Houses

John Hooker House, Springfield Mass

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The Railroad House, formerly the home of Judge John Hooker, on Railroad Row in Springfield around 1893. Photo from Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield (1893).

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The location in 2015:

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This building was originally located on Main Street opposite Lyman Street, and was owned by John Hooker, a lawyer who served as a town selectman, probate judge, and bank president in the early 1800s.  He died in 1829, and ten years later the railroad came to Springfield.  The property was right next to the railroad station, so several local businessmen had the foresight to buy the property and build a hotel, the Massasoit House.  This proved to be a successful plan, but rather than demolishing the old building, it was moved around the corner onto Railroad Row, or what is today called Gridiron Street.  At some point, a third story was added, and the building was used as a hotel and boarding house, operating under several names, including Greundler’s Hotel, Germania Hotel, and the Railroad House.  It was probably not one of Springfield’s higher-end hotels, but it likely offered affordable rates to middle-class travelers, and was conveniently located just across the street from the old railroad station.  I don’t know what became of the building, other than that it clearly no longer exists – its location on Gridiron Street is now a parking lot behind the Paramount Theater.

Timothy Merrick House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Timothy Merrick House on Main Street in Wilbraham, probably sometime in the late 1800s. Photo courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The same location in 2015:

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Massachusetts is home to only two species of venomous snakes: the timber rattlesnake and the northern copperhead.  Both are exceedingly rare in the state, but they must have been more common in Wilbraham in the past, as they make several appearances into town lore. This house was built around 1761 for Timothy Merrick, the only son of my 6th great grandfather, Thomas Merrick.  Merrick was engaged to Sarah Lamb, and they were to live in this house after their marriage.  However, according to the records of the town clerk, Samuel Warner (who was also my 6th great grandfather, from a different branch of the family):

Timothy, son of Thomas Mirick and Mary Mirick, was Bit By a Ratel Snake one Aug. the 7th, 1761, and Dyed within about two or three ours he being twenty two years two months and three Days old and vary near the point of marridge.

Merrick’s death is believed to be the last recorded fatal snake bite in Massachusetts history, but even if not it is certainly the most famous.  Because of the tragic nature of the story, this event formed the basis for one of the earliest American ballads, “On Springfield Mountain.”  It was written in the late 1700s or early 1800s, and there are many different versions of this song, some of which include a number of embellishments beyond what Warner wrote in the town records.  One such version, recorded in the 1964 History of Wilbraham book, is asserted to be the original Merrick family version:

On Springfield Mountain there did dwell
A likely youth was known full well
Lieutenant Mirick’s only son
A likely youth nigh twenty one

One Friday morning he did go
Into the medow for to mow
A round or two and he did feel
A pisin sarpent at his heel

When he received his deadly wound
he dropt his sithe apon the ground
And strate for home was his intent
calling aloude still as he went

O Molly Molly Molly dear
come see this pesky sarpent here
Tho all around his voice was heered
none of his friends to him apiered

So soon his carful father went
to seek his son with discontent
And there his onley son he found
ded as a stone apon the ground

His father vieude his track with consarn
where he had rund across the corn
Uneven tracks where he did go
appeared to stagger to and fro

And there he lay suppose to rest
with both his hands acrost his brest
His mouth and eyes were closed fast
and there poor man he slept his last

The seventh of August sixty one
this fatal axsident was done
let this a warning be to all
to be prepared when God doth call.

Today, as seen in the second photo, Timothy Merrick’s house is gone; it burned in 1955 was was replaced soon after with a modern house.  The location of the snake bite has not been conclusively identified, but it was across Main Street and a little to the south of the house, which would place it right along the present-day Hampden-Wilbraham border.  This area is now a suburban residential development, and the History of Wilbraham book places the location at around the spot where Oakland Street crosses a small stream.  Although both the house and the farmland that Merrick was once mowing are now gone, there are still a few reminders around town.  Behind the location of the Merrick house is the Pesky Sarpent Conservation Area, and further up the hill is a rocky outcropping called Rattlesnake Peak.  Timothy Merrick’s gravestone can also still be seen, in the Adams Cemetery on Tinkham Road.  There is no direct mention of the rattlesnake on the stone, but the epitaph, taken from Job 14:2, seems appropriate for the sudden, tragic death of a young man: “He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down.  He fleeth also as a Shadow and continueth not.”

