The East Village Historic District is a
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...
encompassing the center of the East Village of
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst () is a New England town, town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (althoug ...
, United States. It includes properties on Main Street, North East Street, and South East Street. The village was one of Amherst's principal civic and commercial centers until the arrival of the railroad in Amherst Center in 1853, and remained a primarily residential area thereafter. The district was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1986.
Description and history
Amherst was settled in the early 18th century and incorporated out of
Hadley in 1759. Its first
meeting house
A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place.
Terminology
Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a
* church, which is a body of people who believe in Chr ...
was built near what is now Amherst Center, but a second parish was established at East Village in 1783. East Village benefited economically from industry on the Fort River, just to the east of the village center, and flourished in the first half of the 19th century, with a number of cottage industries operating in it or nearby. Amherst Center benefited from the founding of
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
in 1821, and by the arrival of the railroad in 1853, which led to its subsequent economic dominance. Growth slowed significantly, with only a few residential buildings and a new school added in the later decades of the 19th century.
The district is a roughly cruciform shape, centered at the junction of Main and East Streets, from which a narrow strip-like green extends southward. It includes 49 buildings, including some of Amherst's oldest surviving structures. Four buildings, three houses and a tavern, date to the 18th century, while there are more numerous examples of
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
and
Federal architecture
Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...
from the first half of the 19th century. Among the buildings in the district are the Second Congregational Church (a Greek Revival structure built in 1839),
the
Conkey-Stevens House (separately listed on the National Register in 1979),
and the Daniel Kellogg House, built in 1758.
See also
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Hampshire County, Massachusetts
References
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Historic districts in Amherst, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Hampshire County, Massachusetts
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts