Westfield Massachusetts

Civil War Monument, Westfield, Mass

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The Civil War monument at Park Square in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

Westfield’s Civil War monument is located here at the southwest corner of Park Square, on a traffic island at the end of Court Street. It was an early work by noted sculptor Melzar Hunt Mosman, a native of Chicopee, Massachusetts. He was a Civil War veteran, and he went on to have a successful career, specializing in Civil War monuments during the late 19th century. This statue here in Westfield was dedicated on May 31, 1871, and it memorialized the 66 Westfield residents who died in the war. The model for the soldier atop the monument was Captain Andrew Campbell of Westfield, with whom Mosman had served in the 46th Regiment during the war.

The keynote speaker at the dedication ceremony was General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, a Civil War officer from New Jersey who had recently returned from a four-year stint as the U. S. Minister to Chile. In his speech, he praised the bravery and dedication of the soldiers from Massachusetts. He reminded the audience of the righteousness of the Union cause, while also denouncing the treason and atrocities of the Confederacy. In particular, he rebuked former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, declaring him to be “the arch-traitor who long since should have passed from a scaffold to an unhallowed grave.” At this point, the audience interrupted his speech with applause, and after he finished his thoughts on Davis, they responded with “great cheering,” according to the Springfield Republican account of the speech.

Aside from General Kilpatrick, the ceremony also included short speeches from Lieutenant Governor Joseph Tucker and three Civil War officers from Massachusetts: Brigadier General Henry Shaw Briggs of Pittsfield, Brevet Brigadier General William Sever Lincoln of Worcester, and Colonel Joseph B. Parsons of Northampton. Reverend Henry Hopkins, a Civil War chaplain who served as pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Westfield, gave the opening prayer and also read a poem. The ceremony was presided over by District Attorney Edward Bates Gillett, who made brief opening remarks and later introduced Mosman to the crowd after the statue was unveiled.

The first photo was taken about 20 years later, at a time when the Civil War was still within the living memory of many Westfield residents. It shows the view of the statue from the north, and in the background of the photo is the Morgan Block. This brick commercial building was already old by this point, having been constructed around the late 1810s by Major Archippus Morgan. He ran a general store here, while also renting space in the building to other retail tenants. Later in the 19th century, the building briefly served as the first home of the Westfield YMCA, and over the years it was used by a variety of other businesses, eventually becoming commercial offices in the first half of the 20th century.

Today, more than 125 years after the first photo was taken, remarkably little has changed in this scene. The monument has remained a landmark here in downtown Westfield, with few changes aside from the shrubbery at the base and the blue-green patina on the bronze surfaces. The Morgan Block is also still standing in the background. It has seen minor exterior alterations, including the addition of a dormer window on the left side and a bay window on the first floor of the right side, but overall it stands as a rare surviving example of an early 19th century commercial block here in Westfield.

Church of the Atonement, Westfield, Mass

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The Church of the Atonement, on King Street in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2018:

Westfield’s Episcopal church was established in 1863, and ten years later it became the Church of the Atonement. During its early years, its parishioners worshiped in several temporary locations, including in the Universalist church, but in 1880 the church broke ground on this building here on King Street, just west of Washington Street. The cornerstone was laid on May 15 of that year, in a ceremony that was officiated by Benjamin Henry Paddock, the Bishop of Massachusetts, and the work was completed eleven months later.

The church was first used on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1881. The Springfield Republican, in an article published two days earlier, declared it to be “one of the prettiest specimens of Gothic architecture in the town,” and provided the following description of the building:

The building is of brick with a slate roof, and has a tower at the northeast corner to which it is intended at some future day to add 50 or 75 feet and put in a chime of bells. The main entrance is from the east side of the tower, but admission may also be gained by the door in the wing or vestry leading into the chapel. The church has a seating capacity of 200, and is 70 feet long and 30 feet wide, not including the vestry, 15 by 18 feet. The interior, including casings and ceilings, will be handsomely finished in butternut, while the chancel trimmings and altars are to be of black-walnut. All the windows are of richly-stained glass, and the chancel and nave windows are beautiful specimens of art.

The first photo was taken about a decade later, and it shows the east side of the building, including the short tower at the main entrance. Despite the intentions of the parish, the planned bell tower had not been added by this point, and it would ultimately remain unbuilt, as the present-day photo shows. By the mid-1890s, though, the parish had grown to 50 families, with a total of 250 people, which must have put a strain on the building’s seating capacity of just 200.

The Church of the Atonement remained here in this building into the early 20th century. During this time, the house on the left side of this scene was constructed, evidently as a rectory. However, in 1924 the church moved to its current location at the corner of Court and Pleasant Streets, and sold this King Street property to Westfield’s First Church of Christ, Scientist. This congregation used the church throughout most of the 20th century, and the house was used as a Christian Science reading room.

