James Scutt Dwight House, Springfield, Mass

The house at the northwest corner of State and Dwight Streets in Springfield, around 1893. Image from Sketches of the old inhabitants and other citizens of old Springfield (1893).

The scene in 2018:

This house was probably built at some point around the 1790s, as evidenced by distinctive Federal-style architectural details, such as the Palladian window over the front door and the fanlight window. It was the home of merchant James Scutt Dwight, and it may have been completed around the same time as his 1794 marriage to Mary Sanford. Dwight was from one of Springfield’s most prosperous families of the period. His father, Jonathan Dwight, had come to Springfield in 1753 as a young boy, where he worked at the store of his cousin, Josiah Dwight. He subsequently became a partner in this merchant business, and in 1790 his son James Scutt Dwight also became a partner.

At the time, the Dwight family owned much of the land along this section of State Street to the east of Main Street. Their store was located at the northeast corner of Main and State Streets, and many of their homes were built on State Street. By the early 19th century, the Dwights had also become the leading force behind the new Unitarian church, which separated from the First Church in 1819. That same year, the Unitarians constructed a new church building here on State Street, with Jonathan Dwight donating both the land and the building itself.

In the meantime, James Scutt Dwight remained actively involved in the family business. He and his brother Henry took over the company after their father’s retirement in 1803, and after Henry left in 1809, James carried on with his brothers Edmund and Jonathan, Jr. Although headquartered here in Springfield, the Dwights had a store in Boston, and they also had branches in Belchertown, Chester, Huntington, Greenfield, Northampton, South Hadley, Westfield, and in Enfield, Connecticut. However, James died in 1822, at the age of 52, and the firm was subsequently reconstituted as Day, Brewer & Dwight, with James’s son, James Sanford Dwight, as one of the partners.

James Scutt Dwight lived here in this house throughout this time, and he and his wife Mary raised 12 children here. She continued to live here after his death, and on May 6, 1834 the house was the scene of a double wedding ceremony involving two of their daughters. Lucy Dwight married William W. Orne, and Delia Dwight married Homer Foot, the merchant who had acquired the Dwight business after James Sanford Dwight’s untimely death in 1831. The ceremony was performed by William B. O. Peabody, the longtime pastor of the Unitarian church.

At some point in the late 1830s or early 1840s, this house was sold to Jemima Kingsbury, the widow of Dr. Samuel Kingsbury. She died in 1846, but the property remained in her family until at least the early 1850s. At some point around the mid-19th century, her son-in-law, William B. Calhoun, constructed an ell on the right side of the building to house his law office. Calhoun was a prominent politician, and he held a number of state and local offices, including speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, president of the Massachusetts Senate, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and mayor of Springfield, in addition to serving four terms in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1835 to 1843.

By the second half of the 19th century, this section of State Street was no longer the same desirable residential area that it had been when the Dwights lived here. As the city’s population steadily grew, and as the downtown business area expanded, affluent families moved to newly-developed neighborhoods further from downtown. Many historic 18th century homes were demolished in the post-Civil War era, while others – including this house – were converted into commercial use. By 1870, it had become a boarding house, and around 1880 the ground floor was altered with the addition of one-story storefronts, as shown in the first photo. Over the next decade or so, its tenants would include George E. Jordan’s meat market on the left side, and the State Street Fruit Store on the right side, at the corner of Dwight Street.

The first photo was taken around 1893, when the house was probably about a hundred years old. However, it was demolished only about a year later, in order to make room for a new YMCA building, which was completed here on this site in 1895. This building later became the Hotel Victoria, and it stood here until 1969, when it too was demolished, as part of the construction of the Civic Center. The Civic Center has since undergone renovations, and it is now known as the MassMutual Center, but it is still standing here on this site, filling the entire block between Main and Dwight Streets. Today, there is nothing that survives from the first photo except for Dwight Street itself, which serves as a reminder of the family that dominated Springfield’s economy two centuries ago.

Union Station, Springfield, Mass (2)

The old Union Station in Springfield, seen from near the corner of Lyman and Chestnut Streets around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2018:

The first photo shows Union Station as it appeared about 10 to 20 years after its completion, as seen looking west from near Chestnut Street. The photo in a previous post shows the south side of the station from Lyman Street, but this view provides a more elevated look at the station, showing both the north and south sides, along with the platforms in between. Further in the distance, beyond the station on Main Street, are two of the city’s leading hotels: the Massasoit House on the far left at the end of Lyman Street, and Cooley’s Hotel, which can be seen in the center of the photo.

