1930s

Samuel J. Filer House, Springfield, Mass

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

The house in 2017:


This house was built around 1880, only about a year after its neighbor to the left, but it represents a significant shift in architectural taste. By the early 1880s, the related Stick and Queen Anne styles of architecture had become fashionable, and many of the homes here on Buckingham Street are modest examples of these trends. Most of the people who moved into these homes were middle class professionals such as Samuel J. Filer, who was living in this house by around 1888. A veteran of the Civil War, Filer later worked as a clerk for James D. Gill, a prominent publisher and art dealer in late 19th century Springfield.

Samuel Filer lived here until around 1891, when the house was purchased by Caroline M. Sherman, a widow who had previously lived nearby at 212 Bay Street. Like many of the other residents of the McKnight neighborhood, she supplemented her income by renting rooms to boarders, one of whom was James Naismith, a Canadian student and instructor at the nearby YMCA Training School. He had originally lived with Caroline and her two daughters, Maude and Florence, in the house on Bay Street, but he joined them when they moved to this house on Buckingham Street, and lived here from 1892 to 1894.

Naismith, of course, is best known for having invented the game of basketball during his time at the YMCA Training School. He invented the game in December 1891, so he was probably still living on Bay Street at the time, but his move to Buckingham Street coincided with the meteoric rise in basketball’s popularity, from an improvised physical education game to a widely popular team sport. The game was popular at the YMCA Training School, but it did not take long for outsiders to take notice. Among the first were the young women who taught at the nearby Buckingham School, at the corner of Wilbraham Road and Eastern Avenue. They soon began playing basketball too, becoming in the process the sport’s first female players.

One of the teachers who played regularly was Caroline’s daughter Maude, who was 21 years old at the time. It was around this time that she and Naismith, who nearly 10 years older than her, began their courtship, and they were married two years later in 1894. After their marriage, the couple moved out of Caroline’s house and into their own home at 30 Wilbraham Avenue, where they lived for about a year before moving to Denver. The Naismiths would later move to Kansas, where James worked as a teacher, basketball coach, and ultimately the school’s athletic director. He would never again live in Springfield, but his legacy is still here, in the name of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

In the meantime, by 1895 Caroline had sold this house on Buckingham Street. Several different people lived here in the following years, including George H. Phelps in 1895 and pharmacy owner Fred N. Wheeler in 1897. Not until the end of the decade, though, did the house have a long term resident, when George and Alice Lyman purchased it. They were living here by 1899, along with their daughter Blanche, and like previous owners they also housed several boarders. George worked as a carpenter and builder, and he likely found plenty of work to do here in Springfield, with the city in the midst of a massive building boom that has given it he nickname of “The City of Homes.”

The Lymans lived here until around 1916, when they moved to a house on Wilbraham Road. In subsequent years, their old house here had a variety of residents, including physician Robert E. Seibels in 1917, and Christian Science practitioner William C. Loar in the late 1910s and early 1920s. By 1932, it was the home of Weaver H. Stanton, who was living here with his wife Florence and their daughter Marjorie when the first photo was taken. Although they lived here for many years, the Stantons were actually renting the house, paying $50 per month. However, this expense was reduced even further by the fact that they, in turn, rented rooms to boarders, with the 1940 census showing four mostly elderly people living here with them.

The Stantons were still living in this house as late as the early 1950s, but they appear to have moved out around 1951 when the house was sold. Since then, the house has remained relatively unchanged, although the exterior has deteriorated somewhat, especially the collapsing front porch. Otherwise, though, the house is still standing, and has historical significance both for its architecture and, more importantly, for having been the residence of James Naismith. The actual building where he invented the sport is long gone, and the site is now a McDonalds, but this house remains as perhaps Springfield’s most important existing connection to the invention of basketball.

William P. Derby House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 90 Buckingham Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


The vast majority of the houses in the McKnight neighborhood are Queen Anne-style homes from the 1880s and early 1890s. However, this house is one of a small number of Italianate-style homes, which date back to the first decade of the area’s development. Home sales were generally slow in the 1870s, in part because of the economic recession in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873, but this house was built in 1879 for William P. Derby, who lived here with his wife Frances, their daughters Mary and Fanny, and their son Winfred.

