Houses

George W. Prentiss House, Holyoke, Mass (2)

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The house at 1399 Northampton Street, opposite Fairfield Avenue in Holyoke, around 1891. Image from Holyoke Illustrated (1892).

The scene in 2017:

 

As discussed in more detail in the previous post, this house was built around 1884 for wire manufacturer George W. Prentiss and his wife Jane. They both lived here for the rest of their lives, and after George’s death in 1915 the property was inherited by their son William, who lived here until his death in 1954 at the age of 100. The first photo was taken around 1891, and shows the front elevation of the house, with its asymmetrical Queen Anne-style design. On the left side of the house is the driveway and porte-cochere, and to the right is a carriage house. In the foreground, the property features a large, landscaped front lawn, and in the distance a low hill rises beyond the house to the west.

Today, nothing in the present-day scene is recognizable from the 1891 view. Shortly after William Prentiss’s death, the property was sold to a contractor and subdivided. The old house was demolished around 1955, and Carol Lane was built through the property. Ten new houses were constructed here, but the carriage house was preserved and was converted into a house. Although not visible from this angle, it is still standing on the right side of the street as the only surviving remnant. Also hidden from view is Interstate 91, which now runs along the hill in the distance of this scene, cutting through part of what had once been Prentiss’s backyard.

George W. Prentiss House, Holyoke, Mass

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The house at 1399 Northampton Street in Holyoke, Mass, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

The large Queen Anne-style house in the first photo was built sometime in the early 1880s, and it was originally the home of George W. Prentiss, a wire manufacturer. Prentiss was born in 1829 in Claremont, New Hampshire, but he subsequently moved to Massachusetts, where he worked for wire manufacturers Worcester and Boston. He came to Holyoke in 1857, back when the city was still in the early years of its industrial development, and he went into business for himself, establishing a wire mill that came to be known as George W. Prentiss & Co.

His wire company prospered, and Prentiss remained involved in it until his death in 1915. In the meantime, he was also involved in other businesses, variously serving as president of the Holyoke Savings Bank and the Holyoke National Bank, treasurer of the Holyoke & Westfield Railroad, and a director for several other companies. Prentiss was also involved the civic life of the city, serving a director of the Holyoke Public Library and the Holyoke City Hospital, and as a member of the Board of Aldermen in 1874 and 1875.

George W. Prentiss married his wife, Jane D. Washburn, in 1852, several years before their move to Holyoke. They had two children, William and Clara, and the family lived in a house at the corner of Chestnut and Suffolk Streets for many years. However, by 1885 they had moved west, outside of the downtown area, to the Highlands neighborhood. At the time, this part of Holyoke was just starting to be developed as an upscale residential area, and Prentiss’s house was located on Northampton Street, directly opposite Fairfield Avenue. The house was presumably built around the same time that the family moved in, and the property also included a matching Queen Anne-style carriage house, which was located behind and to the right of the house, hidden from view in the first photo.

George and Jane Prentiss lived here in this house for the rest of their lives, until Jane’s death in 1912 at the age of 83, and George’s death three years later at the age of 85. Their son William then inherited the house, and by the 1920 census he was living here with his wife Helen and their daughter Bertha, along with a cook and a maid. William had served for many years as the treasurer of George W. Prentiss & Co., and after his father’s death he took over his role as president. Although over 60 years old at the time, William would hold this office for nearly 40 more years, until his death in 1954 at the age of 100.

After William’s death, his house was sold to a contractor. It was demolished around 1955, the property was subdivided, and Carol Lane was built through here, with an assortment of ranch and split-level homes. However, the old Prentiss carriage house was preserved and converted into a home. It is not visible in the 2017 photo because of the trees, but it still stands at 15 Carol Lane, where it is a Victorian-era outlier in the midst of a modern suburban development.

Crafts Tavern, Holyoke, Mass

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Crafts Tavern, at the present-day corner of Dwight and Northampton Streets in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

Long before the Industrial Revolution turned it into a major manufacturing center, the present-day city of Holyoke was the northern part of West Springfield. It was designated as the Third Parish of West Springfield in 1786, but was also known as Ireland Parish, because of several Irish families who were among the first to settle in the area. At the time, most of the settlement was along present-day Northampton Street, far from the riverfront area that would later be developed, and it remained a part of West Springfield throughout the first half of the 19th century. Not until the middle of the 19th century, when industrialization began along the Connecticut River, would the population shift eastward to the current city center, and Holyoke would not be incorporated as a separate municipality until 1850.

