Houses

Harry C. Collins House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 240 Washington Boulevard in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1915 on the north side of Washington Boulevard, directly opposite Forest Park. It was originally the home of Harry C. Collins, a civil engineer who worked as a manager for the Berlin Construction Company. According to its advertisement in the 1918 city directory, the company specialized in “steel buildings, bridges and structural works,” and was headquartered on Sanford Street in downtown Springfield, at the current site of the MassMutual Center.

Collins lived here with his wife Marion and their daughter Nancy until 1935, when he sold the house to Charles R. Clason, a lawyer and law professor at the Springfield campus of Northeastern University. Now known as Western New England University, Clason taught at the school beginning in 1920, and he also served as district attorney from 1927 to 1930. He and his wife Emma had previously lived in a house on Rupert Street, but in 1935 they moved into this house on Washington Boulevard. A year later, Clason was elected to Congress, and he went on to represent Massachusetts’s 2nd district for six terms, from 1937 to 1949.

The first photo was taken several years after Clason’s election to the House of Representatives, and he lived here throughout his entire time in Congress. During this time, perhaps his most important vote came on December 8, 1941, when he was one of 388 representatives who voted to declare war on Japan after the previous day’s attack on Pearl Harbor. He continued to serve in the House for the duration of the war, and was ultimately defeated for re-election in 1948, losing to future governor Foster Furcolo. He was, to date, the last Republican to represent the Springfield area in Congress, but he remained active in politics, serving as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1952, 1956, and 1960.

In 1952, Clason became the dean of the Western New England College School of Law, and remained in this position until his retirement in 1970. Both he and Emma lived here until they sold the property in 1976, and they both died in 1985, when they were over 90 years old. Since then, their former house has remained essentially unchanged, and it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Francis D. Foot House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 42 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

Francis D. Foot was one of ten children born to Homer and Delia Foot, and grew up in Springfield, in his father’s house at the corner of Maple and Central Streets. Homer Foot had been one of the many self-made men of 19th century Springfield, beginning his career in 1825 as a 14-year-old clerk in the old Dwight store at the corner of Main and State Streets. However, by the age of 21 Homer Foot purchased the company, and it went on to become one of the area’s leading hardware retailers throughout the rest of the 19th century.

Like his older brother Homer, Jr., Francis Foot grew up working as a clerk in their father’s store, and they both became partners in the company, in 1866 and 1879, respectively. The younger Homer later built a house on Mulberry Street, but Francis never married, and lived with his parents until their deaths in the late 1890s. Around 1901 the old family home was sold to department store magnate Andrew Wallace, and a year later he moved into this newly-built home on Florentine Gardens, in the fashionable and newly-developed Forest Park Heights neighborhood. Like most of the other houses in the neighborhood, it features a Colonial Revival-style design, although it is somewhat unusual in that it has an asymmetrical front facade, with a wing on the southern side of the home.

By the time he moved into this house, Francis Foot was the president of Homer Foot & Co., and he would hold this position for many years. The 1910 census shows him living here with his brother Cleveland and sister Maria, both of whom were also unmarried, and the family also employed two live-in servants. Maria died in 1914, but Francis and Cleveland lived here until Francis’s death in 1928.

The house was subsequently sold to Nelson J. Hibbard, the secretary and treasurer of Perfection Grate & Stoker Company. He and his wife Gertrude were living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and by this point he had become the president and treasurer of the company. They lived here for the rest of their lives, until Gertrude’s death in 1956 and his death in 1959, and since then very little has changed in this scene. The exterior of the house remains remarkably well-preserved, down to small details such as the balustrade over the front porch and the Gothic-style window panes, and it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Leander H. Day House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 26 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This Colonial Revival-style house was built in 1901, and was originally the home of Leander and Nellie Day. A year earlier, during the 1900 census, they had lived a few blocks away from here, where they rented half of a two-family home on Firglade Avenue before moving into this house. Leander worked a traveling salesman, while Nellie was the owner of N. S. Day, an “artistic novelties” company that had a factory on Bridge Street in Springfield and a store at Union Square in New York City. Leander was 55 during the 1900 census, and Nellie was 48, and they lived with their daughter Bessie, their son Jesse, and Nellie’s mother, Elizabeth Phelps.

