Longmeadow Massachusetts

The view looking east toward the corner of Longmeadow Street and Bliss Road in Longmeadow, around 1910. Image photographed by Paesiello Emerson, courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society.

The same view in 2024:

These two photos show a view from the same vantage point as the ones in the previous post, just angled farther to the right. The photographer of the 1910 image, Paesiello Emerson, took the photo from the second-floor bedroom on the southeast corner of his house, at the corner of Longmeadow Street and Emerson Road. His image shows a changing landscape in Longmeadow, with an older farmhouse in the foreground and newer suburban homes in the background.

The house in the center of the top photo was apparently built sometime around the late 18th or early 19th centuries. It stood at the northeast corner of Longmeadow Street and Bliss Road, and the 1830 town map shows that it was owned by Samuel Stebbins. By the 1850s, it was owned by Sylvester Bliss, a farmer who lived here with his wife Nancy. They had four children: Hannah, Marilla, James, and Harriet. All four were living here with their parents during the 1880 census, and Bliss also employed two boys who lived and worked here. His property included about 30 acres that extended westward along the north side of Bliss Road as far as modern-day Laurel Street.

Sylvester Bliss died in 1887, and Nancy died a decade later. The top photo was taken around 1910, and the Bliss family still owned the property at this time, although they rented it to Clifford S. Kempton, a poultry farmer who was originally from Pennsylvania. During the 1910 census he was 53 years old, and he was living here with his wife Clara, their three children, and Clara’s brother Charles Breck. Their household also included 16-year-old Pearl Murphy, a Black domestic servant who was from North Carolina.

In 1913, the Bliss family sold this property to real estate developer Edwin H. Robbins. The land was then subdivided and new streets were laid out, including Belleclaire Avenue and Westmoreland Avenue. Most of the land was redeveloped with new single-family homes, but the spot here at the corner of Longmeadow Street and Bliss Road became the site of a commercial building known as the Colonnade. Rather than demolishing the old Bliss house, it was moved around the corner to a new lot on Bliss Road around 1914. However, it was destroyed by a fire just two years later. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, the fire was probably caused by defective wiring.

The Colonnade featured a variety of businesses, and early tenants included a drugstore, a grocery store, a meat market, a tailor, a shoemaker, and an automobile garage. It is still standing today, and it is visible in the center of the second photo, although its exterior has been heavily altered over the years. Aside from the construction of the Colonnade, other changes from the top photo include the demolition of the houses on the right side of Bliss Road, which can be seen in the distance on the right side of the top photo. This area on Bliss Road is now occupied by St. Mary’s Church and St. Mary’s Academy, which is partially visible on the far right side.

The view looking east toward the corner of Longmeadow Street and Belleclaire Avenue in Longmeadow, in January 1916. Image photographed by Paesiello Emerson, courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society.

The scene in 2024:

These two photos were taken from the southeast bedroom on the second floor of the Josiah Cooley House. Built around 1760, this house stands at the corner of Longmeadow Street and Emerson Road, and during the early 20th century it was the home of Paesiello Emerson, an amateur photographer who used his camera to document life in Longmeadow.

The top photo shows some of the changes that were happening here in Longmeadow during this period. For much of its history, the town was relatively small. Most of the homes were located along Longmeadow Street, with long house lots that extended to the east and west of the street. There was minimal commercial or industrial development, and the town’s economy relied primarily on farming.

By 1900, the town had a population of just 811, but this would soon change due to the growth of Springfield, which is directly to the north of Longmeadow. A trolley line was built through the town, linking it to Springfield and also to Hartford, and it made it easy for residents to live in the town and commute into the city for work.

Over the next few decades, many of the old house lots were subdivided and developed with single-family homes. This included the land at the northeast corner of Longmeadow Street and Bliss Road, which had long been owned by the Bliss family. Around 1913, the Bliss family sold this land to Edwin H. Robbins, a real estate developer who named the subdivision “Brookline.” This was part of a strategy to market Longmeadow as Springfield’s equivalent to Brookline, which is an affluent suburb of Boston.

