The Main Street Historic District of

Easthampton, Massachusetts Easthampton is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The city is in the Pioneer Valley, near the five colleges in the college towns of Northampton and Amherst. The population was 16,211 at the 2020 census. History E ...

encompasses the historic heart of the town, running along Main Street between Northampton and Center Streets. The area has been the civic and economic heart of the town since incorporation in 1785. Most of the commercial buildings date from the 1840s to the 1880s, and are built in an

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

. The housing stock of the district also includes Italianate styling, but there are also a number of

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

structures. The major civic structures of the town are in the district, including the town hall (brick, Italianate, built in 1869 by Boston architect Charles E. Parker), public library (designed in 1881 by

Peabody & Stearns Peabody & Stearns was a premier architectural firm in the Eastern United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the firm consisted of Robert Swain Peabody (1845–1917) and John Goddard Stearns ...

in the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

style), and the First Congregational Church, which is the second for the congregation, a brick

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

building dating to 1851. The district was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1986. Easthampton was settled in the early 18th century, and was separately incorporated out of parts of

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

and

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

in 1786. At first economically an agricultural community, its town center developed around its first

meeting house A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a: * chu ...

, located about 1/4-mile south of the Manhan River, where an early

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

and settlement were located. Substantial growth in the town center began in the 1840s, when a boys' seminary was founded, and a button factory was founded on a tributary of the Manhan River southeast of the center, which was dammed to form what is now called Nashawannuck Pon

This was the seed of a corridor of industrial development just east of the center, which grew in the mid-19th century along with this economic growth.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic districts in Hampshire County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Hampshire County, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Easthampton, Massachusetts

See also

References