USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > Northampton, the meadow city > Part 8
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The Fortnightly Club is composed of ladies only, and is devoted to literary essays. This was established in 1890, and flourishes in a delightfully informal, and truly feminine way without parliamentary rules or constitution. Miss Baker, the Misses Brewer, and Mrs. H. R. Hinckley were the prime movers in its organization.
The Monday Afternoon Club, is another
ladies' club for literary work, instituted in 1878, by Miss Julia Watson, Miss Edwards and others, and its twenty-four members hold weekly meet- ings through the winter months.
The Home Culture Clubs, of recent years, under the patronage of Mr. George W. Cable have a wide reputation.
The musical clubs, and the musicians of Northampton, is a subject deserving a more detailed article than the writer is able to give. The old singing school, under Professor George Kingsley's direction, was an insti- tution of real value. Later, the Choral Union, under the effi- cient direction of Dr. T. W. Meekins, did a wondrous work in call- ing out and develop- ing the musical talent of the community. It has always seemed as if the town paid but meagre tribute to the talents of its musical educators. Do the young people of North- ampton to-day know that many of our finest hymn tunes, and much fine church music, known over a large part of the world, were composed by the really grand genius of George Kingsley, the retiring, and somewhat eccentric organist of the "old church," who lived in a quaint old house on South street, and most unassumingly went his daily way about our streets ?
A silvery brook comes stealing From the shadow of its trees .- W. C. Bryant.
A more recent composer, Henshaw Dana, one of Northampton's most talented sons, whose beautiful compositions promised a brilliant career, closed by his untimely death before reaching middle life, said of his old master shortly before his own work ceased ; - " What a grand old man George Kingsley was ! He was a true musician, and he never wrote anything
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THE MEADOW CITY.
that was not worth writing. Look at his hymns! Every one has melody and spirit, and you can turn to any one of them and be sure of finding it good. The more I study music, the more I appre- ciate him." This was fine tribute from one who had studied under the best European masters, and was himself remarkable as organist and composer.
Mr. Kingsley, in his collections of sacred music, incorporated much from the best operas, saying that " the devil shouldn't be allowed to have all the good music."
Dr. Meekins' more versatile genius has received better recognition from his towns- people, but their indebtedness to him cannot be over-esti- mated. While his versatility interfered with his devotion to any one instrument, to the extent of entire mastery, his extremely delicate ear, and great executive ability, have made him an ideal organizer, trainer, and director. The most striking of his many musical achievements was the presentation of Verdi's opera of " Il Trovatore " in the Town Hall in 1859, by purely local talent. Dr. Meekins wrote out the full orchestral and vocal score, trained orchestra, choruses, and soloists, many of the performers having never seen anything of the kind, planned the scenery and costumes, sang the part of Count de Luna, and was general stage manager as well as musical director. It was an immense labor, and resulted in the first successful performance in this country of an opera where the company was entirely amateur.
Miss Prince has been for many years a most delight- ful pianist and instructor, and has been invaluable as an accompanist in the musical associations.
A Madrigal Club, organized by Mr. H. O. Apthorp early in the fifties, made most successful special study of old English madrigals and glees, the same that are just now being revived in fashionable London society.
Musical gatherings at Mrs. Charles Delano's, on Phillips Place, and at Mrs. Austin Thompson's, on Elm street, were rare and delightful occasions. At the former, before undertaking his European studies, Henshaw Dana was wont to play. A beautiful testi- monial to his rare talent is a little volume containing five of his exquisite songs, and a memorial sketch by
Mr. Charles A. Chase of Worcester, printed for private circulation in 1884.
Mrs. Meekins' beautiful soprano voice, when she first came to Northampton was a great inspi- ration to the musical zeal of the town, which has been well promoted by such singers as Mrs. Delano, Mrs. Kellogg, Miss Shepard, Miss Bis- sell, Miss Longley, Professor Wm. Clark, Mr. Henry Tucker, Mr. Prince, Mr. Edward Meekins, Mr. Chilson, by Mr. Warriner and Professor Edward Dickinson, asorganists, and, recently by the advent of the Smith College School of Music with the enthusias- tic Dr. Blodgett at its head.
The social life of the present day is much modified by the College element, which has been influencing the old-time forms and prejudices for the last twenty years. About nine hundred young women are now pur- suing their education at Smith Col- lege and the Burnham School, and their presence necessarily affects the whole appearance and the social atmosphere of the town. May the benign influences which have ever been so potent in the old town rest upon these temporary residents. So they may, with a fine intellectual equipment, carry, for generations to come, to their varied fields of usefulness, some touches, at least, of the beautiful grace and refinement for which Northampton society has long been renowned.
