Government Buildings

County Jail, Lowell, Mass

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The Middlesex County Jail on Thorndike Street in Lowell, around 1908. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The building in 2015:

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It’s hard to find too many buildings with a more unusual combination of uses, but this building has seen it all over the past 159 years.  Opened as a jail in 1856, it could house just over 100 inmates, most of whom were serving relatively short sentences for minor crimes.  Architecturally, it is an early example of Romanesque Revival, a style that was popularized several decades later by Henry Hobson Richardson, and can be seen in many public buildings of the late 19th century.  The building was in use as a jail until 1919, when dwindling numbers of inmates meant the county couldn’t justify keeping it open.

Concerned that they might once again need it, Middlesex County held off on selling it until 1926, when the Catholic Church purchased it and converted it into a prep school, Keith Academy.  Since the interior layout of a jail is generally not effective for schools, the entire building was gutted in the conversion to Keith Academy, leaving the exterior mostly untouched but completely changing everything else.  The school closed in 1970, and the building later underwent another conversion, to condominiums.  Today, it houses 56 condominium units, and although the jail turned school turned housing complex has gone through a lot of changes in over a century and a half, from the outside it doesn’t look much different from when the first inmates arrived in 1856.

Church and Courthouse, Plymouth NH

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The Congregational Church and Courthouse in Plymouth, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The buildings in 2018:

Plymouth was founded in 1763, and just a year later the first church was established.  The church building in the first photo was the congregation’s third building, and was completed in 1837.  It was built right next to the courthouse, which at the time was a brick Greek Revival style building with pillars at the front entrance and a cupola on the roof.  This building had been built in 1823 to replace the original county courthouse, but was demolished by 1890, when the courthouse in the first photo was built.  The original 1774 courthouse can actually be seen in the first photo – it is the one story wooden building directly behind and to the right of the courthouse.  It had been moved there in the 1870s to use as a public library, and it remains there today.

Today, the buildings are partially obscured by trees, so it is hard to tell that the present-day church isn’t the same one. The 1837 church burned in 1983, and was rebuilt on the same foundation.  The 1890 courthouse is still there, but its use has changed.  Other than the tower now being enclosed, the exterior does not appear to have changed much over the past century, but the historic building is now the Plymouth town hall, and the grounds now include monuments to veterans of wars that had not yet been fought when the first photo was taken.

Old Grafton County Courthouse, Plymouth, NH

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The Old Grafton County Courthouse on Court Street in Plymouth, around 1900-1910 during its use as a library. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The building in 2018:

Over the years, this building has served a variety of purposes in several different locations.  It was built in 1774 as one of two courthouses in Grafton County, and was located at the corner of Russell and Pleasant Streets, less than a quarter mile from where it is today.  During its time as a courthouse, 24 year old New Hampshire native Daniel Webster argued one of his first court cases here in 1806.  He lost, and his client was hanged, but he would nonetheless go on to be a successful lawyer and one of the country’s most powerful politicians of the pre-Civil War era.

While Webster’s career was just beginning, the old courthouse was becoming obsolete, and in 1823 it was replaced by a more substantial brick building.  The old building was moved south of the main village and used as a wheelwright shop, as seen in the photo below, which was taken in 1860 and published in History of Plymouth, New Hampshire (1906):

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By the 1870s, the century-old building had been abandoned and was in disrepair, but its connection to Daniel Webster’s early career brought it to the attention of Henry W. Blair, a Congressman and future Senator who purchased it in 1876.  After moving it to its present location and renovating it, Blair gave the building to the Young Ladies’ Library Association to use as a public library.  The small building was home to Plymouth’s library until 1991, when the present-day Pease Public Library was built.  Since then, the historic building has been home to the Plymouth Historical Museum.

Rockingham Meeting House, Rockingham, Vermont

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The Rockingham Meeting House around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company collection.

The meeting house in 2018:

The Rockingham Meeting House is one of the two oldest existing church buildings in Vermont. It is so old, in fact, that it was not built in the United States – construction began in 1787, four years before Vermont became a state. At the time, Vermont was an independent republic, and although the citizens overwhelmingly favored joining the Union, there were issues over conflicting land claims between New York and New Hampshire. By the time the building was completed in 1801, however, Vermont had since joined as the 14th state.