The Brookline subdivision consisted of homes along the north side of Bliss Road and east side of Longmeadow Street, along with the development of several new streets. Belleclaire Avenue and Westmoreland Avenue were laid out east to west, running parallel to Bliss Road. These streets were intersected by Dayton Street (later named Cross Street), Rosemore Street, and Lorenz Street, which ran north to south. From this view, Belleclaire Avenue is near the center of the photo, with Westmoreland Avenue farther in the distance on the left side.

Aside from naming it “Brookline,” Robbins also promoted this subdivision through regular advertisements in local newspapers. One such advertisement, published in the May 4, 1913 Springfield Republican, encouraged Springfield residents to move to Longmeadow, specifically to Brookline. He wrote:

You have thought that you would like to live in Longmeadow.

The reasons you had were these:

You would have every advantage you have in Springfield. Emphasis on the “every.”

You would have, in addition, all the delights of the country. These are:

1. The pure country air, perfumed by the flowers and made vocal by the birds. Did you ever hear the birds’ May Festival?
2. The absence of the many hideous sights and smells of the city, as well as the profanities and vulgarities you cannot help hearing.
3. The closeness of the ties of friendships impossible anywhere but in a small community of congenial people. This is not obvious to a city dweller, but is a very real fact to the resident of a village community.

Think what these three advantages mean to growing children. You bring them up physically and morally clean, and you store their hearts with happy memories they will cherish in the strenuous days to come.

Your desire to live in Longmeadow is a true instinct. Follow it.

As to what “Brookline” is and will be, I want to say:—

1st. It has a beautiful location at the corner of Bliss Road, with a frontage of over 700 feet on Longmeadow Street, down to the Town House. It is level and high and perfectly dry, with a fine sand subsoil, and in no part underlaid with clay.

I am going to put in water, sewer, gas, electric lights. Trees now set out in the tree belts, and adequate cement sidewalks. The houses will be 100 feet apart across the streets, and I have restricted it so highly that I GUARANTEE YOU DESIRABLE NEIGHBORS, no matter how high your station in life may be.

I pledge my word to make “Brookline” the highest class development in Longmeadow. My word is good, and has been proved in my former developments, which I invite you to inspect.

Not only do I pledge my word, but I am hard at work to show the goods.

Come down and see what I am doing, as an indication of what I shall do.

BROOKLINE is where you bought melons of Mr. Kempton last year.

As indicated in the advertisement, Robbins placed deed restrictions on the lots, which were set to terminate in 1935. Some of these restrictions were fairly standard physical requirements, including setting standards for setbacks, minimum construction costs, and exterior materials. However, as implied by his guarantee of “desirable neighbors,” he also included racial and ethnic restrictions on the lots that he sold. These deeds stated that “said lot shall not be resold to a colored person a Polander or an Italian.” This was not an uncommon practice during the early 20th century, and it contributed to racial disparities between the predominantly white, high-income suburbs and the much more diverse, lower-income cities. The deed restrictions for this particular subdivision expired in 1935, but racially-based restrictions continued to be used elsewhere until 1948, when the Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court case ruled that they were unenforceable.

The top photo was taken in January 1916, during the early years of the subdivision’s development. Some of the houses were already built, and at least one or two on Westmoreland Avenue were under construction at the time. The photo was taken by Paesiello Emerson, from a second-floor bedroom at his house. This was one of the many photos that he took in Longmeadow during the first few decades of the 20th century, many of which showed the evolving landscape as the town evolved from an agricultural community to an affluent residential suburb.

Today, more than a century after Paesiello Emerson took the top photo, the view from the bedroom window shows a scene that is more developed, yet still recognizable from the top photo. The subdivision has long since been built out, and Belleclaire and Westmoreland Avenues are lined with early 20th century homes. Other than these houses, the only significant change in this scene is on the right side, where a small commercial property now stands at the corner of Longmeadow Street and Bliss Road. This was also constructed during the early 20th century development of the area, and it now includes a variety of commercial tenants, including a gas station and auto repair shop.

A wintry scene looking southeast toward the intersection of Longmeadow Street and Emerson Road in Longmeadow, around 1902-1909. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Paesiello Emerson Collection.