M. A. H. EMERSON.
RESIDENCE OF J. C. HAMMOND
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NORTHAMPTON,
THE STREETS OF NORTHAMPTON
Scattered through the present volume are many pictures whose subjects are not covered by the various special articles. A small map shows the winding streets of the early town, and gives the names of original land-owners. Their properties centered in Main street, through which the stages rumbled on their way from Boston to "the West." A picture from the veranda of Warner's Coffee House, reproduced from a paint- ing made in 1842, illustrates the following obser- vations of His Highness, Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who, on his noted American tour, visited the town in 1825 :
MAIN STREET IN 1842, FROM WARNER'S COFFEE HOUSE
"We took lodgings at Warner's Hotel, a large, clean and convenient inn. In front of the house is a large porch, and in the first story a large balcony. The gentlemen sit below and the ladies walk above. It is called a piazza and has many con- veniences. Elm trees stand in front of the house and a large reflecting lamp illuminates the house and yard. This, with the beautiful warm evening and the great number of people who reposed on the piazza or went to and fro from the house, pro- duced a very agreeable effect. The people here are exceedingly religious, and besides going to church on Sundays they go thrice during the week. When we arrived the service had just ended, and we saw some very handsome ladies come out of the church. Each bed-chamber ofour tavern was provided with a Bible." (Philadelphia : Carey, Lea and Carey, 1828.)
The picture opens to the direction of Bridge street. In the distance is seen the old Pomeroy homestead; to the left of the hotel rises the white spires of the First Church, almost hiding the old Court-House. Opposite, occupying the
present site of the Columbian Building, is the Edwards Church, built in 1833. Adjoining stands the residence of Dr. Hunt, where " Mr. Bates, a lawyer," took the Duke of Saxe-Weimer to see " a collection of minerals," which the Duke particularly admired. From this building, in 1870, a fire spread, destroying the church and making way for its removal to its present site further up the street.
A second picture, showing the corner of Main and King streets with Court street in the middle distance, emphasizes the quaint, rural aspect of the town's centre when the roads fell in chance angles across the greensward and the gabled buildings had the solidity of the serious genera- tions they housed. In the foreground, be- tween two fine elms, are the hay-scales; to the left the old town- hall, which has given place to the present court-house green. This corner was in anti-slavery times the arena of many earnest meetings.
Looking up Main street from the same place in the present time, the change is startling: the bright granite walls of the massive court-house, the beautiful red stone spire of the First Church, the granite-bound grass plots and rigid line of the lawn-gardener, slender young trees here and there barely reminiscent of the grand elms, the broad street leveled and ground to powder under the increased traffic, and all the scene crossed and scored with electric wires.
Turning to the right and looking from the same position down Main street, a photograph shows how the old town holds out against the encroach- ments of the new. Beyond the skeleton of the arc-light are the branches of one of the old elms. The Pomeroy house is still there, and further on is the inviting foliaged vista of Bridge street, little changed from the days of the Boston stage- coach. A nearer view gives a glimpse of the John Clarke homestead now enlarged and re-
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THE MEADOW CITY.
modelled as the Norwood Hotel, and fronted by the maples set out by John Clarke's own hands. Across the street is the doorway of the abandoned St. John's Episcopal Church, and in the back- ground may be distinguished the pillars and gables of a century old architecture.
A few rods further up, the street furnishes a full-page view including the Lathrop home, half hidden, in spite of the early season, by the abun- dance of trees. Its gigantic elm is one of the largest in town. Here, nearly one hundred years ago, lived United States Senator, Isaac Chapman Bates. His house was moved to North street ; a picture is given of it as it now stands, the home of Mrs. Henry Roberts. In the scene opposite the intersection of Pomeroy Terrace with Bridge street, and just within the entrance of the city cemetery, may be descried the Sena- tor's tomb. These pine- sheltered acres are especially rich in asso- ciations, recalling many thrilling personal his- tories of the early settle- ment of the continent, and containing remains of distinguished partici- pants in every notable event since then.
CORNER MAIN AND KING STREETS THIRTY YEARS AGO
The only photograph ever taken of the Sheldon House is here reproduced. In 1866, the house was taken down and removed to Princeton, New Jersey, being there rebuilt for the family at large expense. Part of the property on Bridge
street is still owned by the Sheldons and has been in their possession two hundred and thirty years.