The Christian Scientists sold the church and house in the early 1990s, and today both buildings are owned by the Christian Church of New Jerusalem. The exterior of the church remains largely unchanged since the first photo was taken, although it is somewhat difficult to tell, because the adjacent house now blocks part of the view of the church from this angle.

Whip Factories on Elm Street, Westfield, Mass

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Looking north on Elm Street in Westfield, toward the intersection of Franklin Street, around 1890-1895. Image courtesy of the Westfield Athenaeum.

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Elm Street in 2015:

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As mentioned in a previous post, Westfield was once the world’s leading producer in whips. When the first photo was taken, there were some 37 whip factories in the city, and by the start of the 20th century they combined to produce 99% of the world’s supply of whips. Two of these companies were photographed here; in the foreground to the right was the New England Whip Company, and just beyond it, in the much larger building with the tower, was Cargill, Cook & Co. Beyond these two factories were several other brick buildings, all of which were probably built around the 1870s or 1880s, just as Westfield’s whip industry was reaching its peak.

The whip industry was a boon to the entire city, but the lack of diversity in Westfield’s economy was felt as the whip factories started closing in the early 1900s. Automobiles had largely replaced horse-drawn carriages, which meant little demand for the city’s whips. Some of the historic whip factory buildings were later repurposed and are still standing in Westfield, but the ones in the first photo have since been demolished, and there is now a gas station on the site. The Swift Building, a three story brick building barely visible at the far end of the row of buildings in the first photo, is the only one left from the 1890s view. Otherwise, the only surviving structure from the first photo is the railroad trestle in the distance. There have not been any trains along this track for many years, but the right-of-way is in the process of being converted into a rail trail.

American Whip Company, Westfield Mass

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The American Whip Company building and the old Westfield Library building on Main Street, probably in the early 1890s. Image courtesy of the Westfield Athenaeum.

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The location in 2015:

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The American Whip Company was one of many whip manufacturers located in the “Whip City” of Westfield, Massachusetts. The building in the distance of the first photo was built around 1884, and less than a decade later the company merged with 13 other Westfield companies to form the United States Whip Company.  The added on to the facility with the “U” shaped building seen in this post; it is still on the site today, although it has been extensively modified.

The original 1884 building is still there, although it’s not visible from this angle; it is immediately behind, and slightly to the left of Subway and Domino’s today.  The old library building, however, is long gone – it was presumably demolished around 1892 when the United States Whip Company building was constructed on its spot.  Today, the Westfield Athenaeum is located on the other side of the Green, next to Court Street.

United States Whip Company, Westfield Mass

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The United States Whip Company building on Main Street in Westfield, around 1920. Image courtesy of the Westfield Athenaeum.

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The site in 2015:

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The United States Whip Company was established in 1892 with the merger of 14 whip companies, and they built this building on Main Street in Westfield as their headquarters.  It was part of a large complex that took up much of the block between Main Street and Thomas Street, and some of the buildings were originally used by the American Whip Company, one of the companies later involved in the 1892 merger.

Westfield gained the nickname of the Whip City because of its many whip manufacturing companies, but by the turn of the 20th century essentially all of these were owned by United States Whip Company.  By the end of World War I, around 99% of the worldwide whip production was from Westfield, and the United States Whip Company accounted for about 85% of the market.  They were by far the world’s leading whip producer, but they were the leader in a rapidly shrinking industry.  Automobiles were making horse-drawn carriages obsolete, which meant a limited demand for Westfield’s primary manufactured goods.  In 1895, the city had 37 different whip companies; by 1926, not long after the first photo was taken, there were only 37 people working in the whip industry.

Today, the building on Main Street is still there, although it has been significantly altered over the years.  The brick exterior has since been covered in stucco, and the building that was once the world’s leading producer of whips is now home to Subway, Domino’s, and other businesses.  Along with the storefronts on the first floor of the original building, the space in between the “U” has been filled in with a one-story commercial block.

Elm Street, Westfield Mass

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Elm Street in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

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Elm Street in 2015:

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When the first photo was taken, Westfield was a significant industrial center, with factories that made everything from buggy whips (hence the city’s nickname as the “Whip City”) to organs, and as a result the town had a fairly prosperous downtown.  In the years since the first photo was taken, the town has become a city, most of the factories have closed, and much of the city’s commercial activity has left the downtown area.  However, many of the historic commercial blocks from the 19th century survive today, and the city has been making an effort to revitalize the downtown area, including a complete renovation of the town green and the rotary that surrounds it, part of which can be seen here in the 2015 photo.

The most prominent building in both photos is the commercial block to the right, at the corner of Elm and Main Streets.  Known as the Morrissey Block, it was built in 1842 as a boarding house, and by the time the first photo was taken it was operated as the Westfield House Hotel.  After the hotel closed, the second floor was used as the Westfield District Court in the early part of the 20th century, and today the historic building is used for a variety of commercial and office spaces.