The scene in 2024:

These two photos show the same scene as the ones in the previous post, except these photos here were taken in the winter rather than in the summer. And, rather than being taken from ground level, they are taken from the southeastern bedroom on the second floor of the Josiah Cooley House. The photographer who took the top photo, Paesiello Emerson, lived in this house in the early 20th century with his half siblings Annie and Henry, and this is one of the many photos that he took of Longmeadow during this period.

The top photo is undated, but as explained in the previous post it must have been taken in 1909 or earlier, due to the presence of the house on the far right side of the photo. This house was demolished around 1909, when Springfield-based heating and plumbing contractor George R. Estabrook purchased the property and built a new house on the site. Likewise, the house on the left, which stood at the corner of Bliss Street, was demolished around the late 1920s in order to build St. Mary’s Church.

Today, both the church and the former Estabrook house are still standing, and the latter now serves as the rectory. Although these were built after the top photo was taken, the overall scene is still recognizable from that photo, especially when the landscape is covered with freshly-fallen snow. And, there is at least one noticeable surviving feature from the top photo—the maple tree in the foreground. It is now probably around 150 years old, and it still stands in the front yard of the Josiah Cooley House.

The view looking southeast toward the intersection of Longmeadow Street and Emerson Road, sometime around 1902-1909. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Paesiello Emerson Collection.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos were taken from the front yard of the Josiah Cooley House, looking southeast across Longmeadow Street. The top photo was taken by amateur photographer Paesiello Emerson, who lived in the Cooley House, and it is one of the many images that he captured of early 20th century Longmeadow.

The top photo shows a trolley traveling northbound on Longmeadow Street. At the time, trolley tracks ran the length of the street from the Connecticut state line in the south, to the Springfield border on the north. The tracks were operated by the Springfield Street Railway, and this provided direct service from Longmeadow to Springfield. Passengers could also take the trolleys south to Hartford, so this section of track in Longmeadow provided an important link in the interurban trolley system between these two major cities.

The trolley was a sign of changing times here in Longmeadow. Throughout the 19th century, the town had remained a small agricultural community, with very little development aside for the houses that lined either side of Longmeadow Street. However, the arrival of the trolley line meant that people could now live in Longmeadow and easily commute to Springfield, so by the early 20th century many of the old farms were being subdivided into residential streets.

On the other side of Longmeadow Street in the top photo, several old houses are visible through the trees. It’s hard to say whether this was a deliberate juxtaposition on Paesiello Emerson’s part, to show the modern trolley with a backdrop of old farmhouses, but the photo certainly has that effect. These two houses, which once stood on the east side of Longmeadow Street just south of Bliss Road, were likely built at some point in the 18th or early 19th centuries, but both would disappear within the first few decades of the 20th century.

The house further to the right, just beyond the trolley, was the first to go. Its presence in the photo helps to establish the date that it was taken, because the house was demolished by about 1909, when Springfield-based heating and plumbing contractor George R. Estabrook purchased the property and built a new brick house on the site. Further to the left, the house at the corner of Bliss Street was demolished around the late 1920s, in order to build St. Mary’s Church.

Aside from new buildings across the street, this scene would undergo more changes in the years after the top photo was taken. As automobiles became more common in the early 20th century, Longmeadow Street became part of the main north-south route through the Connecticut River Valley. This was made official with the designation of New England Route 2 in 1922, which was later renumbered as U.S. Route 5 with the establishment of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926. Longmeadow Street was a part of this route, resulting in heavy automobile traffic through the center of a town that, a few decades prior, had been a quiet village on the outskirts of Springfield. This led to concerns about speeding, and after a string of traffic fatalities in 1927 the town decided to install traffic lights at five key intersections, including one here at the corner of Emerson Road.

Today, almost nothing survives from the top photo, but this scene has still managed to retain much of its original scale, even if the buildings themselves are different. St. Mary’s Church still stands at the corner nearly a century after it was built, and next to it is the house that George Estabrook built around 1909. This house was sold to the church in the 1930s, and it now serves as the rectory. However, perhaps the only identifiable thing that survives from the top photo is the maple tree in the foreground on the right side of both photos. It is probably around 150 years old now, and it still stands here in the front yard of the Josiah Cooley House.