William Derby was a veteran of the Civil War, serving as a private in the 27th Massachusetts Regiment, and in 1883 he published a memoir, entitled Bearing Arms in the Twenty-Seventh Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. He was also involved in the leadership of the Grand Army of the Republic, including serving as the organization’s Department Commander of Massachusetts. When William first moved into this house, he was superintendent of the Springfield Weaving Company, but he later started an advertising firm, W. P. Derby & Co., with offices in the Kinsman Block on Main Street.

During the 1900 census, William was living here with Frances and Winfred, along with Frances’s 89-year-old mother Theresa Lyman. William died a year later, but Frances continued living here with Winfred until her own death in 1915. During this time, Winfred worked as a cashier, first at the Massasoit House and then later at the bar in the Hotel Kimball. After his mother’s death, he moved out of this house by 1917, and lived in a boarding house nearby on Clarendon Street.

Following Frances’s death, her house was sold to Fred E. Steele, who moved in with his wife Jennie and their three children. He was an insurance agent for the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and over the years he worked his way up the corporate ladder, serving as the company’s secretary by the early 1930s and vice president by the early 1950s. Jennie died in 1934, but Fred was still living here by the time the first photo was taken later in the decade, along with his sons Theodore and Kenneth.

Fred sold the property in 1961, a few years before he died, and since then the house has remained well-preserved. It is an excellent surviving example of the earlier style of homes in the neighborhood, with hardly any noticeable changes from the first photo. Like the rest of the homes in the area, it is now part of the McKnight Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Benjamin L. Bragg House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 80 Buckingham Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built around 1880 for Benjamin L. Bragg, a native of Royalston, Massachusetts who moved into the house with his newlywed wife, Frances M. Sessions. He worked in the agricultural business, with the 1882 city directory listing him as the superintendent for Parker and Gannett’s agricultural warehouse. Within a few years he went into business for himself, and by the end of the decade he was the owner of B.L. Bragg & Co., an agricultural warehouse and seed store that was located on Main Street.

The Bragg family lived here until about 1899, and by the 1900 census the house was being rented by insurance agent Arthur L. Fisk and his wife Carrie. By 1910, though, the house had been sold to Henry F. Rich, a furniture store clerk who lived here with his wife Minnie and their four children. They later moved to Park Street in the South End, and by 1914 the house was owned by Ellen S. Danforth. An elderly widow, she lived here with her two daughters, Alice and Anna, both of whom worked at the High School of Commerce, with Alice as a secretary and Anna as a teacher.

Ellen died in the 1920s, but her daughters continued to live here for many years. Neither of them ever married, and they were both still here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s. During this time, they also housed a lodger, fellow teacher Georgia S. Marks, who was living here in both the 1930 and 1940 censuses. After Anna’s death in 1951, Alice inherited sole possession of the property, and in 1956 she donated it to the Wesley Society of the Methodist Church, with a clause in the deed allowing her to continue living here for the rest of her life.

Nearly 50 years after she had moved into this house with her mother and sister, Alice died in 1963 at the age of 80, and a few months later the Wesley Society sold the property. At some point, probably within a few years before or after Alice’s death, the house was altered, removing many of the original Queen Anne-style details in the process. The front porch was replaced with simple concrete front steps and a bay window, a new chimney was built, and the entire house was covered in asbestos siding. Despite these changes, though, the house still stands as one of many historic late 19th century homes in the neighborhood, and it is now part of the McKnight Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Henry J. Davison House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 76 Buckingham Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1883 for Henry J. Davison, a jeweler who owned a shop on Elm Street at Court Square. He and his wife Julia lived here with their three children, Henry, Ralph, and Jennie. The two boys were both teenagers when they moved into this house, but Jennie was significantly younger than her brothers, and was only about five at the time. By the 1888 directory, the younger Henry and Ralph were in business for themselves, selling fruit and groceries out of a store on State Street.

Henry was 25 when he married his wife, Clara Casey, in 1890. They had two sons, Howard and George, but Clara died in 1898. Less than a year later, Henry remarried to Carrie Mills, and that same year his mother Julia died. By the 1900 census, the older Henry was living here alone except for his daughter.. In the meantime, the younger Henry and his family were living on Walnut Street, and he had apparently abandoned the grocery business by then, because he was listed as being a jeweler.

After his father’s death in 1904, Henry moved back into this house, but tragedy struck again a year later when Carrie died from pneumonia. Widowed twice by the age of 40, Henry remarried again a year later, to Marian Morgan. They were still living here as late as the mid-1910s, but they moved by the end of the decade. The 1920 census shows the house divided into two units, with two different families renting part of the house. In one unit was clothing store owner Archibald Ruggles and his wife Minnie, and in the other was Irish-born chauffeur Dennis J. Carney, his wife Bridget, and their two daughters.

