National Register of Historic Places

William M. Hoag House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 152 Westminster Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This Queen Anne-style house in the McKnight neighborhood was built in 1888 for William and Mary Hoag, a couple in their late 50s who had previously lived nearby on Saint James Avenue. William was variously listed as a contractor, carpenter, and builder, and he likely found plenty of work here in McKnight, which was seeing large-scale development in the 1880s. He and Mary lived here for about a decade, but Mary died in 1898, and by 1900 William had moved to the house nearby at 112 Westminster Street.

During the 1900 census, this house still owned by Hoag, but was being used as a rental property. James Dunbar, who worked as a freight agent, lived here with his wife Minnie, their son Risley, and Minnie’s parents. However, the house was later sold to Samuel C. Hall, a local shoe manufacturer. A widower, he lived here with his brother James and James’s wife Mary. Samuel died in 1917, but James and Mary remained here for many years, with James working as a traveling salesman.

The first photo was taken a year or two after Mary’s death in 1937, but James was still living here at the time, and he remained here until his death in 1943. At some point soon after, the exterior of the house was remodeled, with asphalt shingles replacing the original clapboards. However, the exterior has since been restored, and today the only noticeable difference between the two photos is the loss of the house next door at 162 Westminster, which burned down in 1966.

William L. Richards House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 166 Westminster Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1894 as part of the late 19th century development of the McKnight neighborhood. By 1899, it was owned by William and Marion Richards, who were in their mid-30s at the time. Like many of the other McKnight residents of the era, William was a middle class professional, working as an insurance agent for a life insurance company, probably Mass Mutual. He and Marion owned the house for many years, and they also lived here with William’s mother, Phebe. His father, who was also named William, had been killed in action in 1864 during the Civil War, leaving Phebe with two young children to raise. After William and Marion purchased this house, Phebe moved in with them, and lived here until her death in 1916.

William and Marion lived here until the late 1920s, and sold the house in 1931 to Arthur and Clarissa Sedgwick. A retired Congregational minister, Arthur was originally from Lenox, Massachusetts, but later went on to serve churches in Iowa and Virginia. He and Clarissa were still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and he remained here until his death in 1948. Clarissa later moved to Pennsylvania, and sold the house in 1957. Since then, the exterior of the house has seen some changes, but it still stands as one of the many 19th century homes that form the McKnight Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Charles W. Hutchins House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 32 Dartmouth Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1887 for Charles W. Hutchins, a musical instrument manufacturer who was originally from Greenfield. He lived here with his wife Carrie, and they also had a one-year-old daughter, also named Carrie. Another daughter, Myra, was born around the same time that they moved into this house, and two years later they had twin boys, Frederick and Charles. However, the infant Charles died just a month later, and tragedy struck the household again in 1894, when Carrie died of tuberculosis at the age of 34. Soon after, Charles moved out and he sold the house, although he remained in Springfield, where he established the Hutchins Manufacturing Company in 1896.

The house appears to have been vacant during the 1900 census, but by 1910 it was owned by Martha Brewster, an elderly widow. She lived here with her daughter, Lulu Shattuck, Lulu’s husband Frank, and their two children, along with a servant. However, Lulu died in 1912, and Martha died just five months later. Frank, who worked as a traveling salesman, sold the house in 1914 to Charles L. Combs, a 51 year old retired farmer from Warren, Massachusetts.

That same year, Charles married for the first time, to 21 year old Grace D. Gould, who was also from Warren. The 30-year age difference undoubtedly raised some eyebrows, but the match was even more curious given that Grace had previously been employed as Charles’s servant. Presumably even more eyebrows were raised later in 1914, when their first child was born just six months after their marriage.

Charles lived here in this house until his death in 1934, and Grace was still living here later in the decade when the first photo was taken. She sold the house around 1940, and at some point afterwards the wooden clapboards were replaced with asbestos shingles. Many of the original Queen Anne-style details were lost in the process, although some of the ornamentation remains, including on the front porch. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, the house is now part of the McKnight Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Third Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston

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The Third Harrison Gray Otis House, at 45 Beacon Street in Boston, around 1860. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library

The house in 2017:


Harrison Gray Otis was a lawyer and politician, and one of the most prominent residents of Boston at the turn of the 19th century. Born in 1765 as a member of the prominent Otis family, he was a young boy when his uncle James became one of the leading anti-British patriots in the years leading up to the American Revolution. After graduating from Harvard in 1783, Harrison subsequently opened his law practice in Boston, and in 1796 he was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. That same year, he was elected to Congress, and served two terms from 1797 to 1801.