This area has been the site of Springfield’s primary railroad station since 1839, when the Western Railroad arrived, linking Springfield with Worcester and Boston. The original station, which was located on the west side of Main Street, burned in 1851, and the following year it was replaced by a brick and iron, shed-like station on the same spot. This station served for most of the second half of the 19th century, but it began to cause problems as the city grew in population and as rail traffic increased. Because the station was located at street level, trains had to cross directly over Main Street, leading to significant delays for traffic on the street. The station itself was also becoming insufficient for the number of trains that passed through here, and by the late 1860s there were already calls for a new station and elevated tracks through downtown Springfield.

In 1869, the state legislature authorized such a project, but it would take another 20 years before it was actually finished, thanks to an impasse between the city government and the Boston & Albany Railroad, which was the successor to the old Western Railroad. This dispute centered around which side was responsible for paying to raise the tracks and lower the grade of Main Street, and it ultimately did not get resolved until 1888, when the railroad agreed to spend around $200,000 to raise the tracks, while the city would spend about $84,000 to lower Main Street by four feet.

This compromise enabled the station project to move forward, and the old station was demolished in the spring of 1889. The new one was completed in July, and it was located on the east side of Main Street, which provided more room for the station. It featured a Romanesque Revival-style design, and the original plans had been the work of noted architect Henry H. Richardson, who designed many of the stations along the Boston & Albany Railroad. He died in 1886, though, and his successor firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge subsequently modified the plans for the Springfield station.

One of these changes proved to be a serious design flaw. Richardson had intended for a single station building, located on the south side, with a large train shed over the tracks. However, the Connecticut River Railroad, which would share the union station with the Boston & Albany and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroads, objected to this plan, wanting a separate building on the north side. As a result, the finished station consisted of two buildings, each with its own ticket offices and waiting rooms, and four tracks in between them. The smaller northern building, on the right side of this scene, served northbound and westbound travelers, while the larger building on the south side was for those heading southbound and eastbound.

Within less than 20 years, this design was already causing problems as Springfield continued to grow. Having two different station buildings was an inefficient use of space, since it meant redundant facilities such as the waiting rooms. This was also a source of confusion for passengers, who would sometimes find themselves at the wrong ticket office or platform. In addition, the two buildings prevented the railroads from adding new tracks, since the space in between was already filled with four tracks and three platforms.

Aside from practical considerations, the architecture of the building was also obsolete by the early 20th century. Romanesque Revival had been widely popular during the last two decades of the 19th century, particularly for public buildings, and railroad stations were seen as important architectural showcases. They were usually the first thing that a traveler saw in a particular city, so any self-respecting city need a monumental station, in order to give a good first impression to visitors. This may have been the case for Union Station in the 1890s, but Romanesque Revival had fallen out of favor by the next decade, and the new generation of iconic railroad stations – such as Grand Central and Penn Station – began to feature classically-inspired Beaux-Arts designs.

As early as 1906, it was evident that the station was inadequate. That year, the Springfield Republican published an article on the city’s numerous railroad-related problems, observing that “[t]he most important problem as far as the safety and convenience of the public is concerned is the rebuilding of the union station.” In 1921, the newspaper was even more explicit, remarking on how “there seems to be, in fact, a nearly unanimous demand that the structure be cast to the scrapheap,” and four years later it declared that the station was “long execrated for its combination of discomfort, dinginess and danger.”

The station’s demise was hastened by a November 1922 fire that caused about $25,000 in damage to the north building. The fire was considered to be suspicious, but its origins were unclear, with the railroad superintendent simply telling the Republican, “your guess is as good as mine.” The city’s fire chief declared that he found no evidence of arson, although he did not actually inspect the cellar beneath the waiting room, where the fire had apparently started. There were no injuries, and most of the valuables, including mail, packages, and cash, were safely removed by railroad employees and by an off-duty police officer.

Within less than a month of the fire, the railroad had approved the plans for a new station. This replacement would be in approximately the same location, but the entire station would be located on the north side of the tracks. It would be connected to Lyman Street on the south side by way of a tunnel beneath the tracks, and this tunnel would also provide access to the platforms, avoiding the dangers of passengers crossing directly over the busy tracks. Perhaps most significantly, the number of tracks would be increased from four to 11, reducing congestion and delays on the railroad.

Demolition on the old station began in 1925, just 36 years after it was built, and the new Union Station opened the following year. It would remain in use for the next few decades, but passenger rail began to experience a significant decline throughout the country during the post-World War II era. With passenger trains becoming unprofitable for railroads to operate, Amtrak ultimately took control of the country’s passenger rail services in 1971. Two years later, most of Union Station was closed except for the Lyman Street entrance, and a small Amtrak station was built on the south side of the tracks.

