Architecture

Hadley Falls Company Worker Housing, Holyoke, Mass

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Looking north on Center Street from the corner of Lyman Street in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

Holyoke was once the sparsely-settled northern section of West Springfield, but in the mid-19th century it developed into a major industrial center, thanks to its location at a major waterfall on the Connecticut River. The Hadley Falls Company played a key role in this transition, including constructing a dam and an extensive canal system to provide water power for the factories that were soon to be built. These projects were completed in the late 1840s, around the same time that the Hadley Falls Company built a mill, which can be seen in the distance in the center of these photos.

The mill was accompanied by a group of tenement rowhouses for workers, as shown in this scene. These were constructed starting around 1848, and a total of six buildings would eventually be completed. However, an 1853 map shows only four, with one on each side of the block bounded by Center, Canal, Grover, and Lyman Streets. This included the one on the left side of Center Street, but the one on the right did not appear on the map. However, it was evidently completed a year or two later, because it appears on the 1855 map of Hampden County. Both buildings had similar Greek Revival-style architecture, although the ones on the right were evidently not built with dormer windows, as the first photo indicates.

The Report of the History and Present Condition of the Hadley Falls Company, published in 1853, provides the following description of these tenements:

Convenient boarding-houses are erected for the use of the operatives. These are owned by the company, and rented, at comparatively low rates, to respectable keepers. They are built of brick, in the most substantial style, and are supplied with all the usual conveniences of modern dwelling-houses.

The report goes on to describe the regulations that residents were required to follow:

The tenants of the boarding-houses are no to board, or permit any part of their houses to be occupied by any person not in the employ of the manufacturing department of the Hadley Falls Company, without special permission; and when required, give an account of the number, names, and employment of their boarders, and report the names of such as are guilty of improper conduct.

They will be considered answerable for any improper conduct in the house, and not permit their boarders to have company at unseasonable hours.

The doors to be closed at ten o’clock in the evening. They are also requested not to allow their boarders or other persons to collect on the front steps, or side-walk in front of the tenement.

The buildings, yards, and front walk of each tenement must be kept clean and in good order; and if injured, otherwise than from ordinary use, all necessary repairs will be made and charged to the occupant.

The rents must be paid monthly, and within three days after the operatives have been paid in the factory.

The Holyoke Water Power Company later took over operation of the dam and the canals from the Hadley Falls Company, following the economic recession caused by the Panic of 1857. By the 1860s, the mills and tenements were acquired by the similarly-named Hadley Company. It was part of Holyoke’s lucrative textile industry, and produced a variety of threads, yarns, and twine at the mill in the distance. The first photo was taken several decades later, and shows a group of young children, presumably the children of the mill workers, walking along Center Street.

The 1900 census shows ten families living in the tenements on the right side, and 14 on the left. The vast majority of these families were immigrants, with most coming from Ireland or Quebec. For example, the rowhouse at 20 Center Street, closest to the camera on the right side of the photo, was rented by Bridget Barrett, a 65-year-old widow who had arrived in the United States in 1865. She was widowed by 1900, and only two of her five children were still alive. These two daughters, Mary and Bridget, had been born in England, and were only a few years old when they immigrated to the United States. Mary was 38 and unmarried during the census, and the younger Bridget was, like her mother, a widow with two surviving children. At the time, Mary worked as an inspector in the thread mills, the younger Bridget was a nurse, and her 17-year-old son James was a spinner at the thread mills.

On the other side of the street, the rowhouse on the far left at 15 Center Street was occupied by two families. One unit was the home of John and Susan Platt, and their son Edward. All three were born in England and came to the United States in 1890, and by 1900 John was working as a machinist and Edward as a paper cutter. The other unit at 15 Center Street was evidently more crowded. It was the home of Pierre and Christian Chartier, French-Canadian immigrants who arrived in 1896. They had a total of 11 children, nine of whom were still alive by 1900. Of these, seven were living here during the census, with ages that ranged from 12 to 26. The youngest child was still in school, but the rest were working at nearby mills, with jobs that included cotton spoolers, a tailor, a paper sorter, and a cotton spinner. In addition, the family also lived here with a 24-year-old French-Canadian boarder, who also worked in the mills as a spooler.