Charles Merriam House, Springfield, Mass

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The former Charles Merriam house at 61 Howard Street in Springfield, around 1892. Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

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The location in 2015:

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This house on Howard Street was built around the 1830s, and was the home of Charles Merriam. He and his brother Charles had grown up in West Brookfield, but in 1831 they moved to Springfield and, the following year, opened a publishing company called G. & C. Merriam. A few years later, the Merriams purchased the rights to Noah Webster’s dictonary, which turned out to be a wise business move. Merriam-Webster, as the company is now known, is still headquartered in Springfield, and their famous dictionary is still being published today.

Charles married his first wife, Sophia Warriner, in 1835, and the couple had five children. She died in 1858, and two years later he remarried to Rachel Capen, a 36 -year-old widow. They continued living here in this house, and Rachel became involved in charitable efforts in the city, which included being one of the founders of the Home for Friendless Women. It was established in 1865 with Rachel as its first president, and provided shelter and services for needy women and children.

The original building for the Home for Friendless Women was located on Union Street, essentially in the Merriams’ backyard. Within a few decades it was too small to meet the growing needs, though. Shortly after Charles’s death in 1887, Rachel donated the home to the organization, who was using it by the time the first photo was taken. However, within a few years they built a new building on William Street, and the Howard Street property was sold.

By the 1890s, Howard Street was hardly the upscale residential street that it had once been when Charles Merriam moved in more than 60 years earlier. The 1900 census shows that the street was predominantly French-Canadian, a fact emphasized by the presence of St. Joseph’s Church, a French Catholic church visible in the extreme right of the first photo. The former Merriam house was at this point owned by Napoleon Byron, a French-Canadian undertaker who lived here with his wife Emily, their seven children, and three boarders.

The old house did not remain here for much longer, though. It was demolished by 1905, when the Howard Street School was built to serve the growing population of the South End.  This school later became the Zanetti School, and was used up until 2009.  Two years later it sustained significant damage in the tornado that passed through Springfield, and as of April 2015 it is scheduled to be demolished, pending final approval from the state historical commission.  The current MGM Springfield casino plans call for the construction of a parking garage on the spot of the school.

Jeremy Warriner House, Springfield Mass

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The Jeremy Warriner house at 43 Bliss Street in Springfield, probably around 1893.  Photo from Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield (1893)

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The location in 2015:

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Jeremy Warriner was a tavern owner in Springfield in the first half of the 19th century.  He operated Warriner’s Tavern at the corner of Main and State Streets, and he later opened the Union House, which is still standing as of April 2015, but is scheduled to be demolished later this year.  By the 1840s, Warriner was living in this house on Howard Street, just a block away from the Union House.  During his time here, he hosted at least one distinguished visitor.  In 1851, famed Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind traveled around the United States performing to enormous crowds, and one of her stops was Old First Church in Springfield.  While in Springfield, she stayed at Warriner’s home, and one of his employees, Julia Lee, gives an account of the visit in her letter that I included in this post.  I have included part of her description below:

After uncle Jerry gave up keeping the tavern and went over on Howard street to live I went with him, and Jenny Lind when she came here in 1851 stayed with Jerry and had her meals sent down from the hotel. There was Quincy, Harrison Gray Otis and Mr. Cabbot and lots of others. I liked Jenny Lind the best of all. She was beautiful and the school children all came around to see her and she was so polite to everybody.

