Colonial Revival

Henry D. Williams House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 83 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was among the many elegant Colonial Revival-style homes that were constructed in Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century. It was built in 1901, and its original owner was Henry D. Williams, a superintendent for the American Writing Paper Company. He and his wife Mary had three sons, Roy, Howard, and Fay. All three graduated from M.I.T. in the early 1910s, and both Howard and Fay went on to serve in World War I. Mary died in 1913 at the age of 49, from complications after surgery to remove a tumor. Henry remarried a few years later, and around the same time he sold this house and moved to Holyoke, where he died in 1919.

By the 1920 census, this house was owned by Robert  Studley, a contractor who was living here with his wife Amy and their three children. However, Robert died the following year, when he was in his early 40s, and by the next census Amy and the children were renting a house elsewhere in the Forest Park neighborhood. In the meantime, this house was sold to Harry A. Sawyer, an insurance agent who worked as the Springfield branch manager for the Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford. During the 1930 census, he was living here along with his wife Grace and their three children, but they sold the house three years later.

The next owners of the house were Albert and Ruth Shaw. Albert was also involved in the insurance industry, working as a financial secretary for Massachusetts Mutual. They were still living here when the first photo was taken, along with their two sons, Lewis and Richard, as well as a servant. Since then, the exterior of the house has hardly changed, and like the rest of the neighborhood it remains well-preserved. It is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Minerva Thrall House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 63 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.


The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1895 for Minerva Thrall, a widow who moved in here along with her three adult step-daughters, Emily, Minnie, and Nellie. Minerva’s husband was Henry Thrall, a tanner and woolen goods merchant from Stafford Springs. He had originally married Minerva’s sister Emeline in 1841, and they had six daughters, two of whom died in infancy. Emeline died in 1860, two weeks after the birth of their last child, and Henry remarried to Minerva a year later. She was also a widow whose first husband, Dr. Oliver Tuthill, died in 1857 after just three years of marriage.

Of Henry’s surviving daughters, three of them never married, and after his death in 1880 they continued to live with Minerva, eventually coming to Springfield with her when this house was built. Minnie died in 1901 at the age of 48, from “paralysis of the heart,” and after Minerva’s death in 1917 the other two sisters inherited the house and lived here for the rest of their lives. Nellie died in 1934, and Emily in 1938, around the same time that the first photo was taken.

Like most of the other historic homes along Magnolia Terrace, this house has remained well-preserved, with hardly any differences in the past 80 years since the first photo was taken. Today, this street is one of the centerpieces of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Frederick B. Taylor House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 43 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


Completed in 1925, this house was among the last to be built in this section of Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood, with most of the other homes dating back to the turn of the 20th century. It was originally the home of Frederick B. Taylor, a merchant who sold doors, windows, blinds, paint, and other such building materials from his shop on Market Street. By the time Taylor moved into this house, he and his wife Eliza were in their 60s, and he only lived here for a few years, until his death in 1929.

Later in 1929, Eliza moved to Longmeadow to live with her daughter, and she sold this house to George and Kathryn Clark, who moved in here along with their three children. At the time, George was the vice president of Springfield’s Third National Bank, and he later went on to become the bank’s president. His wealth was reflected in the 1940 census, which was done only a year or two after the first photo was taken. The house was valued at $16,000, which was a considerable sum at the time, and George’s income was listed as being over $5,000, which was the highest bracket that the census recorded.

After George’s death in 1949, Kathryn continued to live here for nearly a half century longer, until she finally sold the property in 1987. Since then, the house has remained well-preserved, with an exterior appearance that is essentially unchanged from when the Clarks lived here. Along with the other homes in the neighborhood, the property is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Fred R. Brown House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 37 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1895 for Fred R. Brown, a wholesale grocer who ran a successful business here in Springfield for many years. He and his wife Isabella were in their mid-20s when they moved into the house, and they went on to raise two daughters here, Dorcas and Kathleen. They lived here for about 35 years, before selling the house around 1930 to Fred Stephenson. According to the census records, he was an executive manager for the Community Chest, a fundraising organization that was a predecessor to the United Way. He was still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, along with his wife Mary and their two children.

Today, Magnolia Terrace is a centerpiece of the Forest Park neighborhood, with historic late 19th and early 20th century homes lining both sides of the street. Like most of the other houses, this one has been well-preserved, with no noticeable exterior differences between the two photos, and in 1982 the entire surrounding neighborhood became part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Samuel Hathaway House, Suffield, Connecticut

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The house at 391 South Main Street in Suffield, around 1935-1942. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The house in 2017:


Samuel Hathaway was born around 1690 in Taunton, Massachusetts, but by 1719 he had moved to Suffield, where he married Sarah Rowe. He built this house sometime between 1720 and 1740, and he and Sarah raised their eight children here. During this time, he held several different town offices, including as a selectman and a highway surveyor. He was also involved in iron manufacturing, with a mill here in Suffield as well as ones in Willimantic and New Milford.

His businesses were evidently prosperous, because upon his death in 1765 his estate was valued at £1772, an impressive sum for the day. Samuel’s youngest son, Asahel, was also a leading resident of Suffield. A Yale graduate, he was a pastor for a short time before returning to Suffield, where he became a farmer and merchant. Around the turn of the 19th century, he purchased the mansion of Oliver Phelps, a Suffield landmark that remained in his family for many years.

Over the years, Samuel Hathaway’s former house has been expanded several times in the back, but it remains standing as one of the oldest houses in Suffield. Its construction even predates Suffield’s annexation to Connecticut, because prior to 1749 the town was part of Massachusetts. By the time the first photo was taken, the house was already around 200 years old, and very little has changed with the exterior since then. The house is now part of the Suffield Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Edgar S. Bliss House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 153 Dartmouth Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


Most of the homes on Dartmouth Terrace were built in the late 1880s, but this particular lot remained vacant for several decades, until this house was built in 1908. As a result, its Colonial Revival design is very different from the earlier Victorian-style homes on the street, reflecting the changes in architectural tastes at the turn of the 20th century. It was originally the home of Edgar S. Bliss, a paper manufacturer who, in 1896, had purchased a controlling interest in the Worthy Paper Company in West Springfield. He became the company’s president and treasurer, and a little over a decade later he moved into this house, along with his wife Jane and their four children.

Edgar Bliss ran the Worthy Paper Company until his retirement in 1930, and he continued living in this house for the rest of his life. Jane died in 1935, but Edgar was still living here when the first photo was taken a few years later. He died in 1942, and his children sold the house to Joseph Chapdelaine, a building contractor. He and his wife Florida had immigrated to the United States from Quebec in 1924, and they had lived in the South End before moving into this house. They remained here until 1956, when they sold the house and moved to East Forest Park. The house went through several more owners before being restored in the 1990s, and it is now part of the McKnight Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.