Pomeroy Terrace commemorates Gen. Seth Pomeroy, of the Revolution, one of Northamp- ton's most famous soldiers. It is a private street, overspread with maple boughs and lined with well-kept lawns and comfortable homes, some of the most tasteful and luxurious of the town. From their eastern side the bold crest of the terrace commands a broad sweep of the meadows, the winding river, and purple crags of Mount Holyoke. Pictures are given of several views from here and also from Phillips Place and from Hawley street.
Thence, by way of the county jail, the reader is led to King street, once the aristocratic thor- oughfare. Immediately the contrast is percepti- ble between its ancient quiet and the newness of the streets just visited. Here lived Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, in a frame house on the site of the brick one now standing beneath the massive elm, the planting of his own hand. Adjoining, on the right, there is to-day the dwelling of the French Catholic priests of the parish. In this neighborhood is Gothic street, with its old Collegiate Institute, now a parochial school; and State street, which occu- pies the former line of the New Haven and Northampton canal.
FROM A PAINTING BY C. L. BURLEIGH
SHOP ROW, YEARS AGO
86
NORTHAMPTON,
BRIDGE STREET
87
THE MEADOW CITY.
An asphalt way, styled the Boulevard, leads from State street into South, over a recently erected bridge which supersedes the picturesque structure further down the River. South street is the main artery of a region full of interest, both new and old. From it many pictures are given : the Parsons elm at the head of Maple street, brought there from the meadows in 1755, by Noah Parsons when he built his house that stands near by; High street with its amphithea- tre of meadow and mountain; Fort Hill, the home of Mr. E. H. R. Lyman, a large estate, approaching in beauty and cultivation the Eng-
SHELDON HOUSE
BRIDGE STREET
lish gardener's ideal. The contemplated electric rail- way to Easthampton, trav- ersing South street, will join this admirable resi- dence quarter yet more closely to the main body of the town.
From South street, through a surburban lane, one may reach the exten- sive property of the State Asylum for the insane, which is illustrated and described elsewhere. Re- turning by way of West street, and passing the new electric light plant, one comes upon Smith College from the point of
view which Burleigh, one of North- ampton's sons who died in Italy at the dawn of his artistic career, selected in the old picture (see Page 85) which in- cludes the College tower. In the fore- ground hedrew the 'Horace Cook farm- house, which occupied the present site of the School of Music. Quite as old is the Turner house, which still stands at the back of the Forbes Library.
Smith College, the Forbes Library, the Baptist Church, the High School, the Academy of Music and the Ed- wards Congregational and St. Mary's Catholic Churches enclose the irregu- lar triangle at the intersection of Main, State, West and Elm streets. Elm
BRIDGE STREET, LOOKING NORTHEAST, FROM ITS JUNCTION WITH HAWLEY AND MARKET STREETS
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NORTHAMPTON,
street, the principal residence thoroughfare on the western side of the town, is wholly given up to private homes with the exception of the new Episcopal and Methodist Churches, and one of the dormitories of the Burnham Classical School. The street is one hundred feet wide, higher than most of the city, and leads a majestic procession of ancient elms along its graceful windings between quaint, gambrel-roofed houses and modern dwell- ings of more pretentious outsides. For a space it overlooks the lovely Paradise woods and waters, and all along its much traveled length, streets branch from it leading for a few squares through pleasant districts of homes.