By the 1910 census, Nellie was still living in this house and was still listed as being married to Leander, although he apparently was not living here at the time. Instead, she lived here with her mother Elizabeth, her sister Anna, and Anna’s husband, Charles F. Crocker. The family was still here until the late 1910s, but by 1920 Nellie had moved around the corner to Cherryvale Avenue, and this house was sold to Harry B. Ellis, the treasurer of the Garrettson-Ellis Lumber Company. He was about 37 at the time, and lived here with his wife Ethel, their children Robert and Helen, and two servants. However, they were apparently only here for a few years, because by 1922 they had moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The house was subsequently sold to W. Walter Cummings and his wife Edith, who were both in their late 40s at the time. Like the previous owner, Walter was a corporate treasurer, holding that position for many years with the Consolidated Dry Goods Company, a Springfield-based company affiliated with Forbes & Wallace. Walter and Edith were still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and they would remain here for many more years. Walter died in 1952, and Edith appears is listed in city directories as late as 1958. Since then, the house has seen few changes, and survives as one of the many well-preserved turn-of-the-century homes in the Forest Park Heights Historic District.

Herbert Stearns House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 92 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1902, as one of the many upscale homes constructed in Springfield at the turn of the 20th century, in order to meet the needs of the city’s growing population of upper middle class residents. Situated on Magnolia Terrace, one of the most desirable streets in the Forest Park neighborhood, this house was originally the home of insurance agent Herbert Stearns and his newlywed wife Mary. Originally from Connecticut, Herbert came to Springfield with his older brother Edwin, and the two started Stearns Brothers, an insurance agency with offices in the Fuller Building, at the corner of Main and Bridge Streets. Early in their business they represented Travelers Insurance, but they were later affiliated with Aetna and several other insurance companies.

Herbert and Mary Stearns lived here until about 1918, but by 1919 the house was owned by Forest L. Mather, who lived here with his wife Caroline and their three children. Mather was an executive for the American Brush Manufacturing Company, which was located on Main Street in downtown Springfield, and he and his family lived here until the late 1920s, when they moved to Manchester, New Hampshire. The house was vacant for several years afterwards, but by the early 1930s it was the home of James L. Durfee, a dairy equipment salesman. However, by about 1936 it was the home of Horace Quimby, a manager at Massachusetts Mutual who lived here with his wife Mary.

The Quimby family was living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and they remained here until about 1956 when they sold the house. By this point, Quimby was still working for Massachusetts Mutual, with the city directory listing him as assistant agency secretary. Since then, very little has changed with his former house, and it remains a well-preserved example of Colonial Revival architecture. Even the exterior materials – with clapboards on the first floor and shingles on the upper floors – are still the same, although the current paint scheme does not make this difference very noticeable. Today, like the other surrounding houses, it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

James P. Caldwell House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 102 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This Colonial Revival-style home was built in 1903, and was one of the many upscale houses developed in the Forest Park neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century. It was originally owned by James P. Caldwell, a conductor for the Boston & Maine Railroad, who was about 47 at the time and lived here with his wife Edna and their three children: Edgar, Edna, and Eugene. The family was still living here during the 1910 census, and by this point Edgar was working as a bookkeeper for a paper company, while his twin sister Edna was a stenographer for the United Electric Light Company.

Around 1913, the Caldwell family moved out of this house, which was sold to George G. Bulkley, the assistant secretary of the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Originally from Connecticut, Bulkley moved to Springfield in 1912 after taking the position with Springfield Fire and Marine, and he and his wife Caroline moved into this house with their five children: George, Charles, Chester, James, and Caroline. In the years that followed, Bulkley steadily moved up the ranks of the insurance company, becoming vice president in 1917 and president in 1924. Along with this, he was also a director in a number of local corporations, including the Holyoke Water Power Company, the Springfield Street Railway, and the Third National Bank.

Their daughter Caroline died in 1921, when she was just eight years old, but their four sons all lived to adulthood. The three oldest followed their father into the insurance business while their youngest, James, became an attorney. By the 1930 census, only James was still living here with his parents, and a few years later they moved to a house nearby at 432 Longhill Street, on a hill overlooking the Connecticut River. During this time, George Bulkley continued to serve as president of Springfield Fire and Marine, and he would hold this position for a total of sixteen years before his death in 1940, at the age of 69.

In the meantime, this house on Magnolia Terrace remained in the Bulkley family even after George and Caroline moved out. When the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, their son Chester was renting the house, paying $50 a month and living here with his wife Helen and their daughters Janet and Ann. The house would stay in the family until 1949, and it has remained well-preserved since then. The only significant difference today is the front porch, which was enclosed in the first photo. However, this was almost certainly not original to the house, and today its appearance, with the open front porch, is probably closer to its 1903 design than it was when the first photo was taken.

Vernon House, Newport, RI

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Vernon House at the corner of Clarke and Mary Streets in Newport, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The house in 2017:

This house is perhaps Newport’s finest surviving Georgian-style house, with an exterior appearance that dates back to around 1759. However, the house itself is actually significantly older, having been built sometime in the late 17th or early 18th centuries. The first recorded owner was William Gibbs, a painter who moved from Boston to Newport in the early 1700s and was living in this house by 1708. Whether he built the house himself or purchased it from a previous owner is unclear, but the architecture of the original structure suggests that it was built sometime around 1700.

