Month: February 2020

First Methodist Church, Westfield, Mass

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The First Methodist Church on Court Street, seen from Park Square in Westfield around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

The origins of Westfield’s Methodist church date back to 1794, when the first Methodist services were held in a village in the southwest corner of the town that came to be known as Mundale. The first Methodist church in the center of Westfield was constructed on Main Street in 1833, and it was followed a decade later by a new building at the northwest corner of Elm and School Streets. This one was used by the church for the next 33 years, and it actually still stands today, albeit in an almost unrecognizable condition.

In 1875, the church began construction on a new, much larger building, which was located on the south side of Court Street, just west of Park Square. The cornerstone was laid on June 3 of that year, in a ceremony that featured remarks by at least four former pastors of the church, including Jefferson Hascall, who had begun his pastorate here in Westfield back in 1829. Another was Mark Trafton, who had served as pastor for several different stints in the 1840s and early 1850s before being elected to a single term in Congress in 1854, as a member of the Know-Nothing Party.

According to an account that was published in the Springfield Republican, Trafton’s speech “was interrupted by a half-crazy woman, who wanted all to know “that Jesus didn’t order the building of that church, and Moses was the one to whom the stones were given.” However, she was escorted away by the police, and the ceremony continued. Trafton was followed by the singing of a hymn, and then a box was placed under the cornerstone. It contained newspapers, church member and donor lists, and other documents for posterity. The current pastor of the church, Dr. John Hanson Twombly, then said a few words before laying the cornerstone. Twombly had been pastor of the church more than two decades earlier, from 1851 to 1853, but he returned to Westfield in 1874, after having served as president of the University of Wisconsin for the previous three years.

The church took about 10 months to complete, and it was dedicated on April 4, 1876. Unlike its wooden, Greek Revival predecessor, this church building was constructed of brick, and it featured an ornate High Victorian Gothic-style exterior. As was typical for this style of church, its front façade was asymmetrical, with a shorter tower on the left side and a taller one on the right. It was built at a cost of $80,000, although it does not seem clear as to whether this was just for the building itself, or the furnishings as well. In either case, these furnishings included a new organ, which was presented to the church by the young people’s society, who purchased it for $7,000, or about $170,000 today.

Dr. Twombly was still the pastor of the church when this building was completed, and he gave brief remarks at the dedication ceremony. However, the keynote speaker of the day was Bishop Matthew Simpson of Philadelphia. He had risen to prominence during the Civil War, giving pro-Union speeches and even serving as a friend and advisor to Abraham Lincoln. He gave a eulogy at Lincoln’s funeral in Springfield, Illinois, and three years later he officiated the wedding of the president’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln. Here in Westfield, the well-known clergyman spoke for almost two hours to a crowd of about 1,500 people, and the Republican noted that his topics included “the progress and growing power of Christianity,” and that “he believed in building costly churches, and said that one church like the one he stood in did more for good morals than a dozen jails ,or a hundred policemen.”

The first photo shows the church about 15 years later, in the early 1890s. In the foreground of the photo is Park Square, and in the distance on the left side is the Morgan Block, a commercial building that was constructed in the late 1810s. In front of this building, and visible in between the trees of the first photo, is Westfield’s Civil War monument, which was dedicated in 1871 in memory of the 66 Westfield residents who died during the war. Further to the right, in the center of the photo, both the Morgan Block and the monument are dwarfed by the Methodist church, which would stand here as a prominent landmark in downtown Westfield for many years.

The church building remained in use for nearly a century, but it was ultimately demolished in 1967, and a new church was completed on this site a year later. The new building is much shorter than its predecessor, and its modernist architecture bears no resemblance to the Gothic style of the old building, but its design did incorporate several salvaged elements, including chandeliers and a window. Because of its shorter height, the church is barely visible from this angle in the present-day scene. Only the large cross atop the church is noticeable, and it can be seen just to the right of the Morgan Block, which remains largely unaltered since the first photo was taken some 125 years earlier.

