Forest Park Neighborhood Springfield

Clifford B. Potter House, Springfield, Mass

by

The house at 267-269 Longhill Street at the corner of Cherryvale Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

Springfield’s Forest Park Heights neighborhood includes a number of elegant late 19th and early 20th century homes, but some of the finest of these can be found here on Longhill Street, where some of the city’s leading residents lived. This large house was built in 1898 for Clifford B. Potter, a manager for the Springfield Knitting Company. He lived here with his wife Caroline and their two young daughters, Gladys and Anna, and the family also employed a governess and a servant, both of whom lived here.

Potter remained with the Springfield Knitting Company for 16 years, but in 1906 he started his own company, the Potter Knitting Company. The firm specialized in “fancy knit goods,” and by the early 1910s they had become, of all things, the nation’s leading producer of infants’ underwear. Potter built a new factory on Main Street, just north of Mill Street, and he served as the company’s president and treasurer for many years. By 1920, the company was still growing, and was listed as manufacturing “infants’, children’s and ladies’ ribbed underwear and union suits.”

The Potter family continued living in this house during this time, but Caroline died in 1925. Clifford remarried to his second wife, Martha, and lived here until his death in 1935. Martha was still living here a few years later, when the first photo was taken, but she sold the property in 1947, to attorney Samuel Goodman and his wife Ruth. At some point over the years, the house was converted into a two-family home, but on the exterior it is essentially unchanged. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, the property is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Holy Name Rectory, Springfield, Mass

by

The Holy Name Parish rectory at the corner of Dickinson and Alderman Streets in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The scene in 2017:

This building was originally built as three separate homes, with one on Dickinson Street, one on Alderman Street, and one in the middle at the corner of the two streets. The oldest of these was the Alderman property, which was built sometime in the 1890s, and the other two were built in the first decade of the 20th century. Although they were intended as private homes, the corner house was purchased in 1910 to serve as the rectory for the newly-established Holy Name Parish, which had just built a school and chapel on an adjacent lot.

The Forest Park neighborhood grew rapidly in the early 20th century, and so did the Holy Name Parish. Because of this, in 1920 it purchased the neighboring house on Alderman Street, connected the two buildings, and covered the exterior in stucco. Then, in 1934, the Dickinson Street house was purchased as well, and was integrated into the rest of the rectory. These two views show the property from the Dickinson Street side, with the original rectory on the left, the Dickinson house on the right, and the Alderman house partially visible beyond it on the far right.

Despite nearly 80 years in between these two photos, not much has changed in this scene. The school itself has since been closed, after having been consolidated with four other Catholic elementary schools, and the buildings are now rented to the city of Springfield. However, Holy Name is still an active Roman Catholic parish, and this building still serves as the rectory for the church, which is located on the other end of the block at Grenada Terrace.

Holy Name School, Springfield, Mass

by

The Holy Name School on Dickinson Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The school in 2017:

At the start of the 20th century, Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood was growing rapidly, and in 1909 the Diocese of Springfield established a new Catholic parish to serve the area’s residents. That same year, construction began on this building, on Dickinson Street between Alderman Street and Grenada Terrace, just north of the “X.” It was completed in 1910, and originally served as both a chapel and as the Holy Name School, which opened in the fall of 1910 with 200 students.

Over time, both the parish and the school grew, and by the time the first photo was taken a second school building had been built, on the far left side of the photo. Beyond it was the church itself, and just out of view to the left was the rectory. A little over a decade later, in 1951, a social center was built on Alderman Street, followed in the late 1960s by a new church at the corner of Grenada Terrace. Throughout this time, the Holy Name School educated many thousands of Springfield children, including former mayor Charles V. Ryan, who was probably attending the school around the time when the first photo was taken.

Nearly 80 years after the first photo was taken, the Holy Name Parish is still an active church, although the school has since been closed. In 2009, it and four other Catholic elementary schools were consolidated into one school, St. Michael’s Academy in East Forest Park. The century-old Holy Name School did not remain vacant for long, though, because since the fall of 2009 the school buildings have been rented to the city of Springfield. From 2009 to 2013, the campus was the home of New Leadership Charter School, and it is now the home of the Liberty Prepatory Academy.

Grenada Terrace, Springfield, Mass

by

Looking east on Grenada Terrace from Dickinson Street in Springfield, sometime in the early 1900s. Image courtesy of Jim Boone.

The scene in 2017:

The Forest Park neighborhood of Springfield was very sparsely developed up until the 1890s, when trolley lines were built through the area, providing a direct connection to downtown Springfield. This section of Forest Park, just to the northeast of the “X”, was developed by the Sumner Avenue Heights Company, and featured streets with names associated with warm climates, such as Ventura, Sorrento, and Pomona. The centerpiece of this development was Grenada Terrace, which was built parallel to Sumner Avenue and featured a wide street with a landscaped median.

The street itself was laid out by the late 1890s, but none of the houses were built until the first decade of the 20th century. Nearly all of the homes had been completed by 1910, and the first photo was probably taken around this time. Most of these homes were owner-occupied, and the 1910 census shows residents with a wide range of middle-class professions, including a clerk, contractor, building inspector, stenographer, traveling salesman, and an Armory employee.

A century later, nearly all of these homes are still standing, although most have been altered with modern changes such as enclosed porches and artificial siding. Two brick apartment buildings, visible in the distant left of the 2017 photo, were built in the 1910s, but the neighborhood remains predominantly single-family, two-family, and three-family homes. Otherwise, the only significant change to this scene is the left side, where four of the homes were demolished to make a parking lot for the Holy Name Church, which is partially visible on the far left.