The building in the first photo was one of the landmarks from these early years of Ireland Parish. It was built in 1785 for Abner Miller, who operated an inn here for many years. Then, in 1832, the property was sold to Chester Crafts, and the building came to be known as Crafts Tavern. It was situated along the main north-south route along the Connecticut River Valley, so it served as an important stopping point for travelers. Crafts’s younger brother, Roswell P. Crafts, drove the stagecoach from Springfield to Northampton, and the tavern was close to the midway point of this 20-mile trip. Many years later, Roswell would go on to serve as mayor of Holyoke in 1877 and 1882 to 1883, long after Holyoke had transitioned from the rural Ireland Parish and into a major industrial city.

In the meantime, though, Crafts Tavern served as the focal point of the village, which otherwise consisted of a church, a school, a few stores, and some scattered houses. According to “Our County and Its People”: A History of Hampden County (1902), the tavern was “perhaps the chief center of attraction in the town” prior to the industrialization of the late 1840s. However, this began to change once mills began opening along the Connecticut River. During the 1850 census, the same year that Holyoke became a town, it had a population of just over 3,000. This figure would grow exponentially throughout the rest of the century, though, and by 1890 the city had more than 35,000 inhabitants, nearly all of whom lived far from the traditional village center here in Ireland Parish.

Despite these changes, Chester Crafts continued to operate his tavern here until his death in 1871. He does not appear to have suffered financially, either, because the 1870 census values his real estate holdings at $32,000, plus a personal estate of $12,000, for a net worth equivalent to nearly $900,000 today. After his death, his widow Olive acquired the property, although she does not appear to have kept a tavern here. However, she was still living here when the first photo was taken in the early 1890s, and she remained here until her death in 1914 at the age of 92. The old tavern would remain in the Crafts family for another nine years until 1923, when the property was sold to the city of Holyoke.

The building was subsequently moved a short distance, in order to allow for Dwight Street to be extended west across Northampton Street. By this point, it was one of the oldest buildings in the city, and there were plans to turn it into a museum. However, despite its historical significance, it was ultimately demolished sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The property then became the John J. Lynch Middle School, which was completed in 1952. This building is still here today, although it has not been used as a school since 2008. It is currently slated to be demolished, and the site will be redeveloped for retail use.

Edward W. Chapin House, Holyoke, Mass

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The house at 181 Elm Street, at the corner of Appleton Street in Holyoke, around 1891. Image from Holyoke Illustrated (1891).

The house in 2017:

This elegant Queen Anne-style house was built around 1880, and was originally the home of Clemens Herschel (1842-1930), a prominent hydraulic engineer who worked for the Holyoke Water Power Company. Born in Austria in 1842, Herschel immigrated to the United States as a child, and subsequently graduated from Harvard in 1860. After spending the early part of his career designing bridges and working on the sewer system in Boston, he came to Holyoke in 1879. By the following year’s census, he was living here in this house along with his wife Grace and their two sons, Arthur and M. Winston Herschel.

During the decade that he worked for the Holyoke Water Power Company, Herschel invented the Venturi meter, which was the first effective way of measuring water flow. The meter was in commercial use by 1889, allowing the Holyoke Water Power Company to measure the water use of the individual factories in the city. That same year, Herschel left Holyoke for New Jersey, where he worked as the chief engineer of the East Jersey Water Company from 1889 to 1900. He later served as a consulting engineer for major water projects in New York, including the hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls, and in 1915 he became president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Along with this, Herschel wrote several books, including Frontinus and the Water Supply of the City of Rome, which was a translation of the works of ancient Roman civil engineer Sextus Julius Frontinus.

Although he lived in Holyoke until 1889, Herschel only lived in this house until about 1885, before moving to a house at 209 Linden Street. By 1886, this house on Elm Street was the home of Edward W. Chapin (1840-1924), a prominent attorney and judge. Although originally from Chicopee, Chapin came to Holyoke in 1865 to practice law, and in 1877 he was appointed as a justice of the Holyoke district court. He was later appointed as a judge of the police court in 1898, and served in that capacity until 1919. In addition, he held several other political offices, including serving in the state legislature, on the Holyoke city council, on the school board, and as the city solicitor.