Union Station sat empty for many years, and only one of the old station platforms was used for passenger service. However, the building underwent a major restoration in the 2010s, reopening in 2017. It now features a ticket office, waiting area, and retail space in the concourse, along with office space on the upper levels, including the offices of the Peter Pan Bus Lines. Union Station is also the terminus for most of the city’s PVTA bus lines, with 18 bus berths just to the west of the station. In addition to this, the rail traffic here at the station has also increased. Along with a number of daily Amtrak trains, Union Station is also served by the Hartford Line, which opened in 2018 with commuter trains running from Springfield south to New Haven.

The 2018 photo shows this scene about a year after the station reopened. An Amtrak train is visible in the distant center of the photo, consisting of two passenger cars pulled by a P42DC diesel engine. This is the typical setup for most of the Springfield to New Haven Amtrak trains, and the rear car is a converted Metroliner cab car, which allows the train to be operated in either direction without turning the locomotive. Just to the right of the train is Platform C, which was the last part of the station’s renovation project. It was still unfinished when the first photo was taken, but this project – which upgraded the platform to modern accessibility requirements – was finished in January 2020, marking the end of Union Station’s restoration.

Day & Jobson Block, Springfield, Mass

The building at the northwest corner of Main and Cypress Streets in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The scene in 2018:

This three-story Italianate-style commercial block was built sometime around the 1850s, and it featured a distinctive faux-stone exterior that was actually made of wood. It was owned by Day & Jobson, a local lumber company that had a planing mill and lumber yard was located a few blocks away, at the corner of Liberty Street (present-day Frank B. Murray Street) and Chestnut Street. The building consisted of a mix of apartments on the upper floors, with retail space on the ground floor, and most of the early commercial tenants sold groceries.

During the late 1860s, there were at least four different stores on the ground floor. Starting on the left side of the building, at the corner of Cypress Street, was A.F. & H.L. Niles, which sold “Teas, Coffee, Butter, Lard, Fish” and other groceries. Right next door was Alonzo Camp, who described himself in the 1869 city directory as “Dealer in Choice Family Groceries and Provisions, Foreign and Domestic Fruits, &c.” Further to the right was John Fox, who specialized in butter and eggs, and to the right of him was butcher John L. Rice & Co., who is listed in the 1869 directory as “Dealer in Fresh and Salt Beef, Pork, Hams, Sausages, Tripe, Poultry, &c. Butter, Cheese, Eggs, Lard, West India Goods, and Family Groceries, and Vegetables of all kinds in their season.”

By about 1876, the corner store – which was numbered 196 Main Street at the time – had become a drugstore, operated by Daniel E. Keefe. He was later listed as a physician in city directories of the 1880s, but his office was still located here, and he also lived here in this building. However, by the early 1890s Dr. Keefe had moved his practice elsewhere, and this storefront was again used as a pharmacy, this time by T. Edward Masters. Over the next few years, several more druggists would occupy this space, including John J. Carmody and Hiram P. Comstock.

In 1912, this corner drugstore was acquired by Charles V. Ryan. A Springfield native, Ryan was born in 1872 as the son of Irish immigrants, and he went on to attend Cathedral High School and the Massachusetts School of Pharmacy. In 1895, when he was just 22 years old, he opened up his own drug store here in the North End, only a block north of this site. He remained there for the next 17 years before relocating to this building, where he would carry on the business for several more decades.

Ryan was still running the drugstore here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s. The photo also shows several other stores that were located in the building, including Paushter & Co. furriers and tailors, Becker’s Shoes, and the Lucille Dress Shop. Ryan died only a year or two later in 1940, at the age of 68, but his family carried on the business for many more years, starting with his son, Charles V. Ryan, Jr., and then his grandsons, Donald and Robert Ryan. Another grandson, also named Charles V. Ryan, was not directly involved in the drugstore business, but he had a successful political career, serving as mayor of Springfield from 1962 to 1967, and 2004 to 2008.

It was during Ryan’s first stint as mayor that the city’s North End underwent a major urban renewal project. Nearly every building along the Main Street corridor, between the railroad arch and Memorial Square, was demolished during the 1960s, and many of the streets themselves were altered or eliminated. This building was razed sometime around 1967, and the drugstore relocated across the street to the Northgate Center, where it remained until it was acquired by CVS in 1994.