Although it was built at the end of the 18th century, its architecture is fairly conservative, and it looks more like meeting houses from the first half of the century.  Probably the most conspicuous difference between it and most other churches built in the late 18th and early 19th century is its lack of a steeple.  Many early 18th century churches did not have steeples, although by the time the Rockingham Meeting House was built they were fairly commonplace.  Another difference is the interior layout; the main entrance, as seen in this view, is located in the middle of the long side of the building, and inside the pulpit is directly opposite it.  Again, this was common in the mid 18th century, but by the start of the 19th century most churches were being built with the central aisle running the length of the building.

Like many other meeting houses of the era, this building was used for both church services and town meetings, and at the time of its construction it was in the center of the main village in the town of Rockingham.  However, as time went on, and as industry replaced farming as the livelihood for many residents of the town, the village of Bellows Falls along the Connecticut River became Rockingham’s center of population.  Church services here ended in 1839, and town meetings continued until 1869.  After that, the building was mostly vacant until the early 20th century, when the historical significance of the building came to be appreciated.  The first photo was probably taken around the time of its restoration 1907.  Overall, the building is one of the best-preserved meeting houses in New England, in part because of its relatively brief use as a church and meeting house.  Today, the building is owned by the town of Rockingham, and is rented out for weddings and other functions.  However, because the building was never really updated or renovated since its completion, neither electricity nor heat was ever installed, so it is only usable in the summer months.

First Congregational Church, Westfield Mass

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The First Congregational Church and the old Town Hall in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

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The buildings in 2015:

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The scene at the rotary in downtown Westfield is very different from over 120 years ago, but several historic buildings have survived, including the First Congregational Church and the Town Hall.  The Town Hall in the foreground is actually the older of the two, having been built in 1837.  It served a variety of roles since then, first as a town hall and later as a city hall, when Westfield was incorporated as a city in 1920.  However, it was also used for high school classrooms from 1855 until around 1868, and later as a police station and district court.  It was used as city hall until 1962, when the city offices were moved up Broad Street to the former State Normal School building.  The building has seen some changes over the years, with the most obvious being the removal of the cupola, which happened in 1912.  However, it otherwise retains much of its historic exterior appearance, and today it is used as offices for a mental health agency.

Beyond the old Town Hall is the First Congregational Church.  The original church was established in 1679, with Edward Taylor serving as the town’s first pastor.  He had first come to Westfield in 1671 and began serving as pastor before the church was formally established, and he would continue until his death in 1729 at the age of 87.  However, today he is probably best known as one of the first American poets, although his works weren’t published until over 200 years after his death.

His original church building is long gone, and the one that stands on the site today was built in 1860.  The original steeple was destroyed in a storm in 1886, and I’m not sure if the first photo was taken before or after that.  It was published in 1892, but the photo itself could date to much earlier than that. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, “Several smaller steeples were in use until 1962 when a tall steeple was erected similar to the original one.”  The steeple in the first photo doesn’t appear to be a “small steeple,” yet the present-day one also doesn’t bear much resemblance to the first one, so I’m not sure which one is shown in the first photo.  In any case, though, otherwise the brick exterior of the church is well preserved, and it continues to be used by the same congregation that Edward Taylor began serving in 1671.

Old Town Hall, Springfield Mass

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Springfield’s old town hall building on State Street near Main Street, around 1892.  Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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The scene in 2015:

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The building in the first photo once served as Springfield’s town hall before it was incorporated as a city.  It was built in 1828, and Springfield became a city in 1852, at which point a more substantial building was needed for the municipal government.  So, in 1855 Springfield City Hall opened across from Court Square, in approximately the same location as the present-day City Hall.  Meanwhile, this building on State Street continued to be used for a variety of purposes.  The first floor was home to several different businesses, including a meat market and wallpaper store, as seen in the first photo.  By the 1880s, the second floor was still owned by the city, and the third floor by the Masons.  It was demolished around 1937, and today the location where it once stood is now part of the MassMutual Center.