A GLIMPSE OF ROUND HILL, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
One of these, Prospect street, beautifully cano- pied with foliage, traverses a section long prominent in Northampton's history. A gen- cral view, taken from King street many years ago, groups in small space the salient features, showing the Talbot home, now the "Capen House " of The Mary A. Burn- ham School, and the Hinckley and Bowers homes, the latter of which was for many years the property of Henry Bright, and is now the residence of Dr. Benjamin C. Blodgett, Director of the Smith College School of Music. In the background are the public buildings on Round Hill. ' Another picture of the Blodgett house is reproduced from "The Fine Residences of America," (London, 1830.) Mr. Bowers im- ported the Italian style of architecture, which prevails in the Southern States, where he had lived. The true front of the building is to the castward, whence swept a lawn one thousand feet deep, opening on King street. The lawn has been curtailed, giving space for many dwellings on King, State and Bright streets. On a higher elevation, between Prospect
street and Round Hill, lies Crescent street and Henshaw avenue, two in one, of whose numerous modern houses several photographs are given. The boldest rise of ground in Northampton is Round Hill, a beautiful, wooded eminence, por- tioned into ample and ex- pensively cultivated hold- ings. Thither the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar was taken, during his visit in 1825, to inspect the school kept for boys by Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft, the latter the great historian. The school occu- pied three buildings, now used by the Clarke Institution for the Deaf, which is described at length on Page 39. Of other scenes on the hill, its groves, beauti- ful dwellings and gardens, and its commanding view of valley and town, several pictures are given. Some of the plainer houses are de- tached members of the still widely- known Water- Cure Hotel which at one time gath- ered beneath its comfortable roof throngs of fash- ionable invalids. In those days the wooded slopes were given a park treatment, with wind- ing paths, rustic benches, and frequent springs
ROUND HILL IN 1829 - DRAWN BY MISS E, GOODRIDGE
RESIDENCE OF DR. B. C. BLODGETT
THE MEADOW CITY.
RESIDENCE OF JUDGE WM. G. BASSETT
to refresh the wayfarer. It was then that Jenny Lind, the famous singer, passed her honey-moon on Round Hill and named the adjacent region, " Paradise." She was upborne by J. G. Holland, in " Kathrina:"
"Queen village of the meads,
Fronting the sunrise and in beauty throned, With jeweled homes around her lifted brow
And coronal of ancient forest trees -
Northampton sits and rules her pleasant realm.
There where the saintly Edwards heralded The terrors of the Lord, and men bowed low Beneath the menace of his awful words ; And there where Nature with a thousand tongues. Tender and true, from vale and mountain top And smiling streams, and landscapes piled afar, Proclaimed a gentler gospel, I was born."
And by Henry Ward Beecher, in " Norwood :"
"Look with my eyes, good reader, upon the town of Norwood that, refusing to go down upon the flat bottom-lands of the Connecticut, daintily perches itself upon the irregular slopes west, and looks over upon that transcendent valley from under its beautiful shade trees, and you will say that no finer village glistens in the sunlight, or nestles under arching elms."
Jenny Lind's name for the place was popularly accepted, but became re- stricted, in time, to the wooded dale and glen which follows Mill river, from the Bay State meadows to Green
VIEW FROM FORT HILL
street. This remains one of the most charming retreats within the city. It was once owned by Mr. James C. Ward, who expended much in improving its natural beauty with drives and vistas. His en- thusiasm has been inherited with interest by its present owners, ' who have, each in his individual manner; sought to enhance its charm. Passing down Paradise Road, through the Glen, and emerging on
THE BOWERS MANSION IN 1830 - NOW DR. B. C. BLODGETT'S RESIDENCE
CRESCENT STREET, LOOKING SOUTH
90
NORTHAMPTON.
Dryads' Green, the photographer has provided a number of views to illustrate the text of Mr. George W. Cable, found on Pages 91 to 95. Mr. Cable is one of the most ardent lovers of the place. One or two scenes of his novel, " John March, Southerner," are situated there, and being owner of a considerable portion of the tract, he has done much to beautify it. Around his dwelling he has introduced on a moderate scale the methods of real estate improvement
circumference ; and branches seventeen feet from the ground.
From "Wildwood," on either side, the eye ranges over mountain-guarded landscapes, and within the confines of the estate itself are the varied pleasing effects of cultivated meadow, tangled thicket, pruned woods, ordered garden and daisy strewn green, charms which have given rise to a very general sentiment in favor of making it a public park.
observed in the far western towns, and the result has been the street, planted with shrubbery beds, which he has named Dryads' Green.
North Elm, a continuation of Elm street, leads to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and to " Wildwood," the beautiful home of the late Henry Watson. Here stands a venerable speci- men of pitch pine (pinus rigida) perhaps the largest in Massachusetts. Though but seventy- five feet in height, it measures, one foot from the ground, nine fect four and one-half inches in
To climb the rugged steeps where stately stand Like giant sentries to the lower land The lordly oaks, more spreading than the pine, Upon whose trunks the wild grape clusters shine. What sky-born palace of the ancient time, Relumed by limnel brush, or poet's rhyme, Can match this peerless palace of the trees, With roof and dome and tower and graceful frieze All fashioned with a patience and an art, Through centuries, that wrought each tiny part.
CLARENCE HAWKES.
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THE MEADOW CITY.