In the meantime, the site of the old building was redeveloped as the new headquarters of the Springfield Union and Springfield Daily News, which opened around 1969. These newspapers subsequently merged to become the Union-News, and in the early 2000s it was renamed the Springfield Republican, reflecting the historical name of the newspaper. The Republican offices are still located here today, although the newspaper recently announced that it is looking to sell the property or lease some of the space to other businesses, since the building contains more office space than the newspaper needs at this point.

Smith Carriage Company, Springfield, Mass

The building at 14-38 Park Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The building in 2018:

The Smith Carriage Company dated back to 1827, when David Smith established a carriage shop here on Park Street. This became a family business, with his son William joining in 1856 and eventually purchasing it from his father in 1873. None of the early buildings are still standing, but today the factory complex consists of three buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The oldest of these, a three-story brick building that stands just to the west of this one, was constructed around 1890. The other two, which are substantially larger, stand on opposite sides of Park Street. The one at 11-31 Park Street was built in 1916, and this one here at 14-38 Park Street in 1924.

The company was still known as the Smith Carriage Company when these two buildings were added, but by this point the name was vestigial. Carriagemaking had all but disappeared with the advent of automobiles in the early 20th century, but the company adapted and began focusing on manufacturing auto bodies. Smith Carriage was part of a prosperous automobile industry here in Springfield during this period, which also included the Knox Automobile Company and a Rolls-Royce factory.

As the first photo shows, during the late 1930s the ground floor of this building housed Hedges-Sattler, a car dealership that sold DeSoto and Plymouth cars. Smith Carriage was still located here at the time, but by the early 1940s it had shifted its focus from auto body production to repair. In 1942, the company sold its body-making machinery, and around the same time the first floor was converted into offices, after Hedges-Sattler relocated to a new site on Columbus Avenue. An advertisement in the city directory, published several years later, described the company’s work here as “automobile body repairing painting upholstering and glass – fleet work our specialty – custom built seat covers.” However, this change evidently did not help the company, because it was out of business by the end of the 1940s.

Today, some 80 years after the first photo was taken, the company’s three former buildings on Park Street are still standing, and they now form the Smith Carriage Company District on the National Register of Historic Places. The oldest of these, at 12 Park Street, is now a health clinic, and the 1916 building on the other side of Park Street was converted into 32 apartments in the early 1980s. However, the building in these two photos has been vacant for many years, and it sustained some damage in the 2011 tornado that passed through the South End. More recently, this property has become the site of a proposed hotel, given its proximity to the new MGM casino. Demolition work began a few years ago, with the removal of the windows and the razing of the two-story section in the foreground. However, the rest of the building is still standing as of early 2020, and the future of the property seems unclear at this point.

18-20 School Street, Springfield, Mass

The house at 18-20 School Street, at the corner of Temple Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The scene in 2018:

This two-family, Second Empire-style home was constructed sometime around the 1860s, probably about the same time as an architecturally-similar house on nearby High Street. It appears on the 1870 city map, which shows Roderick Burt as the owner of the left side, and Charles W. Clark on the right. Both men had stores on Main Street, with Burt selling books, while Clark sold stationery. However, they apparently did not live here for very long, because by late 1870 they both resided in a house on Union Street.

The 1880 census shows that the left side, at 20 School Street, was the home of real estate agent Justin D. Parks, who lived here with his wife Hattie, their two children, his sister Lilla, and a servant. On the right side, at 18 School Street, was electrotyper Charles Van Vlack, his wife Mary, plus a son, three nieces, and a servant. Both of these families had also short stays here, though, because by the mid-1880s they were both living elsewhere.

Subsequent residents here included city auditor George H. Deane, who lived at 18 School Street in the late 1880s. However, by the 1890s both halves of the property had evidently been converted into boarding houses. According to city directories of this period, many of the boarders were railroad employees, but they also included Thomas M. Balliet, who lived here in 1892 and 1893. At the time, he was the superintendent of schools, and he later became the namesake of an elementary school and a middle school in the Pine Point neighborhood.

The 1900 census shows a total of 26 residents in this building. Most of the boarders were single young women, although there were several married couples here as well. Six of the residents were teachers, four were salespeople, three were bookkeepers, and other occupations included a tailor, a machinist, a jeweler, and a proofreader.

By the time the first photo was taken nearly 40 years later, the building was still in use as a boarding house. Its tenants still held a wide range of working-class jobs, with the 1940 census showing several teachers and clerks, plus a foreman, a watchman, a bartender, a bricklayer, and a machinist. Most of their salaries were around $1,000 per year (a little under $19,000 today), but they ranged from the bartender, who made just $276 in the previous year, to an art teacher, who made $2,408.

