Chicopee Massachusetts

George M. Stearns House, Chicopee, Mass

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The house at 111 Springfield Street in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The house in 2017:

This house was built around the early 1830s, and appears to have originally been owned by Rodolphus Kinsley, a locksmith who held several patents for door locks and latches. At the time, the house was significantly smaller, with relatively plain Greek Revival-style architecture, and likely would have only consisted of the central portion of the house. In 1834, the house was temporarily used as the first home of the Third Congregational Church, which later built its own church building just down the street from here, and by the mid-1850s maps show that the house was owned by a S.F. Williams.

The most prominent owner of this house was George M. Stearns, a lawyer and politician who was living here by the 1870 census, along with his wife Emily and their two young daughters, Mary and Emily. Born in 1831 in Stoughton but raised in rural Rowe, Massachusetts, Stearns came to Chicopee as a 17-year-old in 1848 and studied law under John Wells, a lawyer who later became a judge on the state Supreme Court. Stearns was subsequently admitted to the bar in 1852, and became Wells’s law partner for several years.

Aside from his law practice, Stearns also held several political offices, including serving a term in the state House of Representatives in 1859 and in the state Senate in 1871. In 1872 he was appointed as District Attorney for the Western District of Massachusetts, and in 1886 Grover Cleveland appointed him as U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was also involved in the Democratic Party, and served as a delegate to both state and national party conventions.

George and Emily Stearns ultimately outlived both of their daughters, and they were still living here when the first photo was taken in the early 1890s. By this point the house had been significantly altered from its 1830s appearance, including wings on both the left and right side, and the original part of the house was modified with a two-story bay window to the left of the front door. These changes helped to give the house more of an ornate Queen Anne-style appearance, although it still retained some of its original Greek Revival features.

George Stearns died in 1894, several months after he and Emily moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, and this house went on to have a number of different residents over the following years. By the 1900 census it was the home of Alexander Acheson Montgomery-Moore, an Irish immigrant who was the proprietor of the Kendall House hotel in the center of Chicopee. He lived here with his wife Lillian and their infant son Cecil, along with Lillian’s mother Nancy. The family did not live here in this house for long, and by 1909 they were living in Bermuda. Young Cecil would go on to have a distinguished career in the Royal Air Force. He served as a fighter pilot during World War I, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross in the process, and during World War II he was a major, in command of both the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers and the Bermuda Flying School.

In the meantime, by the 1910 census this house was being rented by George S. Ball, who worked as a machinist for Spalding. He and his wife Ina were both in their early 50s at the time, and they lived here with their three children, who were all in their 20s. The oldest, Laura, worked as a trimmer for the Ames Sword Company, William was a shipping clerk for the Stevens-Duryea car manufacturing company, and the youngest, Susie, was a stenographer.

By the 1920 census, the house had become a boarding house, owned by French-Canadian immigrant Elzear X. LaBelle. He and his wife Josephine lived here with their children Leo, Eva, and Edward, and the census shows 11 boarders living here with them. The boarders were all men, mostly in their early 20s, and included two immigrants from Ireland and three from Greece. Most were employed in area factories, including five who worked in a rubber shop and two who worked as die makers in a forge shop, but there were also two firemen, a barber, and a pool room clerk.

The LaBelles were still here in 1930, this time with seven boarders, six of whom were men. They were a wide range of ages, from 27 to 71,  and all were either single or widowed. All but two were immigrants, including one from Scotland, one from Northern Ireland, one from Quebec, and two from Greece, and their jobs included working for a sporting goods company, an electric light company, a rubber factory, a shoe shine parlor, and a restaurant.

The building remained a boarding house for many years, but the exterior has not significantly changed during this time, and it is now a contributing property in the Springfield Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was undergoing a significant renovation when the first photo was taken and, when complete, the interior will include 16 units for low-income housing.

Third Congregational Church, Chicopee, Mass

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The Third Congregational Church, on Springfield Street in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The church in 2017:

Chicopee’s Third Congregational Church was established in 1834, and originally met in the nearby Stearns House. After meeting in several other temporary locations, the church built its first permanent building in 1837, here at the corner of Springfield and Pearl Streets. The congregation worshipped here for three decades, but in 1868 the old building was demolished and replaced with the present brick church, which was completed in 1870. It features High Victorian Gothic-style architecture, which was common in churches of the era, and it was designed by Charles Edward Parker, a Boston-based architect who would go on to design Chicopee City Hall several years later.