During Chapin’s time in Holyoke in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city was at the peak of its prosperity as a major manufacturing center. From 1894 until his death in 1924, he was the president of the Farr Alpaca Company, which was the largest textile mill in the city at the time, and he was also a director and vice president of the Mechanics Savings Bank and a director of the Holyoke and Westfield Railroad. Outside of his commercial interests, Chapin was also a director of the Holyoke Public Library and the Holyoke City Hospital, and he also served as president of the board of trustees of Mount Holyoke College from 1906 to 1912.

Edward Chapin and his wife, Mary Beebe, had four children: Arthur, Ann, Alice, and Clara. In 1892, Ann married William F. Whiting (1864-1936), the son of the wealthy paper manufacturer William Whiting, who lived across the street from this house. Arthur continued to live here in his parents’ house until 1897, when he married Tirzah L. Sherwood. A year later, he was elected mayor, and held the office from 1899 until 1904. During their marriage, he and Tirzah lived in a house at 211 Oak Street, but she died in 1901, and by 1903 Arthur had returned here to 181 Elm Street. Arthur would later go on to have a successful political and business career, including serving as Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts from 1905 to 1909, as State Bank Commissioner from 1909 until 1912, and as vice president of the American Trust Company.

Arthur Chapin remarried in 1907 to Marion S. Murlless, and the 1910 census shows them living here in this house along with his parents and his two unmarried sisters, Alice and Clara. Arthur and Marion moved into their own house by the late 1910s, but Edward and Mary continued to live here on Elm Street for the rest of their lives. He died in 1924, and Mary died four years later, and by the 1930 census their two daughters were living here alone except for a live-in cook.

Alice Chapin died in 1944, at the age of 69, but Clara continued to live here in this house until her death in 1962 at the age of 84, more than 75 years after she moved into the house with her parents and siblings. Since then, the exterior of the house has remained well-preserved. From this angle, the only significant change is the loss of the front porch, but otherwise it retains all of its Queen Anne-style ornamentation, and it survives as an excellent example of Holyoke’s historic 19th century mansions. The property is now owned by the Valley Opportunity Council, and provides low-income housing for veterans.

Ropes Mansion, Salem, Mass

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The Ropes Mansion at 318 Essex Street in Salem, on November 26, 1940. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The house in 2017:

This house was built sometime in the late 1720s, and was originally the home of Samuel Barnard (1684-1762), a merchant who had moved to Salem from Deerfield, Massachusetts. He was a survivor of the 1704 Indian raid on Deerfield, and he lived there until after the death of his wife Mary and their infant son Samuel in 1720. He subsequently came to Salem and married his second wife Rachel, the widow of his cousin Thomas Barnard. Here, he propspered as a merchant and became a wealthy man, as demonstrated by the elegant Georgian mansion that he built within a few years of his arrival.

Rachel died in 1743, and he later remarried to Elizabeth Williams, who died in 1753. Three years later he married his fourth wife, Catharine Dexter, and they lived here until his death in 1762. With no surviving heirs from any of his marriages, Barnard left a considerable amount of money for charitable purposes, including a hundred pounds for the relief of the poor in Salem and Deerfield, and two hundred pounds to purchase silver for the churches in Salem, Deerfield, and Greenfield. Among these gifts was a silver tankard, now in the collections of Historic Deerfield, that was made by the young Boston silversmith Paul Revere.

Barnard left his property in Salem, including this house, to his nephew, Joseph Barnard. In 1768, Joseph sold the house to Judge Nathaniel Ropes (1726-1774) for eight hundred pounds. At the time, the property extended beyond the house as far as the banks of the North River, since Federal Street has not yet been opened a block to the north of here. Ropes was a 1745 graduate of Harvard, and began his career as a lawyer. He represented Salem in the colonial legislature in 1760 and 1761, and served on the Governor’s Council from 1762 to 1768. He was also a judge on the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and a judge of probate, and in 1772 Governor Thomas Hutchinson appointed him as a justice on the Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court in the colony.

Ropes’s short tenure as an associate justice on the court was marked by a significant controversy over how judges were paid. Although appointed by the royal governor of the colony, the judges were, until this point, paid by the elected representatives of the General Court. Because these royal judges were effectively at the mercy of the colonists, the British proposed paying them directly, through the already-unpopular colonial taxes. This action further outraged Massachusetts patriots, who feared that the judges would become partial to the Crown over colonial interests. However, there was significant pressure on these judges to not accept their royal salaries, and in 1773 the lower house of the General Court gave a clear warning to Ropes and the other Superior Court justices, with a resolution stating that:

any one of them who shall accept of, and depend upon the Pleasure of the Crown for his Support, independent of the Grants and Acts of the General Assembly, will discover to the World that he has not a due Sense of the Importance of an Impartial Administration of Justice, that he is an enemy to the Constitution, and has it in his Heart to promote the Establishment of an arbitrary Government in the Province.