PARADISE WOODS
Massachusetts has eight " Mill Rivers." Not the least of them for use, nor yet for beauty, is the one which on its way to the Connecticut visits Northampton. The name, " Paradise," which the bridal enthusiasm of Jenny Lind gave to a consid- erable stretch of both open and wooded pasture lands whose outer bounds lay along this stream, is now popularly allowed to a remnant of it only. The street-surveyor and house-builder have gradu- ally narrowed its lines until they are now restricted to a winding series of lawn-gardens and wooded bluffs which overlook the still more winding stream, and to the wild meadow which in the upper half of the tract widens out between the pla- teau and the river.
Here the natural charms of the region retain the name by universal approval. Within the length of hardly more than a mile and the average breadth of a scant furlong are grove, thicket and glade, rivulets and river, green islands, still waters both broad and narrow, rap- ids dimpling over gravel bars and flashing among huge granite bowlders, the tangled meadow sentineled by lofty
RESIDENCE OF F. N. KNEELAND
AUTUMN IN PARADISE
PARADISE ROAD
trees, and moist ravines alternating with abrupt ridges that survey the lake, the fields of grain and hay beyond the trees of the opposite shore, and now and then the bold crests or sides of Mt. Holyoke or Mt. Tom.
Along much of the townward side, on the nearly level crown of the bluffs, a happy contrast to this beau- tiful wildness is furnished by the succession of handsome dwellings, widely separated, whose ordered lawns merge by pleasant gradations into the freer graces of the woods. The dwellers in these homes lay no stress upon the unmarked bounds of separate ownerships, but keep
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NORTHAMPTON,
" Paradise " in large degree an undivided wealth of gentle delights, free tothe stranger as well as to the neighbor and friend, and disciplined from its peace- ful wildness only in the removal of dead growth and insalubrities of soil.
It would be hard to find within a radius of many miles a group of more beautiful landscapes than is furnished by Paradise Lake, wood, stream and meadow when the blossoms and foliage of May and June are on bush and tree in their endless variety of delicate tints, and the music of nesting birds seems to sound almost from every bough and covert ; or when the mast is falling from oak and chestnut, butternut and hickory, and the small furry outlaws of the wood have robbed the hazel of its unripened
PARADISE LAKE FROM RESIDENCE OF T. A. KNEELAND
the hum of its electric cars, lies but four hun- dred yards away, and Paradise Road and three or four even more frequented streets run from
" SWISS COTTAGE " ON PARADISE ROAD
nuts; when a stimulating fragrance of witch-hazel blossoms fills the leafy air and the ripening days of the year's decline are turning the drowsy monotones of summer's green to all the colors of the sunset.
Then, or at any season except in the whitest winter, when boys and girls throng the frozen surface of the river and pond by starlight and firelight as well as by day, the lovely seclusion of the place is the pleasant wonder of all who enter its borders. Elm street, with its incessant clatter of horses' feet, its rumble of wheels and
it almost to the edge of the bluffs; yet under their fronts as they suddenly sink to the river seventy feet below, canopied and curtained by a dense foliage of pine and hem- locks and of broad-leaved trees and undergrowth, the sounds of nature alone fill the ear; song of birds, chirp of insects, the rattle of the king- fisher, the soft scamper of the chipmunk, the drone of bees, or the pretty scoldings of the red squirrel. A boat rowed by college girls may pass in silence, or with song, or with the
A PARADISE HARVEST
93
THE MEADOW CITY.
A LOOK ACROSS THE LAKE
audible reading of some poet's pages ; here and there a fisherman will sit watching his bob and line ; the shout of a plowman or wagoner may come. from the country be- yond the . river. But only on its fixed moments does the long note of some distant factory whistle or the toll of town and college clock remind the finder of hepaticas or violets, anemones, forget-me-nots, columbines, wild roses, fire-lilies or autumn leaves, that he is still within the em- bowered side-window, as it were, of a busy town.
If it is really from those grove flower- gardens of Persian kings that the name Paradise first came, it can hardly be said to have gone astray here, in such courtly pro- fusion do spring, summer and autumn strew it with their largess. Certainly Flora is its sovereign, and when one sees its colors in October -- and in November as well -he can hardly doubt that Flora was, and is still at heart, a Persian queen. One cannot pretend to have called the full roll of the flowers of this paradise though he swell the slender list already given with laurel, blood- root, meadow-lily, azaleas and other honey- suckles, adder's tongne, shad-blossom, polygola, gentian, bittersweet, wild-cherry
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