it was during this time that the house made a rather unexpected contribution to American literature. In the summer of 1928, horror/science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft was touring parts of New England, and this included an eight-day stay at the home of Evanore Beebe in Wilbraham, just a short distance from this house, on Monson Road. Later in 1928, he wrote one of his most famous short stories, “The Dunwich Horror,” which according to Lovecraft himself, “is based on several old New England legends — one of which I heard only last month during my sojourn in Wilbraham.” One of these legends is about whippoorwill birds being an omen of death, and that they can capture departing souls. Lovecraft heard this story while he was staying at Evanore Beebe’s house, but it was actually this house, formerly owned by Randolph Beebe, that provided the legend. According to what Lovecraft wrote in 1934, “I saw the ruinous, deserted old Randolph Beebe house where the whippoorwills cluster abnormally,” and from that he learned about the legend that provided part of the basis of his famous short story.

I don’t know how long the house was vacant after Lovecraft’s visit, but it was occupied again by the 1950s. In the century since the first photo was taken, the house has substantially increased in size with several additions in the back, but the original 1780s part of the house still retains its appearance from over 200 years ago.