Warriner’s house was still standing in 1905 when the Howard Street School was built two houses away, and it appears on city atlases as late as 1920, but it is not included among the 1938-1939 WPA photos of Howard Street, which suggests it was probably gone by then.  Most recently, the site has been used as a parking lot, but the 2015 photo shows construction equipment getting ready to begin work on the MGM Springfield casino.  The Howard Street School in the background will be demolished soon, pending final approval from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Randolph Beebe House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Randolph Beebe House on Beebe Road in Wilbraham, around 1913. Photo from The History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts (1913).

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The house in 2015:

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This house on Beebe Road in Wilbraham was built around 1785-1790 and was originally occupied by Daniel Chappel, although he didn’t live here for long.  The next family, Nathan and Mary Mack, lived here from around 1790 to 1810, and their daughter earned a place in local folklore in this house.  According to the account given in The History of Wilbraham Massachusetts in 1913, Mary discovered that her young daughter was playing with a rattlesnake in her lap.  She rescued her daughter from the snake and covered it with a tub until Nathan returned home.  He then killed the snake, cut off the rattles, and gave them to his daughter, who kept them in the family for several generations as an odd family heirloom.

By the time the 1913 photo was taken, the house was owned by Randolph Beebe, whose father in law, Thomas Gilligan, had previously owned it since around 1860.  Randolph died in 1923, and the house was apparently vacant for some time, although it was during this time that the house made a rather unexpected contribution to American literature.  In the summer of 1928, horror/science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft was touring parts of New England, and this included an eight-day stay at the home of Evanore Beebe in Wilbraham, just a short distance from this house, on Monson Road.  Later in 1928, he wrote one of his most famous short stories, “The Dunwich Horror,” which according to Lovecraft himself, “is based on several old New England legends — one of which I heard only last month during my sojourn in Wilbraham.”  One of these legends is about whippoorwill birds being an omen of death, and that they can capture departing souls.  Lovecraft heard this story while he was staying at Evanore Beebe’s house, but it was actually this house, formerly owned by Randolph Beebe, that provided the legend.  According to what Lovecraft wrote in 1934, “I saw the ruinous, deserted old Randolph Beebe house where the whippoorwills cluster abnormally,” and from that he learned about the legend that provided part of the basis of his famous short story.

I don’t know how long the house was vacant after Lovecraft’s visit, but it was occupied again by the 1950s.  In the century since the first photo was taken, the house has substantially increased in size with several additions in the back, but the original 1780s part of the house still retains its appearance from over 200 years ago.

Old Methodist Meeting House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Old Methodist Meeting House at the corner of Main Street and Mountain Road in Wilbraham, probably around 1913. Photo from The History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts (1913).

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The building in 2015:

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The old Methodist meeting house in Wilbraham hasn’t been used as a church for over 180 years, but some of its defining architectural features are still visible, including the long windows on the Main Street side of first floor.  It was built in 1793, as the first home of Wilbraham’s Methodist congregation.  It was used for 40 years, before being sold and renovated into a house.  As built, the church only had one floor, with windows that extended all the way up the side of the building.  When it was converted to a house, the second floor was added, and the windows were split, although the pattern is still noticeable here.

At the time that the church was built, Methodism was still in its infancy in New England.  Several important figures in Methodist history visited this church in the late 1700s and early 1800s, including Francis Asbury, who was one of the first bishops appointed by founder John Wesley, and Jesse Lee, who later became Chaplain of the US House of Representatives from 1809 to 1814, and Chaplain of the US Senate from 1814-1815.  During the first years of this church, the interior was rather spartan; the pews were just wooden benches, and a stove was not installed until 1815, after some 22 cold New England winters without any heat.  Something as novel as an organ would take even longer; the congregation didn’t purchase one until 1850, long after they had moved to a newer church building.

The Methodists built a new church across Mountain Road in 1833, and this was in turn replaced in 1870 by the stone church visible behind and to the left of the church in this photo.  Today, the building is one of the oldest existing church buildings in Western Massachusetts, and according to the 1963 History of Wilbraham book, it is the oldest existing Methodist church in New England.  Today, it is maintained as a museum by the Wilbraham Atheneum Society.