Otis would go on to serve in the state legislature from 1802 to 1817, and was elected to a term in the U.S. Senate from 1817 to 1822. A few years later, he finished his political career by serving as mayor of Boston from 1829 to 1832. However, despite his extensive political career, his greatest legacy in Boston has probably been his three houses on Beacon Hill, all of which are still standing today as some of the finest examples of residential Federal architecture in the country.

All three of his houses were designed by Charles Bulfinch, one of the nation’s most prominent architects of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first house, completed in 1796, was built on Cambridge Street, but Otis only lived here for a few years before moving in 1800, to another new house on Mount Vernon Street, near the top of Beacon Hill. He did not live there for very long either, though, because his third house, seen here on Beacon Street, was completed in 1808.

When the house was completed, Beacon Hill was just starting to be developed as an upscale neighborhood for Boston’s elite, and Otis’s house occupied one of the most desirable spots, directly across from Boston Common. Although most of the houses here are townhouses, his was originally built as a freestanding home, with gardens to the right and behind it, and a driveway to the left. The house itself is considered to have been one of Charles Bulfinch’s finest works, and Otis was evidently satisfied with it, because he lived here until his death 40 years later in 1848.

Otis’s political career peaked during the time that he lived here, and this house saw several distinguished guests, including James Monroe, who stayed here during a visit to Boston in 1817, as well as Senator Henry Clay. With Beacon Hill becoming the city’s most desirable and exclusive neighborhood, though, property values rose to the point where Otis could no longer justifying having large gardens around his house. So, in 1831 he sold a 25-foot wide section of his garden to his neighbor, David Sears, who built an addition to his own house. This granite townhouse, which can be partially seen on the far right, was built for his daughter Anna and her husband William Amory, who was a prominent textile manufacturer. Two years later, Otis filled in the gap between the two houses by building 44 Beacon Street, directly adjacent to his own house, for his daughter Sophia and her husband, Andrew Ritchie.

By the time Harrison Gray Otis died in 1848, his formerly freestanding home had been mostly incorporated into the streetscape of Beacon Street. The only remnant of the gardens that once surrounded his home is the driveway on the left, which leads to a carriage house in the backyard. A rarity in Beacon Hill, this driveway is the only break in an otherwise continuous row of houses on Beacon Street between Walnut and Spruce Streets. When the first photo was taken about 12 years after his death, the house and its surroundings had already assumed its present-day appearance, and there is hardly any difference despite being taken over 150 years apart.

When the first photo was taken, the house was owned by brothers Samuel and Edward Austin, both of whom were merchants. Neither brother ever married, and after Samuel’s death, Edward continued to live here for many years, until his own death in 1898 at the age of 95. The property changed hands several more times in the first half of the 20th century, and by 1940 it was owned by the Boy Scouts, who used it as offices until 1954. Since 1958, it has been owned by the American Meteorological Society, and it is used as the organization’s headquarters. During this time, the interior was significantly renovated, but the exterior of the house has remained well-preserved, and it still stands as one of the finest homes in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Henry B. Service House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 17 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1896 for Henry B. Service, a bookkeeper who worked at the Springfield Envelope Company. He presumably purchased the house with his upcoming wedding in mind, because early the next year he married Alice M. Mullins, who worked as a dressmaker. The couple lived here in this house for about five years, and at some point Henry began working as a bookkeeper for a local fruit and produce company. However, he left this position during the summer of 1902, and evidently began using less scrupulous means of making money.

In late August, 1902, Henry was discovered to have swindled $6,000 from four Springfield banks by cashing checks with the forged signatures of two prominent Springfield men, Frederick C. Bill and W. C. Taylor. The forgeries were done so well that even these two had initially believed that the signatures were authentic, and the fraud was only discovered after closer examination. According to some newspaper accounts, Alice was also involved in the forgery, and was described as being critically ill as a result of the discovery.