In 1925, Third Congregational Church merged with the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, forming the Federated Church. Central Methodist subsequently sold their building on Center Street, and the merged church continued to worship here in the Third Congregational building. The church has since been renamed Christ’s Community Church, but it remains here in this building, which has seen few changes in the 125 years since the first photo was taken. The house next door, which is now owned by the church, is also still standing, and today both buildings are part of the Springfield Street Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Universalist Church, Chicopee, Mass

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The Universalist Church at the corner of Center and Springfield Streets in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

This Greek Revival-style building was constructed in 1836, and was originally owned by the Mechanics’ Association. However, within a few years it was sold to a Universalist society, which had been founded in 1835 and formally established as a church in 1840. At the time, Chicopee was still part of Springfield, and this neighborhood was known as Cabotville, but in 1848 Chicopee was incorporated as a separate town. The church building occupied a prominent location in the new town center, at the southern end of Market Square, and the Universalists continued to meet here until the society was disbanded in 1883.

By the time the first photo was taken in the early 1890s, the building had become the United Presbyterian Church. However, because of its valuable location in the center of Chicopee, the ground floor was rented to commercial tenants, including Carter & Spaulding’s grocery store, which can be seen on the left side of the first photo. Subsequent early 20th century tenants included the Gaylord-Kendall Company bankers and the Association Co-Operative meats and groceries, and the Presbyterian church remained here until 1925, when the congregation moved to a new church building on Newbury Street.

After this move, the old church building was converted entirely to commercial use. By the mid-20th century the ground floor was home to Paul’s Shoes on the left side and the Peter Pan Café on the right, and the church sanctuary had been converted into the Peter Pan Ballroom. Around this time the exterior was also significantly altered, including the removal of the cupola and the installation of aluminum siding, which hid most of the building’s original architectural features.

Today, more than 125 years after the first photo was taken, the old church building is still standing, although it is hardly recognizable. The exterior is now covered in brick, and only the window arrangement gives any clue that it is still the same building from the first photo. Formerly Bernardino’s Restaurant, the building is now home to the Munich Haus, a German restaurant that opened here in 2004. At the time, the three-story brick Temple Block, seen on the right side side of the first photo, was still standing. It was built in 1876 but was destroyed in a fire in 2011, and the site of the building is now a biergarten for the Munich Haus.

George D. Robinson House, Chicopee, Mass

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The house at 104 Springfield Street, at the corner of Howard Street in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The house in 2017:

This elegant Second Empire-style House was built around 1869, and was originally the home of businessman D. Frank Hale. Variously listed in censuses and city directories as a real estate broker, a merchant, and a landlord, he was evidently prosperous, because the 1870 census lists his real estate as being worth $88,500, plus $5,500 in his personal estate, for a total net worth equal to over $1.8 million today. However, despite this wealth his personal life was marred by tragedy. He and his wife Lucy had six children, but only one of them, their son William, survived to adulthood. Their other five children died of various diseases when they were six years old or younger, including 3-month-old twin boys Arthur and Luther, who died of “brain fever” ten days apart from each other in March 1872.

The Hale family lived here until about 1878, when they moved to Springfield. They sold the house to George D. Robinson, a lawyer and politician who was, at the time, serving his first term in Congress. Born in Lexington in 1834, Robinson moved to Chicopee in 1856 after his graduation from Harvard. Here, he worked as principal of Chicopee’s Center High School from 1856 to 1865, and subsequently became a lawyer and entered politics. He represented Chicopee in both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate, and in 1876 he was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1877 to 1884.

In 1883, Robinson ran as the Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts, defeating incumbent governor Benjamin Butler in a hotly contested general election. Butler, himself a former Congressman, had been a notoriously inept general during the Civil War, but he had presidential ambitions and hoped that his re-election as governor would help earn him the Democratic nomination in 1884. However, Butler’s loss to Robinson, after just a single one-year term as governor, significantly hurt his chances, and the 1884 Democratic nomination – and ultimately the presidency – went to another northeastern governor, Grover Cleveland of New York.

Robinson served three one-year terms from 1884 to 1887, and was involved in the passage of several key reforms, including free textbooks for public school students, as well as a law mandating employers to pay their workers on a weekly basis. However, he declined to seek a fourth term in the 1886 election, and retired from politics. He returned to his private law practice, and his work included several high-profile cases. Most notably, he was one of the defense attorneys for Lizzie Borden, the Fall River who was tried, and ultimately acquitted, for the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother.

George Robinson’s first wife, Hannah Stevens, died in 1864. Three years later, he remarried to Susan Simonds, and by the time they moved into this house in they late 1870s they had one child, Annie, plus George’s son from his first marriage, Walter. George and Susan were still living here when the first photo was taken in the early 1890s, and he would remain here until his death in 1896. Susan was still living here during the 1900 census, along with her sister Caroline, but she later moved to Springfield, where she died in 1909.

In 1917, this house was sold to the Roman Catholic Church, becoming the rectory for the Assumption Church, a predominantly French-Canadian parish that served some of the many factory workers who had immigrated to Chicopee from Quebec. About five years later, a new church building was completed just to the north of the house, on the right side of the photo, and both it and the rectory remain in use today.