Civil War Monument, Westfield, Mass

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The Civil War monument at Park Square in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

Westfield’s Civil War monument is located here at the southwest corner of Park Square, on a traffic island at the end of Court Street. It was an early work by noted sculptor Melzar Hunt Mosman, a native of Chicopee, Massachusetts. He was a Civil War veteran, and he went on to have a successful career, specializing in Civil War monuments during the late 19th century. This statue here in Westfield was dedicated on May 31, 1871, and it memorialized the 66 Westfield residents who died in the war. The model for the soldier atop the monument was Captain Andrew Campbell of Westfield, with whom Mosman had served in the 46th Regiment during the war.

The keynote speaker at the dedication ceremony was General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, a Civil War officer from New Jersey who had recently returned from a four-year stint as the U. S. Minister to Chile. In his speech, he praised the bravery and dedication of the soldiers from Massachusetts. He reminded the audience of the righteousness of the Union cause, while also denouncing the treason and atrocities of the Confederacy. In particular, he rebuked former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, declaring him to be “the arch-traitor who long since should have passed from a scaffold to an unhallowed grave.” At this point, the audience interrupted his speech with applause, and after he finished his thoughts on Davis, they responded with “great cheering,” according to the Springfield Republican account of the speech.

Aside from General Kilpatrick, the ceremony also included short speeches from Lieutenant Governor Joseph Tucker and three Civil War officers from Massachusetts: Brigadier General Henry Shaw Briggs of Pittsfield, Brevet Brigadier General William Sever Lincoln of Worcester, and Colonel Joseph B. Parsons of Northampton. Reverend Henry Hopkins, a Civil War chaplain who served as pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Westfield, gave the opening prayer and also read a poem. The ceremony was presided over by District Attorney Edward Bates Gillett, who made brief opening remarks and later introduced Mosman to the crowd after the statue was unveiled.

The first photo was taken about 20 years later, at a time when the Civil War was still within the living memory of many Westfield residents. It shows the view of the statue from the north, and in the background of the photo is the Morgan Block. This brick commercial building was already old by this point, having been constructed around the late 1810s by Major Archippus Morgan. He ran a general store here, while also renting space in the building to other retail tenants. Later in the 19th century, the building briefly served as the first home of the Westfield YMCA, and over the years it was used by a variety of other businesses, eventually becoming commercial offices in the first half of the 20th century.

Today, more than 125 years after the first photo was taken, remarkably little has changed in this scene. The monument has remained a landmark here in downtown Westfield, with few changes aside from the shrubbery at the base and the blue-green patina on the bronze surfaces. The Morgan Block is also still standing in the background. It has seen minor exterior alterations, including the addition of a dormer window on the left side and a bay window on the first floor of the right side, but overall it stands as a rare surviving example of an early 19th century commercial block here in Westfield.

Church of the Atonement, Westfield, Mass

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The Church of the Atonement, on King Street in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

Westfield’s Episcopal church was established in 1863, and ten years later it became the Church of the Atonement. During its early years, its parishioners worshiped in several temporary locations, including in the Universalist church, but in 1880 the church broke ground on this building here on King Street, just west of Washington Street. The cornerstone was laid on May 15 of that year, in a ceremony that was officiated by Benjamin Henry Paddock, the Bishop of Massachusetts, and the work was completed eleven months later.

The church was first used on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1881. The Springfield Republican, in an article published two days earlier, declared it to be “one of the prettiest specimens of Gothic architecture in the town,” and provided the following description of the building:

The building is of brick with a slate roof, and has a tower at the northeast corner to which it is intended at some future day to add 50 or 75 feet and put in a chime of bells. The main entrance is from the east side of the tower, but admission may also be gained by the door in the wing or vestry leading into the chapel. The church has a seating capacity of 200, and is 70 feet long and 30 feet wide, not including the vestry, 15 by 18 feet. The interior, including casings and ceilings, will be handsomely finished in butternut, while the chancel trimmings and altars are to be of black-walnut. All the windows are of richly-stained glass, and the chancel and nave windows are beautiful specimens of art.

The first photo was taken about a decade later, and it shows the east side of the building, including the short tower at the main entrance. Despite the intentions of the parish, the planned bell tower had not been added by this point, and it would ultimately remain unbuilt, as the present-day photo shows. By the mid-1890s, though, the parish had grown to 50 families, with a total of 250 people, which must have put a strain on the building’s seating capacity of just 200.