In the meantime, the Hadley Company had been acquired by the American Thread Company in 1898. The mill remained in operation as the Hadley Division of the company, but it closed in 1928, leaving about a thousand employees out of work on the eve of the Great Depression. Over the years, Holyoke’s industrial base would continue to decline, along with its population. The 1920 census recorded just over 60,000 residents, but this number would steadily drop throughout the rest of the 20th century, eventually dropping below 40,000 in the 2000 census.

During this time, many mills and other historic buildings were abandoned, and a number of them have since been demolished. However, the Hadley Company mills and the adjacent worker tenements have, for the most part, survived relatively well-preserved. One of the tenements, which had been located along Canal Street between Center and Grover Streets, is now gone, but the other five have survived. The ones here on Center Street were restored in the 1970s, and today the scene does not look substantially different from its appearance 125 years ago, aside from the addition of the dormer windows on the right side. These buildings, along with the other three tenement buildings, now comprise the Hadley Falls Company Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Connecticut River Railroad Station, Holyoke, Mass

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The Connecticut River Railroad station, seen from the corner of Bowers and Mosher Streets in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

Railroads came to Holyoke in 1845, when the Connecticut River Railroad opened from Springfield to Northampton. This coincided with the area’s development into a major industrial center, and within a few years the canal system was completed and the first few mills were operational. The first passenger station was a small wood-frame building at the corner of Main and Dwight Streets, near where the modern Amtrak station is located, and it remained in use for about 40 years. However, Holyoke’s population grew exponentially during this time, from around 3,200 in the 1850 census, to over 21,000 by 1880, and the original station had become inadequate for the needs of the city.

In 1885, the Connecticut River Railroad opened a new passenger station here on the east side of the tracks, bounded by Mosher, Bowers, and Lyman Streets. It was designed by Henry H. Richardson, who was one of the most important American architects of the 19th century, and it was one of the many railroad stations that he designed across the state during the early 1880s. Richardson was a pioneer of Romanesque Revival style architecture, and his station incorporated many common elements, including the rough-faced granite exterior, the brownstone trim, a complex roofline, and arched windows.

On the interior, the central part of the station included the main waiting room, which occupied about half of the ground floor. There was also a separate ladies’ waiting room, and a room that, on the original floor plans, was labeled “Emigrant’s Room.” The latter was evidently used to screen and administer smallpox vaccinations to incoming immigrants, who comprised a large portion of Holyoke’s population during this time. Other facilities inside the building included a baggage room, a ticket office, and a telegraph office, along with several restrooms.

The first photo was taken around 1892, only a few years after the station was completed, and it shows the view from the southeast, from the corner of Bowers and Mosher Streets. About a year later, in 1893, the Connecticut River Railroad was acquired by the Boston and Maine Railroad, and the station became part of an extensive rail network that spread across northern New England. During this time, the station continued to play an important role as the point of arrival for many immigrants to Holyoke, including large numbers of French-Canadians who traveled south along the railroad from Quebec, in search of jobs in the factories here.

The station remained in use throughout the first half of the 20th century. However, Holyoke’s economy began to decline by the middle of the century, with many of the factories closing or relocating. Passenger rail travel suffered as well, both here in Holyoke and in the country as a whole. Cars and airplanes began replacing trains, and ridership continued to decline. The station closed in 1965, and passenger service on the line ended just a year later.

Following its closure, the former station was converted into an auto parts store, and at some point the platforms were enclosed on the southern side of the building. Passenger service would not return to Holyoke until 2015, after Amtrak’s Vermonter was rerouted through the city, but the plans did not involve restoration of the old station. Instead, a new one, consisting of just a single covered platform, opened a little to the south of here, near where the original 1845 station had stood. In the meantime, the old station has been vacant since at least the early 2000s. It is currently owned by Holyoke Gas and Electric, and has been the subject of various redevelopment proposals, although none of these have begun yet.

Post Office, Holyoke, Mass

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The former post office on Main Street, between Dwight and Race Streets in Holyoke, around 1908. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2017:

For many years, the Holyoke post office was located in the ground floor of the Holyoke House, a hotel at the corner of Main and Dwight Streets. However, in 1905 the post office moved into a space of its own, when this elegant Beaux-Art style building was completed. It was located directly behind the Holyoke House, which had by this point been renamed the Hotel Hamilton, and it sat in the middle of a triangular block bounded by Main, Race, and Dwight Streets. The first photo was taken only a few years after it was completed, and it shows the Main Street facade of the building.