William Gibbs lived here until his death in 1729, leaving an estate valued at about 2,300 pounds. His daughter Elizabeth, whose husband William Gardner had been lost at sea three months earlier, inherited the property, remarried in 1732 to James Martin, and then died in 1735. This sequence of events set up an interesting legal battle after her death. Under English law at the time, her father’s property would have gone to her husband, and then to their children. However, if her husband – who had been missing for three months – died before her father, Elizabeth herself would have inherited it, and the property would have gone to her second husband after her death. Martin argued that, by all accounts, Gardner was dead before Gibbs’s death in 1729, but he ultimately lost his case and the property remained in the Gibbs-Garnder family until 1744.

The house was subsequently owned by a Patrick Grant and by Charles Bowler, the Collector of Revenue in Newport, who purchased it around 1753. In 1759, Charles sold it to his son, Metcalf Bowler, a prominent merchant who was among he wealthiest men in colonial Rhode Island. Shortly after purchasing the house, Metcalf had the house expanded and renovated to its current Georgian-style appearance. There are no surviving records of who the architect was, although tradition suggests that it may have been Peter Harrison, the prominent colonial-era architect who designed several buildings in Newport during the mid-18th century, including the Redwood Library, Touro Synagogue, and the Brick Market.

Metcalf Bowler was active in Rhode Island politics, particularly in the years leading up to the American Revolution, when Newport’s shipping industry was in its golden age. He served as one of Rhode Island’s delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, as speaker of the colonial legislature from 1767 to 1776, and was appointed to the state supreme court in 1776. However, during this time he was also a paid informant for the British army, working as a spy for General Henry Clinton, apparently in order to safeguard his property during the British occupation of Newport. His role as a spy was not discovered until the 20th century, but the war was devastating for Newport’s shipping industry and Metcalf Bowler lost much of his fortune as a result.

Bowler only lived in this house until 1773, when he sold it to William Vernon, a merchant and slave trader who was involved in the American Revolution. However, unlike Bowler, Vernon remained loyal to the Patriot cause, and in 1777 the Continental Congress appointed him as president of the Eastern Navy Board, effectively making him the de facto equivalent of Secretary of the Navy. In this position, he worked to develop the fledgling American navy, and he even loaned his own money – at little or no interest – to the perpetually cash-strapped government, to enable them to meet some of the many pressing wartime demands.

During the American Revolution, Vernon was directly associated with some of the leading figures of the era. His son William traveled to France in 1778 under the care of John Adams, who was also traveling with his own son, 11-year-old John Quincy Adams. Then in 1780, after the British occupation ended, the Comte de Rochambeau arrived in Newport with 5,500 French soldiers, who remained here while awaiting deployment against the British. Rochambeau used Vernon’s house as his headquarters, and during this time his visitors included the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington, with Washington arriving here in March 1781 to meet with Rochambeau. Several months later, in June, the French soldiers departed Newport for Virginia, for a campaign that ultimately led to the decisive American and French victory at Yorktown in October.

In the years following the American Revolution, William Vernon continued to live here in this house. His son Samuel served in the war, and in 1784 married his cousin Elizabeth Almy. The couple lived here with his father, and had eleven children, nine of whom survived infancy. In the meantime, the younger William remained in France for many years, where he became a favorite in the court of Louis XVI. He remained in France through the French Revolution, but returned to Newport in 1796, bringing with him a significant collection of paintings that included a copy of the Mona Lisa that is reputed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci himself.

Both of the Vernon brothers were prominent men in Newport, with Samuel running a prosperous merchant business and serving as president of the Newport Bank and the Newport Insurance Company, while William was the secretary of the Redwood Library for many years. They inherited the property after their father’s death in 1806, owning it until William’s death in 1833 and Samuel’s a year later. However, the house would remain in the Vernon family until it was finally sold in 1872, 99 years after William Vernon purchased it from Metcalf Bowler.

For the rest of the 19th century, the house was used as offices. Tenants included prominent geologist Raphael Pumpelly, as well as architect Clarence S. Luce, both of whom had offices in the building in the early 1880s. In 1912, about a decade after the first photo was taken, the house was purchased by the Charity Organization Society, who did some restoration work. It was later the home of the Family Service Society until the 1960s, when it was sold and again became a private residence.

Because of its historic and architectural significance, Vernon House was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1968. Since then, it has been well-preserved, and there are hardly any noticeable differences between the photos aside from minor details such as the shutters, which may not have been original to the house anyway. The house remained privately owned until 2009, when it was donated to the Newport Restoration Foundation. This organization has preserved a number of historic properties in downtown Newport, and it continues to own Vernon House and rent it out as a residence.