Nearly 150 years after it was built, Governor Robinson’s former house remains as one of the finest 19th century homes in Chicopee, and has been well-preserved over the years. There have been a few minor changes since the first photo was taken, such as the small one-story addition on the left side, but overall it remains in excellent condition, all the way down to fine details such as the iron balustrades on the roof. Today, both the house and the Assumption Church form part of the Springfield Street Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Chicopee, Mass

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The Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, seen from the corner of South and Springfield Streets in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The church in 2017:

During the mid-19th century, Chicopee began to develop into a major industrial center, with factories located along the Chicopee River at Chicopee Falls and further downstream here in the center of town. With the factories came immigrant workers, starting with the Irish and followed in later years by French-Canadians and Poles. Primarily Roman Catholic, these immigrants brought significant cultural changes to the Connecticut River Valley, which had been predominantly Congregationalist and almost exclusively Protestant until this point.

The Church of the Holy Name of Jesus was one of the first Roman Catholic churches in the area, and was built between 1857 and 1859, just to the south of the center of Chicopee. Its Gothic-style design was the work of Patrick Keely, an Irish-born architect who designed nearly 600 Catholic churches across the United States and Canada, including St. Michael’s Cathedral in nearby Springfield. Along with the church itself, the property also included the rectory, which was built around the same time and can be seen in the left center of the photo. This was followed in the late 1860s by a school for girls and a convent, and in 1881 by a school for boys, all of which were located on the opposite side of the church.

By the time the first photo was taken, around the early 1890s, both the Irish and French-Canadian immigrant groups were well-established in the area, and Polish immigrants had just started to arrive in large numbers. Primarily Catholic, many of them joined this church, and the parish records showed that Polish families accounted for nearly 30 percent of the baptisms and more than half of the marriages here at the church between 1888 and 1890. However, the Polish community soon formed a church of their own, establishing the St. Stanislaus parish in 1890 and dedicating its first building in 1895.

Around 125 years after the first photo was taken, the church is still standing, along with the rectory. although they are mostly hidden by trees in this view. The only significant change to the church over the years has been the steeple, which was struck by lightning and was replaced by the current copper spire in 1910. However, the church has been closed and boarded-up since 2011, when a renovation project uncovered deteriorating masonry and significant termite damage. The following year, the Holy Name School was closed amid declining enrollment, and in 2015 the school buildings and the convent were demolished. The church itself was not part of the demolition plan, although it remains vacant and its future seems uncertain.

Veranus Casino, Chicopee, Mass

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The Veranus Casino, at the southwest corner of Springfield Street and Casino Avenue in Chicopee, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

This section of Chicopee was developed in the late 19th century by Frank E. Tuttle and James L. Humphrey, who had purchased 50 acres of land between Springfield and Hampden Streets, just to the south of the center of Chicopee. The development was named Veranus, in honor of Veranus Chapin, who had once owned a farm here, and the centerpiece of this new neighborhood was the Veranus Casino, which was located here at the corner of Springfield Street and Casino Avenue.

The Queen Anne-style casino building was completed in the early 1890s, right around the time that the first photo was taken. It was operated by the Veranus Casino Company, with Frank E. Tuttle as vice president and his father-in-law, George M. Stearns, as president. Unlike the modern sense of the word, a late 19th century “casino” did not generally involve gambling, and the term was instead used for places that offered a variety of recreational activities. As described in the Boston Daily Globe after the company was established in 1890, the casino would be used for “social, literary, artistic, and educational purposes,” and upon completion the building would include a 400-seat auditorium.

The book Picturesque Hampden, published in 1892, includes a lengthy account of the Veranus neighborhood, and describes the casino as “a combination of theater and clubhouse, pleasantly located on Springfield street. It is tastefully and substantially built, in the modern style of architecture, from original designs by F. E. Tuttle, which were perfected by architect F. R. Richmond of Springfield.” The book then describes the interior of the building:

The clubrooms are located in the front portion of the building. They consist of handsome and roomy parlors, one each on the two first floors, both being connected with the kitchen in the basement by a dumb-waiter; a ladies’ dressing-room on the second floor; a gentlemen’s smoking-room and a billiard-room on the third. All of these rooms are attractively finished and adorned with rich and tasteful furniture, in which comfort is the evident consideration, instead of magnificence and costliness. The clubrooms are open to members every day in the year, from 10 a. m. to 10 p. m., and are in charge of a gentleman and lady who reside in the building. On Wednesday evening of each week, special receptions are held here by the club families and their children, and on Sunday evenings they all gather here to sing sacred songs, a piano and psalm books being provided. Harmless amusements are also to be found in the rooms at all times, and light refreshments are served therein to all members and their immediate friends who may desire.

Despite such fanfare, though, the Veranus Casino lasted for barely two decades. In 1913, the same year that Frank Tuttle died, the casino was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, and the property appears to have subsequently become part of Elms College, which is located across the street from here. The fate of the building seems unclear, although according to the city assessor’s office the current house on the site was built in 1926. If accurate, this would suggest that the casino was probably demolished around this time.