Nathaniel Ropes promised that he would not accept the royal salary, and he was even acquainted with prominent patriots such as John Adams, who visited this house on November 9, 1771. The future president commented on the visit in his diary, writing:

Dined this Day, spent the Afternoon, and drank Tea at Judge Ropes’s, with Judges Lynde, Oliver and Hutchinson, Sewal, Putnam, and Winthrop. Mrs. Ropes is a fine Woman — very pretty, and genteel. Our Judge Oliver is the best bred Gentleman of all the judges, by far. There is something in every one of the others indecent and disagreable, at Times in Company-affected Witticisms, unpolished fleers, coarse Jests, and sometimes rough, rude Attacks, but these you dont see escape Judge Oliver.

This meeting here at the Ropes house included some of the most prominent jurists in the colony at the time. Along with Ropes himself, both Benjamin Lynde, Jr. and Peter Oliver were justices of the Superior Court, and the Hutchinson mentioned in the entry is likely Foster Hutchinson, who also served on the court. Lynde was the chief justice at the time, but the following year he was succeeded by Oliver, who was later forced out once the Revolution started. Coincidentally, Oliver’s replacement as chief justice was none other than John Adams himself, although he never actually sat on the court and eventually resigned after holding the position from 1775 to 1776.

In the meantime, as the colony moved closer to revolution, Ropes faced problems right here at his home in Salem. Although he had refused his royal salary, he nonetheless held Loyalist views, and his position as a high-ranking judge made him a symbol of British power in the colony. According to tradition, in March 1774 an angry mob attacked the house, throwing mud, sticks, and rocks at the windows and calling for Ropes to renounce his allegiance to the Crown. However, at the time Ropes was in his bed, gravely ill with smallpox, and he died the following day, with the stress from the mob supposedly being a contributing factor in his death.

Writing in his diary a little over a week later, John Adams made no mention of a specific mob attacking the house, but did comment on how the turmoil in the colony had affected Ropes’s health:

Pynchon says judge Ropes was exceedingly agitated all the time of his last Sickness — about the public Affairs, in general, and those of the Superiour Court in particular — afraid his Renunciation would be attributed to Timidity — afraid to refuse to renounce — worried about the Opinion of the Bar, &c.

Nathaniel Ropes was only 47 when he died, leaving his widow Priscilla and six young children, whose ages ranged from one to 14. She and the children moved to nearby Danvers for some time, but after a few years their oldest son, Nathaniel Ropes III (1759-1806), returned to this house and began a merchant business here in Salem. He and his wife Sarah had three children who survived infancy, including a son, Nathaniel Ropes IV (1793-1885), and two daughters, Sarah (Sally) and Abigail. The elder Sarah died in 1801, at the age of 36, and two years later Nathaniel remarried, to Elizabeth Cleveland. However, he died in 1806, at the same age as his father’s untimely death.

Nathaniel Ropes IV would later move to Cincinnati, where he lived for the rest of his life, but his sisters Sally and Abigail continued to live here in the family home. In 1817, Sally married Joseph Orne, whose father, William Orne, was a prosperous merchant. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in 1818, but Joseph died later in the year, at the age of just 22. Like so many other members of the family, Abigail Ropes also died relatively young in 1839, and Elizabeth died three years later, at the age of 24.

After having outlived her husband, daughter, parents, and sister, the middle-aged Sally remained here in this house for many years. The 1850 census shows her living here alone except for two women who were presumably servants. By the 1870 census, she was 75 years old and employed a live-in nurse and a servant, and she also lived here with her nephew, 37-year-old Nathaniel Ropes V. Although born in Ohio, Nathaniel had later returned to his father’s childhood home here in Salem, and continued living in the house after Sally’s death in 1876.

Nathaniel died in 1893, and the house was then acquired by his sisters. The following year, it underwent renovations. It was moved back from the street, and was modernized with conveniences such as central heat, electricity, and plumbing. A large wing was also built in the rear of the house, the fence was added to the front yard, and some of the interior was also renovated. The three sisters went on to live here for the rest of their lives. The oldest, Sarah, died in 1899, followed by Mary in 1903 and Eliza in 1907. Unmarried, and with no surviving nieces or nephews, Mary and Eliza were the last of their branch of the Ropes family, and after their deaths they left the property to the Essex Institute, as a memorial to their family.