This building served as Holyoke’s post office for the first few decades of the 20th century, but it soon became too small for the volume of mail and packages that passed through here. As a result, construction began on a new post office in 1933. It was located further up the hill from here, on Dwight Street between Chestnut and Elm Streets, and was completed in 1935. The older building here on Main Street closed that same year, and it was subsequently demolished in the 1940s. Today, the site is a parking lot, and the present-day scene is dominated by the former Lyman Mills buildings, which stand in the distance on the other side of the Second Level Canal.

Sacred Heart Church and Rectory, Holyoke, Mass

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The Sacred Heart Church (right) and rectory (left), seen from Maple Street in Holyoke, around 1891. Image from Holyoke Illustrated (1891).

The scene in 2017:

As mentioned in the previous post, the Sacred Heart Parish was established in 1878 as an offshoot of St. Jerome’s Parish, which had been the first Catholic church in Holyoke. Sacred Heart served the Catholics in the southern section of downtown Holyoke, and in 1876 construction began on the church building here at the corner of Maple and Sargeant Streets. The Second Empire-style rectory, on the left side of the scene, was built around the same time, but the church would not be completed until 1883.

The first pastor of the church was Father James T. Sheehan, although he died of tuberculosis two years later in 1880, at the age of 32. He was succeeded by Father P. B. Phelan, a Newfoundland native who had previously served as pastor of the church in West Springfield. Upon his arrival here in Holyoke, Phelan inherited the incomplete church building, along with a sizable debt of $40,000. However, he oversaw the completion of the church, paid off the debt, and went on to serve the parish for the next 39 years, until his death in 1919.

The church was built at a cost of $90,000 (almost $2.5 million today), and featured ornate Gothic-style architecture on both the exterior and interior. By the time the first photo was taken around 1891, the church and rectory had also been joined by a school and a convent, both of which stood just out of view on the left side of the scene. Together, these four buildings occupied an entire city block, surrounded by Maple, Sargeant, Chestnut, and Franklin Streets.

The spire was not added to the church until 1897, but otherwise this scene has not seen many changes since the first photo was taken. It is hard to tell because of the tree in front of it, but the exterior of the church has remained well-preserved, and it is still in use as an active parish. To the left, the rectory is also still standing, and still has its Victorian-era details, such as the corner tower, the ornate front entryway, and the curved front steps. However, both the 19th century school and the convent are gone, and the southern half of this lot is now vacant except for a parking lot.

Oren D. Allyn House, Holyoke, Mass

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The house at 141 Locust Street in Holyoke, around 1891. Image from Holyoke Illustrated (1891).

The scene in 2017:

This house was built in 1890 as the home of real estate developer Oren D. Allyn, and, like many of the other elegant homes in Holyoke during this period, it was designed by noted local architect George P. B. Alderman. The house incorporated many Queen Anne-style elements, including an asymmetrical design, a complex roofline, a large front porch, and a tower on one corner of the house. It was accompanied by a matching carriage house behind it, and the property originally extended to Sycamore Street in the back and Hampshire Street on the left.

Oren D. Allyn was born in Holyoke in 1853, and as a young man he worked in his family’s meat market on High Street, with city directories variously listing him as a clerk, salesman, and bookkeeper. However, by 1885 he had entered the real estate business, and began developing much of the Oakdale neighborhood. This area, at the western end of downtown Holyoke’s street grid, had been laid out in the mid-19th century, but it was not until the 1880s that the city’s growth reached this neighborhood.

Allyn’s father, Anderson Allyn, owned a large plot of land in this section. The 1884 city atlas shows the property line running diagonally to the street grid, starting near the corner of Beech and Franklin Streets and ending near the corner of Essex and Pleasant Streets. The land covered much of the area now bounded by Beech Street, Franklin Street, Hampshire Street, and Magnolia Avenue, and in the coming years Oren Allyn built over 300 homes in the neighborhood, including his own house here on Locust Street.

