Queen Anne

The house at 84 Temple Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2015:

This Queen Anne style house was built around 1880, at about the same time as its nearly identical neighbor to the right.  One early owner of this house was W.H. Burrall, whose name appears on the 1882 city atlas.  He died before 1899, when the city atlas lists the house as belonging to his heirs, and he appears to be the same W.F. Burrall who co-owned Hawkins & Burrall, a Springfield-based bridge building company.  Along with this, his name also appears in historical records as a consulting engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad.

By 1900, the house was owned by Louis C. Hyde, Springfield’s postmaster.  According to the 1900 census, this house was pretty crowded; he lived here with his wife, their son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and son-in-law, two grandchildren, and three servants, for a total of 12 people in the house.  Hyde was featured in a 1913 volume of Automobile Journal, which mentioned that he was using a Springfield-built Indian motorcycle with a tricar attachment to deliver parcel post mail around the city.  The photo to the right was printed in the magazine, and shows him on the motorcycle.

The house at 82 Temple Street, seen here around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2015:

Compared to the first photo, this historic Queen Anne style house on Temple Street has seen better days, although it is being restored as of the July 2015 photo.  Both this house and its nearly identical neighbor to the left were built around 1880, at a time when this neighborhood was popular among upper middle class professionals such as bankers, lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.  In the early 1900s, this house was owned by Robert O. Morris, who served as the clerk of courts for many years, and was also a director of the United Electric Light Company, president of the Springfield Five Cents Savings Bank, and served in similar roles for several other area companies.  He was also an amateur ornithologist, and in 1901 he published a book, The Birds of Springfield and Vicinity.

Despite the changes in this neighborhood over the years, the 2015 photo shows that the house still retains many of its original decorative elements.  The windows are all new, the shutters have been removed, and the front porch is being completely replaced, but otherwise it still looks very similar to what it would have looked like when Robert O. Morris lived here a century ago.