Henry B. Service House, Springfield, Mass

by

The house at 17 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1896 for Henry B. Service, a bookkeeper who worked at the Springfield Envelope Company. He presumably purchased the house with his upcoming wedding in mind, because early the next year he married Alice M. Mullins, who worked as a dressmaker. The couple lived here in this house for about five years, and at some point Henry began working as a bookkeeper for a local fruit and produce company. However, he left this position during the summer of 1902, and evidently began using less scrupulous means of making money.

In late August, 1902, Henry was discovered to have swindled $6,000 from four Springfield banks by cashing checks with the forged signatures of two prominent Springfield men, Frederick C. Bill and W. C. Taylor. The forgeries were done so well that even these two had initially believed that the signatures were authentic, and the fraud was only discovered after closer examination. According to some newspaper accounts, Alice was also involved in the forgery, and was described as being critically ill as a result of the discovery.

Henry, however, fled the city before he could be arrested. It seems unclear whether Alice joined him, but Henry made his way to Santa Ana, California. Using the alias of M. B. Maynard, he began working for a water company, where he was soon charged with forging receipts. Fleeing again in late 1903, he made it as far as Ogden, Utah, where he was arrested, returned to California, and convicted of forgery. Alice, in the meantime, appears to have avoided prosecution, and by the 1910 census she was living in a different house in Springfield with her mother and several of her siblings.

Following Henry’s hasty departure from Springfield, his house was sold, and by 1910 it was owned by Joseph N. Herrick, who lived here with his wife Eleanor, their daughter Ada, and Joseph’s aunt Caroline. Joseph died sometime before the next census, though, and by 1920 Eleanor and Ada were living elsewhere in Forest Park. In the meantime, this house was purchased by Clarence Bacon, the treasurer and co-founder of the Bacon and Donnovan Engine Company, which manufactured agricultural machinery. In 1920, he was 51 years old, and he was living here with his wife Rose and their three teenaged children, Doris, Rosalind, and Norval.

The revolving door of residents in this house continued by the 1930 census, when it was being rented to insurance agent Oliver Heyman, his wife Susan, and their four children. Originally from West Virginia, Heyman was general agent for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and he lived here until sometime around the time when the first photo was taken. However, it was then sold again, to Thomas W. McCarthy, a salesman who lived here with his elderly parents, his sister, and his sister’s husband.

In the nearly 80 years since the first photo was taken, there have been a few changes to the house. Like many of the other homes in Forest Park, the decorative balustrade over the front porch is long gone, but the most significant change is the asbestos siding, which replaced the original wood clapboards in the mid-20th century. However, the overall appearance of the house has not changed significantly, and along with the rest of the neighborhood it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Thornton W. Burgess House, Springfield, Mass

by

The house at 61 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1896 on the street that was, at the time, named Hawthorne Place. Soon renamed Jackson Street and then Washington Road, it was one of the many new roads in the Forest Park Heights development, which was transforming a sparsely-settled section of the city into an upscale residential neighborhood. The first owner of this house was Faxon E. Nichols, a bookkeeper who purchased the property when he was in his early 20s, around the same time that he married his wife, Nellie. By the 1900 census, they were living here with another couple, William and Rose Baird, while also renting space to two young boarders.

Within a few years, the Nichols family had moved elsewhere in Forest Park, and this house was sold to Thornton W. Burgess, a 31-year-old editor who would go on to become a prominent children’s author. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess came to Springfield as a young man in the 1890s, where he became an assistant editor at the Phelps Publishing Company. For a time, he and his mother Frances were lodgers at 10 Cornell Street, but in 1905 he married Nina Osborne and purchased this house. They lived here with Frances, and like the previous owners they also rented part of the house to another family. However, Nina died just a year later, at the age of 24, from complications after the birth of their only child, Thornton Jr.

It was here in this house that Burgess began creating bedtime stories for his son. He subsequently began writing down these stories, which formed the basis for many of his children’s books. The first of these, Old Mother West Wind, was published in 1910, and introduced the character of Peter Rabbit. Many more books followed, along with thousands of newspaper columns that he would write over he next 50 years. He lived in this house for nearly his entire literary career, until finally moving out in 1955. During this time, he was also active as a naturalist and conservationist, and these themes were frequently found throughout his stories.

In 1911, a year after his first book was published, he remarried to Fannie P. Johnson. She was also a widow, and she moved into this house with two children of her own. They were still living here more than 25 years later, when the first photo was taken, but by this point Thornton’s literary success had enabled him to purchase a second home in nearby Hampden. Built in the early 1780s, his Hampden house was already nearly 150 years old when he bought the property in 1925, and it served as his secondary home for many years. However, Fannie died in 1950, and later in the decade Thornton left this house in Springfield and moved to Hampden permanently, where he died in 1965 at the age of 91.

Coincidentally, Burgess is not the only world-renowned children’s author who lived in the Forest Park neighborhood. A year after Burgess purchased this house in 1905, two-year-old Theodor Geisel and his parents moved into a house about a half mile away from here, on Fairfied Street. The future Dr. Seuss was much younger than Burgess, and their writing careers would only partially overlap, but they did both live here in the Forest Park neighborhood until 1925, when Geisel left to enter college. Today, both houses are still standing, and are now contributing properties in the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.