The first photo was taken a few decades later, as part of the New Deal-era Historic American Buildings Survey. The house has not seen any significant changes since then, and it is now owned by the Peabody Essex Museum, which acquired the property following the 1992 merger between the Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute. A year later, the exterior of the house appeared in the Disney film Hocus Pocus, where it served as the home of one of the main characters. Today, the house is still open to the public as a museum, and is one of many historic properties owned by the Peabody Essex.

Loring-Emmerton House, Salem, Mass

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The house at 328 Essex Street in Salem, on November 26, 1940. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The house in 2017:

This elegant Federal-style house was built sometime around 1818 to 1821, and was among the many fine mansions that were built in this neighborhood of Salem during the early 19th century, at the height of Salem’s prominence as a seaport. The original owner was William Pickman (1774-1857), a merchant whose father, Benjamin Pickman (1740-1819) had been a wealthy merchant and a Loyalist in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Benjamin had left for England at the start of the war, just a year after William was born, but he would later return to Salem after the war ended.

Benjamin Pickman’s allegiance evidently did not hurt his family, as William’s brother, Benjamin Pickman, Jr. (1763-1843), would go on to become a prominent politician, including serving a term in Congress from 1809 to 1811. William, in the meantime, was a merchant in Boston for some time, but later retired to Salem, perhaps around the same time that he built this house. He never married, and lived here in this house with his sister, Love Rawlins Pickman (1786-1863), until his death in 1857.

By the mid-1860s, the house was owned by George B. Loring (1817-1891), whose wife, Mary Toppan Pickman (1816-1878) was the niece of William Pickman. Loring was originally a physician, and an 1842 graduate of Harvard Medical School, but he later left the medical practice and entered politics. He went on to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1866 to 1868, the Massachusetts Senate from 1873 to 1877, and during this time he was also the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Committee from 1869 to 1876.From there, he served two terms in Congress, from 1877 to 1881, and after losing re-election he was appointed as U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, serving under Presidents Garfield and Arthur. His final political office was as Minister to Portugal, a position that he held from 1889 until his resignation in 1890, a year before his death.

George and Mary Loring had two daughters, Mary and Sally, although Mary died in 1864 at the age of six. The 1870 census shows the family living here along with a coachman and three servants, and it lists George’s real estate value at $69,900, and his personal estate at $20,000. This was a considerable amount of money for the time, equivalent to nearly $1.8 million today. Mary died eight years later, but George remarried in 1880 to Anna Hildreth, a widow who, at about 35 years old, was nearly 30 years younger than him.

The Lorings appears to have moved out of this house during the early 1880s, and by the end of the decade it was owned by Jennie Emmerton (1837-1912), the widow of George R. Emmerton (1836-1888), a wealthy merchant and banker. She was also the daughter of prominent merchant and philanthropist John Bertram, and at her death in 1912 she was reportedly the wealthiest woman in Salem. This house was substantially remodeled around the time of her ownership, with the addition of Colonial Revival-style features on the both the interior and exterior. These included the the front entrance porch, the Palladian window above it, the porte-cochere on the left side of the house, and the carriage house beyond it. The renovations were the work of architect Arthur Little, and resulted in a house that was nearly identical to the nearby Dodge-Shreve House at 29 Chestnut Street.

Jennie Emmerton lived here with her unmarried daughter, Caroline O. Emmerton (1866-1942), and Caroline inherited the house after Jennie’s death. Like the other members of her family, Caroline was involved in philanthropy, contributing to a number of charitable organizations in the city. However, perhaps her most visible work was on the House of the Seven Gables, which she purchased in 1908 and restored to its original 18th century exterior appearance. She later acquired several other historic houses in Salem that were in danger of demolition, and had them moved to the grounds of the House of the Seven Gables for preservation.

Caroline Emmerton was still living here when the first photo was taken in 1940, but she died two years later. The house was subsequently divided into apartments, and today the interior consists of five units. However, the exterior has hardly changed during this time, with few noticeable changes from this angle except for the missing balustrade atop the roof. Along with the other homes in the surrounding neighborhood, it is now part of the Chestnut Street Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.