National Register of Historic Places

The townhouses at 76-78 Maple Street, at the corner of Park Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This double townhouse was built in 1879 at the corner of Maple and Park Streets, directly adjacent to a block of three townhouses to the left, which were built almost a decade earlier. Architecturally, the two groups of townhouses have similar Second Empire-style architecture, although the 1879 homes show the beginnings of the more elaborate Stick and Queen Anne styles, which would become dominant in the 1880s. These two homes were originally owned by Seth Hunt, who lived in the more desirable house on the right at the corner, and his son David, who lived in the house on the left.

Born in Northampton in 1814, Seth Hunt was a longtime employee of the Connecticut River Railroad, and served as the company’s treasurer from 1858 until his death in 1893. Aside from his work on an actual railroad, though, Hunt was also an abolitionist who was active in the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War. He lived in Northampton at the time, and used his house to help shelter runaway slaves. During this time, he had friendships with some of the country’s leading abolitionists, including Henry Ward Beecher, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth.

Seth and his wife Juliet moved from Northampton to Springfield after this house was completed, and they lived here until their deaths in the summer of 1893, only six weeks apart from each other. In the meantime, in the early 1880s their son David and his wife Grace lived in the house next door on the right side, and he worked with his father as assistant treasurer of the Connecticut Valley Railroad. However, later in the 1880s the city directories show David living with his parents on the right side.

By the late 1880s, the house on the left was the home of Maria Browne, a writer and retired teacher who was about 70 at the time. Born in Northampton, she grew up in Templeton, Massachusetts, and graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1840. She subsequently moved to New York City, where she worked as a teacher while also writing magazine and newspaper articles as well as short books. Her writings included moral stories for children, and in 1866 the book The Female Prose Writers of America described her, with regards to her writing, as being “playful, pathetic, serious, earnest, full of life and intensity, never prosaic, never tedious, never common-place, deeply imbued with the religious, largely read in that school of sensibility which enables her to sympathize with all forms of human sorrow and suffering; her writings, consequently, find their way directly to the heart and bosom of the reader.”

Browne never married, and she lived here in this house from around the late 1880s until her death in 1908 at the age of 89. Two years later, the house was still owned by her heirs, who rented it to real estate broker Henry F. Waters, his wife Frances, and their young daughter, who was also named Frances. During that same time, the house on the right was owned by physician Ralph B. Ober, who lived here with his newlywed wife Eleanor. Dr. Ober was a 1901 graduate of Harvard Medical School, and he began practicing medicine here in Springfield in 1904. By the early 1910s, he was a assistant medical director for Massachusetts Mutual, an assitant surgeon at Springfield Hospital, and president of the Springfield Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis.

The Obers had two children, Frederick and Mary, and they were still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s. In the meantime, though, most of the nearby townhouses, including the house on left, had become lodging houses in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1930 census, the lodging house was run by Harry A. Engel, who rented it for $85 a month and, in turn, rented rooms to six different families with a total of 19 people. A decade later, shortly after the first photo was taken, it was still a lodging house, although by this point it was being run by Orelina Menard, who had only seven lodgers here.

Ralph Ober died in 1945, but Eleanor continued to live here until her death in 1972, at the age of 86. Just four years later, the house became part of the Maple-Union Corners Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, and very little has changed in this scene since then. The only major difference between the two photos is the house in the distance on the far right. Completed in 1899 as the home of firearms manufacturer Daniel B. Wesson, it was later used as the clubhouse of the Colony Club, until it burned down in 1966. A medical office building, visible on the right side, now stands on the site.

The townhouses at 80-82 Maple Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The houses in 2017:

These three Second Empire-style townhouses were built in 1870, at the corner of Maple and Union Streets. They were constructed by local builder Abel Howe, and they originally had a fairly uniform appearance, although two of the three have since been significantly altered. As mentioned in the previous post, the house on the left was the home of Edmund D. Chapin, the longtime cashier and eventual president of the John Hancock National Bank. During the 19th century, the other two houses had similar upper middle class residents, including Dr. David F. Atwater, who lived in the house in the middle, and insurance clerk and real estate agent Frank H. Fuller, who lived in the house on the right.

David F. Atwater was born in 1817 in North Branford, Connecticut, and was the younger brother of George M. Atwater, who established Springfield’s streetcar system. David attended Yale, earning his undergraduate degree in 1839 and his medical degree in 1842, and he practiced medicine in Brooklyn and in Bridgeport before moving to Springfield. He and his wife Sarah were living here at 82 Maple Street by about 1883, and they lived here for the rest of their lives. Sarah died in 1910, and David in 1916, at the age of 98. Prior to his death, David was the oldest living Yale graduate, and he was also the last living Yale graduate from the 1830s. His name still lives on today in Camp Atwater in North Brookfield, a summer camp that was named in his honor after his daughter Mary donated $25,000 in 1926.