Aside from his work in real estate development, Allyn also served on the city’s board of public works from 1899 to 1906. He supported the City Beautiful movement of the era, and during his time on the board he encouraged projects such as planting trees along the city’s streets. He put these ideas into practice in his own expansive yard as well, including cultivating a large rose garden here. The first photo was taken only about a year after the house was completed, but by this point the left side of the scene was already dotted with a number of recently-planted trees and bushes.

The completion of this house coincided with Oren’s 1891 marriage to Alice Ladd, and he lived here for the rest of his life. He and Alice did not have any children, but they shared the house with Alice’s family. By 1900, her mother Augusta and sister Mabel were both living here. Augusta died in 1904, and Mabel was no longer here by the 1910 census, but by that point Alice’s widowed brother Wilbur was living here with his three sons. Wilbur had moved out before the 1920 census, but his sons were still living here at the time. Oren died in 1929, at the age of 75, and Wilbur subsequently returned to this house in order to live with his sister. He died in 1935, and Alice moved out of the house in 1939.

The property was later subdivided, and today two houses stand on the left side of the house, on Hampshire Street. The carriage house is gone, along with Allyn’s rose garden and other landscaping, and in the mid-20th century the wooden clapboards were covered with green asphalt shingles. These shingles have since been removed, but other exterior changes have included enclosing the top of the tower and replacing the railing and posts on the front porch. A fire escape, only partially visible in the 2017 photo, has been added to the left side of the house, and the interior is now divided into eight apartment units. However, the house still stands as one of the many elegant mansions that were built in Holyoke during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Michael Cleary House, Holyoke, Mass

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The house at 1137-1139 Dwight Street, near the corner of Pleasant Street in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

This two-family, Queen Anne-style house was built in 1891, shortly before the first photo was taken, and was designed by noted Holyoke architect George P. B. Alderman. The house was apparently numbered 287 Dwight Street at the time, before the current numbering system was adopted in the first decade of the 1900s, and was originally the home of carpenter and contractor Michael Cleary and his family. Michael only lived here for a few years, before moving to a house on Northampton Street, but other members of the Cleary family remained at this house for many years.

By the 1900 census, the house was occupied by five siblings: Thomas, Margaret, Dennis, John, and William Cleary. Their ages ranged from 29 to 42, and all were single except for the youngest, William, although his wife was not listed here on the census. All five of them were born in the United States to Irish immigrants, and both Thomas and Dennis were liquor dealers, in the firm of Thomas M. Cleary & Co. The company was located on Maple Street, and according to an advertisement in the 1905 city directory they were:

Wholesale Dealers in Foreign and Domestic Winds and Liquors. Also Agents for P. Ballantine & Sons’ Celebrated Newark Ales and Porter and Union Brewing Co.’s Boston Lager Beer. Agents Western Massachusetts for the well known Van Hook Whiskey. Also Gibson’s XXXX Whiskey. Also general line of fine Whiskey for Medicinal use.

The 1910 census shows Thomas and Margaret still living here. Margaret had married by this point, to dry goods store clerk Thomas Fitzgerald, and they lived here with their two young children, Claire and Thomas. Thomas Cleary was still in the liquor business, along with Michael Cleary, and he continued to operate his firm on Maple Street until his death in 1917. As it turned out, Prohibition went into effect only three years later, and by the early 1920s the company was evidently out of business.

Thomas and Margaret Fitzgerald were still living here in this house by 1920, along with their children and Margaret’s brother, John Cleary. Thomas died at some point in the 1920s, but the rest of the family was still living here during the 1930 census. The property was valued at $25,000 (about $380,000 today) and she rented the right side of the two-family home to Walter Shean, who lived here with his wife Rose and their son Joseph. They paid $100 in monthly rent (about $1,500 today), which was more than double what most of their neighbors were paying at the time.

Margaret and her children, Claire and Thomas, were still living here during the 1940 census, and the house would remain in the family for many more years. Both children lived here for the rest of their lives, until Claire’s death in 1978 and Thomas’s in 1985. The house was subsequently sold out of the Cleary-Fitzgerald family for the first time in nearly a century, but it is still standing today, with a well-preserved exterior that has not changed significantly in 125 years since the first photo was taken. The house further in the distance is gone, having been replaced by a modern apartment complex, but other elements from the first photo are still here, including the retaining wall and steps on the right side of the scene.