By the 1930 census, the house was owned by Joseph B. Elvin, a teacher at the Springfield Trade School. He was 39 at the time, and lived here with his wife Ruth and his mother, Caroline. They also rented a portion of the house to road contractor Thornton Moulton, who lived here with his wife and three children. A decade later, shortly after the first photo was taken, the Elvins were still living here, and they were still renting part of the house, this time to Bruce and Viola Trumble, for $40 per month. Joseph’s sister, who was also named Ruth, was also living here at the time, with the census indicating that she was an arts and crafts teacher for a WPA program.

The Elvins were living here until the late 1950s, and since then the exterior of the house has remained well-preserved, with few changes from the first photo. Like many of the other homes on this block of Buckingham Street, it is a good example of early Queen Anne style architecture, and it is now part of the McKnight Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Daniel A. Tuttle House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 70 Buckingham Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


Daniel A. Tuttle was born in Montpelier, Vermont in 1815, but he spent much of his life in Connecticut, where he operated a paper mill. By the 1880 census, he and his wife Harriet were living in East Hartford, along with their son Lyman, his wife Mary, and their two young children, Bertha and Daniel. However, a year later the family moved to Springfield, with Daniel purchasing this newly-built home in the McKnight neighborhood. The house is an early example of the Queen Anne style of architecture that would soon come to dominate the area in the following decade. Although modest in size and design compared to many of the later homes, its defining feature is its gables, with the large ornamental arches under the roof.

After living in this house for only about a year, Daniel died in 1882, at the age of 67. By the following year, Harriet had moved to Central Street, but Lyman and Mary remained here in this house with their two children. A veteran of the Civil War who saw combat in seventeen battles, Lyman joined his father in the paper business at the end of the war, and he married Mary in the mid-1870s. Of their two children, Daniel died young, in 1886, from scarlet fever at the age of nine, but Bertha, who never married, lived here with her parents for many years.

Lyman died in 1929, and Mary died at some point in the 1930s, but Bertha continued to live here for several more decades after the first photo was taken. By this point, she was among the last of the neighborhood’s original residents, and she owned the house until her death in 1962, more than 80 years after her grandfather purchased the property. Since then, the house has been maintained in its original exterior appearance, with hardly any difference between the two photos. It is now part of the McKnight Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

C. Wesley Hale House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 60 Buckingham Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house is slightly newer than most of the other homes on this block of Buckingham Street,  and dates back to around 1892. It was built for C. Wesley Hale, an insurance agent ho appears to have only lived here for a few years. He was living here as late as the 1896 city directory, but by 1900 the house was owned by Daniel P. Horr, a post office clerk. Both he and his wife Lydia were originally from Maine, and they were in their late 50s when they moved into this house, along with their sons Frank and Irving. At the time, Frank was working as the secretary of the school committee, while Irving worked as a clerk for a bookstore.

Lydia died in 1906, and by the 1910 census Daniel and his sons were still living here, with Frank’s occupation listed as a publisher and Irving as working in advertising for a department store. Although both of his sons were bachelors well into adulthood, Irving married in 1919, and appears to have moved to Chicago around the same time. Daniel and Frank were still here during the 1920 census, and they also rented space to Harry E. Wheaton, a brass foundry employee who lived here with his wife Vera and their two young daughters. The Horrs also employed a live-in nurse, who was presumably hired as a caretaker for the aging Daniel, who died later that year.

Frank was no longer living here by the 1930 census, and the house was being rented to Jessie L. Blair, a widow who lived here with her son John and three roomers. However, Frank reappears here in the census a decade later, shortly after the first photo was taken. Curiously, though, the census lists George Mulholland as the owner, and he lived here with his wife Mildred and their three sons. Frank is listed only as a boarder, although this may have been an error on the part of the census taker. Adding even more mystery to this census record is Frank’s occupation, which is listed as “Research”, complete with the quotation marks around it.

City directories show Frank living here as late as 1945, but by the end of the decade the house was sold again. Today, the house is still standing, and very little has changed with the exterior since the Horr family lived here. Like the rest of the 19th and early 20th century homes in the neighborhood, it is now part of the McKnight Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.