This house was still standing here until at least the late 1970s, but it was evidently demolished by the early 1980s. The lot has remained vacant ever since, along with the neighboring land to the right at 14 School Street. Both are now owned by Open Pantry Community Services, and the corner lot appears to be in use as a community garden, as shown in the 2018 photo.

Apollos Marsh House, Springfield, Mass

The house at 276 Union Street, at the corner of School Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2018:

This house was built around 1822, as the home of Apollos Marsh. He was in his late 20s at the time, and he moved in to the house within a few years after his 1819 marriage to Catharine Warner. The house was constructed by Simon Sanborn, a master builder who was responsible for many of Springfield’s early 19th century homes, although the exterior would have looked significantly different than its appearance in these two photos. Marsh would go on to become the first superintendent of Springfield Cemetery, a position that he held from 1841 until his death in 1869, but it seems unclear as to how long he lived here in this house. The 1835 map of Springfield shows that this property was owned by a Charles Ball, and the first Springfield directory, published in 1846, lists Marsh as living on Elm Street.

In the absence of street numbers during the mid-19th century, the subsequent ownership of this house is difficult to trace. However, by 1854 it was the home of Abijah W. Chapin, the city’s postmaster. He lived here with his wife Sarah, although she died in 1857 at the age of 39. The 1860 census shows him living here with his young sons Frederick and Edmund, and it lists the value of his real estate at $4,000, plus another $5,000 for his personal estate, for a combined total equivalent to about $260,000 today.

Chapin was still living here a decade later, and by then he had remarried to his second wife, Elizabeth, and had another child. No longer the postmaster, Chapin was instead an insurance agent in the firm of Chapin & Lee. His net worth had substantially increased during this period, with the 1870 census assessing his real estate at $40,000, and his personal estate at $7,000. Together, this was equivalent to nearly $1 million today. He and Elizabeth had one more child, who was born later in 1870, but within a few years the family would move out of this house and relocate to Deerfield, Massachusetts.

At some point in the 1850s, probably during Chapin’s ownership, this house underwent a major expansion with an addition to the rear. The third floor may have been added during this project as well; the Italianate-style rounded arches on the windows were almost certainly not part of the original 1822 design of the house, but they were fashionable by mid-century when this renovation occurred. The house was further expanded around the 1870s, with a narrow addition on the right side that brought the house almost all the way to the sidewalk on School Street.

By the mid-1870s, this house was owned by George H. Deane, a steam pump manufacturer in the firm of G. H. Deane & Co. The 1880 census shows him living here with his wife Maria, their children Charles and Isabella, Charles’s wife Mary, and two granddaughters, along with two servants. By this point, George had become the city auditor, but Charles was still involved in the family’s steam pump business. The Dean family would continue to live in this house until around 1885, and by the following year Charles was residing at 78 Maple Street, while George was at 18 School Street.

This house was subsequently owned by John A. Murphy, a partner in the stationery firm of Taylor, Nichols & Co. He was living here by the late 1880s, along with his wife Henrietta – who was known as Etta – and their daughter Ritta. He lived here for the rest of his life, until his death in 1915 at the age of 65. During this time, he had a successful career in the paper manufacturing business. Taylor, Nichols & Co. became the Murphy-Souther Company, and then he eventually purchased the entire business, which was renamed the John A. Murphy Company. In addition to this, he served on the city’s board of aldermen from 1889 to 1891, and he was the board’s president in 1891.

Following Murphy’s death, Ritta’s husband, Joseph L. Pitman, succeeded his father-in-law as president of John A. Murphy Company. During the 1920 census, they were living in a nearby house at 43 School Street, along with their daughter Henrietta and Ritta’s mother Etta. However, this house on Union Street remained in the family, and by 1922 they were all living here again. Etta Murphy died in 1934, but the Pitmans were still in this house when the first photo was taken about five years later. Joseph was still in the paper business, but by this point he was the president and treasurer of Colonial Papeteries Inc.

Ritta died in 1950, and Joseph in 1952, but their daughter Henrietta continued to live here for many years while working as a secretary for a patent and trademark law firm. Her husband, David E. Hoxie, died in 1973, and by the end of the decade she was retired. She sold the house in 1980, nearly a century after her grandfather had purchased it, and she moved to Vermont, where she died in 2004.

Today, the exterior of the house is not very different from its appearance when the first photo was taken some 80 years ago. At some point after the first photo was taken, the house was covered in asbestos siding, but this was removed during a 1980s restoration. Along with the other nearby homes, it is now part of the Lower Maple Local Historic District, and, at nearly 200 years old, it stands as one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city.