Henry, however, fled the city before he could be arrested. It seems unclear whether Alice joined him, but Henry made his way to Santa Ana, California. Using the alias of M. B. Maynard, he began working for a water company, where he was soon charged with forging receipts. Fleeing again in late 1903, he made it as far as Ogden, Utah, where he was arrested, returned to California, and convicted of forgery. Alice, in the meantime, appears to have avoided prosecution, and by the 1910 census she was living in a different house in Springfield with her mother and several of her siblings.

Following Henry’s hasty departure from Springfield, his house was sold, and by 1910 it was owned by Joseph N. Herrick, who lived here with his wife Eleanor, their daughter Ada, and Joseph’s aunt Caroline. Joseph died sometime before the next census, though, and by 1920 Eleanor and Ada were living elsewhere in Forest Park. In the meantime, this house was purchased by Clarence Bacon, the treasurer and co-founder of the Bacon and Donnovan Engine Company, which manufactured agricultural machinery. In 1920, he was 51 years old, and he was living here with his wife Rose and their three teenaged children, Doris, Rosalind, and Norval.

The revolving door of residents in this house continued by the 1930 census, when it was being rented to insurance agent Oliver Heyman, his wife Susan, and their four children. Originally from West Virginia, Heyman was general agent for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and he lived here until sometime around the time when the first photo was taken. However, it was then sold again, to Thomas W. McCarthy, a salesman who lived here with his elderly parents, his sister, and his sister’s husband.

In the nearly 80 years since the first photo was taken, there have been a few changes to the house. Like many of the other homes in Forest Park, the decorative balustrade over the front porch is long gone, but the most significant change is the asbestos siding, which replaced the original wood clapboards in the mid-20th century. However, the overall appearance of the house has not changed significantly, and along with the rest of the neighborhood it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Thornton W. Burgess House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 61 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1896 on the street that was, at the time, named Hawthorne Place. Soon renamed Jackson Street and then Washington Road, it was one of the many new roads in the Forest Park Heights development, which was transforming a sparsely-settled section of the city into an upscale residential neighborhood. The first owner of this house was Faxon E. Nichols, a bookkeeper who purchased the property when he was in his early 20s, around the same time that he married his wife, Nellie. By the 1900 census, they were living here with another couple, William and Rose Baird, while also renting space to two young boarders.

Within a few years, the Nichols family had moved elsewhere in Forest Park, and this house was sold to Thornton W. Burgess, a 31-year-old editor who would go on to become a prominent children’s author. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess came to Springfield as a young man in the 1890s, where he became an assistant editor at the Phelps Publishing Company. For a time, he and his mother Frances were lodgers at 10 Cornell Street, but in 1905 he married Nina Osborne and purchased this house. They lived here with Frances, and like the previous owners they also rented part of the house to another family. However, Nina died just a year later, at the age of 24, from complications after the birth of their only child, Thornton Jr.

It was here in this house that Burgess began creating bedtime stories for his son. He subsequently began writing down these stories, which formed the basis for many of his children’s books. The first of these, Old Mother West Wind, was published in 1910, and introduced the character of Peter Rabbit. Many more books followed, along with thousands of newspaper columns that he would write over he next 50 years. He lived in this house for nearly his entire literary career, until finally moving out in 1955. During this time, he was also active as a naturalist and conservationist, and these themes were frequently found throughout his stories.

In 1911, a year after his first book was published, he remarried to Fannie P. Johnson. She was also a widow, and she moved into this house with two children of her own. They were still living here more than 25 years later, when the first photo was taken, but by this point Thornton’s literary success had enabled him to purchase a second home in nearby Hampden. Built in the early 1780s, his Hampden house was already nearly 150 years old when he bought the property in 1925, and it served as his secondary home for many years. However, Fannie died in 1950, and later in the decade Thornton left this house in Springfield and moved to Hampden permanently, where he died in 1965 at the age of 91.

Coincidentally, Burgess is not the only world-renowned children’s author who lived in the Forest Park neighborhood. A year after Burgess purchased this house in 1905, two-year-old Theodor Geisel and his parents moved into a house about a half mile away from here, on Fairfied Street. The future Dr. Seuss was much younger than Burgess, and their writing careers would only partially overlap, but they did both live here in the Forest Park neighborhood until 1925, when Geisel left to enter college. Today, both houses are still standing, and are now contributing properties in the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.