The Church of the Atonement remained here in this building into the early 20th century. During this time, the house on the left side of this scene was constructed, evidently as a rectory. However, in 1924 the church moved to its current location at the corner of Court and Pleasant Streets, and sold this King Street property to Westfield’s First Church of Christ, Scientist. This congregation used the church throughout most of the 20th century, and the house was used as a Christian Science reading room.

The Christian Scientists sold the church and house in the early 1990s, and today both buildings are owned by the Christian Church of New Jerusalem. The exterior of the church remains largely unchanged since the first photo was taken, although it is somewhat difficult to tell, because the adjacent house now blocks part of the view of the church from this angle.

Agawam National Bank, Springfield, Mass

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The Agawam National Bank building, at the corner of Main and Lyman Streets in Springfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

This building was completed in 1870 to house the Agawam National Bank, which had been established in 1846 and had previously occupied an older building here on this spot. The new building was designed by Henry H. Richardson, a young architect who would go on to become one of the leading American architects of the late 19th century. Although best-known today for Romanesque-style churches, railroad stations, and government buildings, Richardson’s early works included a mix of relatively modest houses and commercial building, many of which bore little resemblance to his later masterpieces.

Richardson’s first commission had been the Church of the Unity here in Springfield, which he had earned in part because of a college classmate, James A. Rumrill, whose father-in-law, Chester W. Chapin, was one of the leading figures within the church. Chapin was also the president of the Western Railroad, and when the railroad needed a new office building, Richardson received the commission without even having to enter a design competition. This building, which stood just a hundred yards to the north of here, was completed in 1867, and two years later he was hired to design a new building for the Agawam National Bank. In what was likely not a coincidence, Chapin had been the founder of this bank, and by the late 1860s, Richardson’s friend James A. Rumrill was sitting on its board of directors.

The design of the Agawam National Bank bears some resemblance to the railroad office buildings. Both were constructed of granite, and they both had raised basements, four stories, and mansard roofs. However, while the railroad building was purely Second Empire in its design, the bank featured a blend of Second Empire and Victorian Gothic elements. Perhaps most interesting were the rounded arches on the ground floor. Although this building could hardly be characterized as Romanesque in its design, these arches bear some resemblance to the ones that he would later incorporate into his more famous works of Romanesque Revival architecture.

Architectural historian and Richardson biographer Henry-Russell Hitchcock did not particularly care for the design of the bank building, criticizing its “square proportions, crude monotonous scale and hybrid detail,” and describing it as a “hodge-podge” that was “pretentious and assertive.” However, he did concede that the building’s virtues “are more conspicuous if one does not look at it so carefully and so hard. To a casual glance, it must have had certain granite qualities of solid mass and strong regular proportions which tend to disappear when it is studied in detail.”

These “qualities of solid mass” likely served the bank well, since 19th century financial institutions often constructed imposing-looking buildings in order to convey a sense of strength and stability. As shown in the first photo, the Agawam National Bank was located on the right side of the first floor, but the building also housed other tenants, including the Hampden Savings Bank, which occupied the basement. These two banks had shared the same building since Hampden Savings was established in 1852, and they would remain here together until 1899, when Hampden Savings moved to the nearby Fort Block.

Agawam National Bank remained here in this building until the bank closed around 1905. By this point, its architecture was outdated, with trends shifting away from thick, heavy exterior masonry walls. The advent of steel frames in the late 19th century had enabled commercial buildings to be taller while simultaneously having thinner walls, and this allowed for large windows with plenty of natural light. The bank building was ultimately demolished around 1923, and it was replaced by a new five-story building that exemplified this next generation of commercial architecture.

Known as the Terminal Building, it was the work of the Springfield-based architectural firm of E. C. and G. C. Gardner, and it was completed around 1924. It was built with four storefronts on the ground floor and offices on the upper floors, and it was designed to support up to seven stories, although these two additional stories were never constructed. Today, the building still stands here, with few exterior changes. It is a good example of early 20th century commercial architecture here in Springfield, and in 1983 it became a contributing property in the Downtown Springfield Railroad District on the National Register of Historic Places.