In the meantime, the house on the right at 80 Maple Street was the home of Frank H. Fuller, who was living here with his wife Elizabeth and their daughter Grace by the mid-1870s. He worked for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, first as a clerk and later as a real estate agent, and he was responsible for the development of the Fuller Block, which still stands at the corner of Main and Bridge Streets.

By the early 20th century, many of the upscale townhouses in Springfield had been converted into lodging houses, including the homes on the right and the left here. During the 1920 census, for example, 80 Maple was rented by a family of four, who in turn rented rooms to nine lodgers, mostly single factory workers. A decade later, during the 1930 census, the house had a similar number of tenants, although most of them were married couples.

Of the three houses, the one in the middle at 82 Maple remained a single-family home for the longest. Daniel Atwater’s daughter Mary continued living here until her death in 1927, and by the end of the decade the house was being rented by John E. Hummel, who lived here with his wife Agnes, their two children, and Agnes’s sister Delia. They also rented rooms to several lodgers, and the 1930 census shows John’s occupation as being a lodging house keeper. However, John was also a retired Major League Baseball player who played second base and outfield for the Brooklyn Superbas and Robins from 1905 to 1915, and the Yankees in 1918. He also played minor league baseball for several years, including here in Springfield in 1922, but he had retired from baseball by the time he and his family moved into this house.

By the time the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, John Hummel and his family were still living in the house in the middle. The 1940 census shows them paying $50 per month in rent, with John working as a foreman for a match factory, earning $1,440 per year. Their daughter Joan, 22 years old at the time, was also employed, working as a clerk in a department store. A few years later, though, the family left this house and moved to Oswego Street and then to Sumner Avenue, where they lived until John’s death in 1959.

In the 80 years since the first photo was taken, both of the houses on the left have been dramatically altered. The third floor of 84 Maple was removed in the mid-1940s, and at some point the entire facade of 82 Maple was replaced, including a new front door in the basement level. Only 80 Maple on the right has remained relatively unchanged, and today it continues to be used as a private residence. Despite the changes, though, all three houses are still historically significant, and they are now part of the Maple-Union Corners Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The house at 84 Maple Street, at the corner of Union Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house is one of three adjacent brick townhouses that were built in 1870, at the corner of Maple and Union Streets. When completed, all three had mostly identical Second Empire-style designs, and they were constructed by local builder Abel Howe. This house, at 84 Maple Street, was originally the home of Edmund D. Chapin, a banker who had worked as cashier of Springfield’s John Hancock National Bank since its establishment in 1850. He and his wife were in their mid-50s when the house was built, and they lived here for the rest of their lives. In 1890, after working as the cashier of the bank for 40 years, he became the president, and he held this position into the 20th century, when he was in his early 90s.

Chapin died in 1907, at the age of 93, and the house appears to have been vacant for several years. Like many of the city’s other elegant 19th century townhouses, it became a lodging house in the mid-1910s, with city directories of the period showing a number of different residents living here, typically for no more than a year or two. By the early 1920s, though, it had become a single-family home again, and was owned by John J. Kennedy, a dentist who had his office here in the house. He was living here as early as 1922, and he was still here during the 1930 census, along with his wife Loretta and their daughters, Catherine and Mary.

However, around the time that the first photo was taken, the house again reverted to being a lodging house. During the 1940 census, it was being rented by Adolph and Ida Samson for $50 a month. They, in turn, rented rooms to lodgers, with the census showing 14 lodgers living here. Most of the lodgers were young, single people who worked in local factories, although there was one married couple here, although with a young widowed mother with her two young children. According to the incomes that were listed on the census, nearly all of the lodgers earned under $1,000 a year (under $18,000 today), with the one exception being 27-year-old John Minney, who earned $1,092 as an assembler at a toy factory, presumably the nearby Milton Bradley factory.

Nearly 80 years later, all three of these townhouses are still standing, although both 82 and 84 Maple have both been heavily altered. In the mid-1940s, only a few years after the first photo was taken, the third floor of 84 Maple was removed, along with the original front entrance. The bay window on the left side has also been removed, although the house retains its original brick exterior, unlike the house to the right at 82 Maple. Despite these changes, though, all three of these townhouses are contributing properties in the Maple-Union Corners Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.