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PS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) OMB No. 1024-0018 RECEIVED 222 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service MAY - 9 7005 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (National Register Bulletin 16A). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the information requested. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions. Place additional entries and narrative items on continuation sheets (NPS Form 10-900a).
Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer, to complete all items. 1. Name of Property historic name Thomas and Esther Smith House other names/site number Mathew Noble House 2. Location street & number 251 North West Street n/a not for publication city or town Agawam N/a vicinity state Massachusetts code MA county Hampden code 013 _ zip code 01030 3. State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this & nomination - request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property - meets - does not meet the National Register Criteria.
I recommend that this property be considered significant - nationally - statewide -locally. (- See continuation sheet for additional comments.) Betey Fredhey harional , Man enal Register Derector May 3,2005 Massachusetts Historical Commission, State Historic Preservation Officer State or Federal agency and bureau In my opinion, the property - meets - does not meet the National Register criteria. (- See continuation sheet for additional Comments.) Signature of certifying official/Title Date State or Federal agency and bureau 4. National Park Service Certification I, hereby certify that this property is: Action V entered in the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined eligible for the National Register - See continuation sheet.
- determined not eligible for the National Register Signature of the Keeper Vatuck Andun Date of 6/2/2005 Name of Property Thomas and Esther Smith House 5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply) (Check only one box) x private x building(s) _ public-local _ district - public-State -site _ public-Federal structure _ object County and State Hampshire, Massachusetts Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the cour Contributing 2 Noncontributing 1 Name of related multiple property listing (Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing.) N/A 6. Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions) DOMESTIC/single dwelling=House 0 2 1 Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register 0 Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions) VACANT 7.
Description Arner eategoriec from insttictions) COLONIAL/Georgian - Materials (Enter categories from instructions) foundation_STONE CONCRETE walls_WOOD/Weatherboard roof_ASPHALT other Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current condition of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) OMB Approval No.1024-0018 NrS Form 10-900-8 88-86 United States Department of the Interior Nationai Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Thomas and Esther Smith House Agawam (Hampden), MA Section number - Page _ The Thomas and Esther Smith House is located in the Feeding Hills section of the town of Agawam, Massachusetts. Feeding Hills, so named for its bountiful soils, is an agricultural plain approximately five miles west of the Connecticut River at the eastern foot of Provin Mountain.
The Smith House is on a one-acre lot in a neighborhood of 19 century farmhouses and 20* century suburban homes; on its immediate north is a farmhouse that dates ca. 1798. Although the houses of the streetscape line North West Road in a fairly tight alignment, fields extend to the east and west to maintain the area's agricultural feeling. (Photograph No. 11) The house is set back slightly from North West Road and is oriented to the road and to the east. West of the house is open agricultural land in active cultivation; it is shaded by maple trees on its south side yard, and is screened by overgrown rhododendron bushes and saplings on its north. On the south in the area of the side yard adjacent to the ell is a 20" century, raised flowerbed with fieldstone perimeters. (Photograph No. 2) The Thomas and Esther Smith House is a 1½ story, vernacular Georgian style house with a gambrel roof.
(Photograph No. 1) It is noteworthy that the lower angle of the gambrel roof ends in a modest kick eave. The main block of the house is three bays wide and two bays deep and has a large center chimney. Attached to the west elevation of the house is a 1½ story, gable roofed ell (Photograph No. 2). There are gable end overhangs on north and south elevations of the house (Photograph No. 3).It is clapboard sided on the east, north, and south elevations; clapboards are attached with hand forged nails. The exposed portion of the west elevation of the house has a broad weatherboard siding. A wide skirt aro spnat sange ane e o onaestins ot no otes e faosone Phodegeay eo 4) Foundations of the ell are brick and concrete block. There is a parged brick hatchway to the basement on the south side of the main block of the house. The Smith House was constructed as a plank frame house (Photograph No. 4).
In place of studs between the post-and- beam-framing members, wide planks, 1-2" thick, were laid vertically from sill to plate and were recently exposed when several rows of weatherboard and sheathing were removed on the west elevation. Spaced about two inches apart, the planks have nogging between them, some of which is still in place. The boards that are about 12-15" wide are pinned into the sill through holes drilled at their base, and each plank is scribe ruled to take a particular position. Horizontal sheathing covers the planks for an intermediate layer, followed by the clapboard finish. According to J.
Frederick Kelly in The_Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut, plank framing was not an uncommon technique in the Connecticut River valley during the period he examined, although the presence of an intermediate horizontal sheathing layer and the scribing are not part of his discussion. The upper section of the gambrel roof is a constructed as a principal rafter roof. There are thirteen pairs of rafters: six on each side of the chimney and one butting it. The rafters have hewn joints that are pinned together and each pair is matched with its scribe rule markings on the north face. Rafters are let into the main purlins of the gambrel roof, although many have slipped from their mortise joints. End girts on both north and south appear to have been reused, as there are unused mortise holes visible.
Above the end girts, in the gable fields, there is horizontal sheathing visible in the attic. Vertical planks for the second story interior walls are sandwiched between the chimney girts and ceiling lath and rise above the girts. The main entry to the house on the east elevation is a Georgian, double-leaf door, a configuration found in high style Connecticut River valley door surrounds from the 1750s through the Revolution (Photograph No. 1). The doors on the exterior have two, feathered, raised panels beneath two lights on each leaf - an unusual instance of integral transom lights. As exterior doors, they were constructed two-layers thick with vertical boards on the interior held together with battens.
On the exterior, the doorway has a simple architrave surround formed by a plane enframement with a moulding (continued) N°S Form 10-900-a (3-86) United States Department of the Interior Nationai Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approvel No. 1021-0018 Section number - 7 Thomas and Esther Smith House Agawam (Hampden), MA Page -2 strip at its outside edge. A large fieldstone block with concrete top acts as a stoop to reach the slightly elevated entry. A econdary entry to the house is into the south elevation of the ell through aporch on five irregularly spaced posts Photograph No. 2) This entry has a stock surround and is reached by two steps of stacked brownstone blocks. A thir entry is at the west elevation of the ell, and a fourth on its north side (Photograph No. 3). Windows vary in the main block of the house and three muntin profiles are found.
The two south first floor windows of the hall are 12/12. The lower sash has been replaced in the 20*h century, but the upper sash has a modified convex Georgian muntin (commonly found 1790-1830) and glass panes that have colored with age. On the east elevation windows are 6/6 and concave muntin profiles (commonly found 1795-1850) indicate that they are early 19" century. On the second floor north and south elevations have double moveable sash windows of 12/12, with the convex Federal muntin profiles (found most commonly from 1830-1860). All the Federal Era window types have the imperfections of cylinder glass, mostly in the upper sash. On the west wall a pair of 1/1 double hung sash, ca. 1900, has been inserted in the kitchen adjacent to the porch. Fenestration of the ell is irregular and asymmetrical.
On the south there are three bays: one containing a 6/2 double hung sash and two bays of 6-light fixed sash above an opening that is closed by wood inserts. The sills of the latter two openings are at porch floor level. Replacement windows are found on the west and north elevations of the ell. There is a 6/6 window in the ell kitchen on the north wall. The plan of the center chimney house is a four-room type - commonly constructed in the region during the Georgian Period (1750-1776) and less commonly through the Federal Period up to about 1800 - with a hall or keeping room, and a parlor making up the two front rooms, separated by a vestibule or porch that contains a dogleg-run stair to the second floor; the rear rooms are a kitchen that occupies ¾ of the width of the house and a small, south-exposed bedroom.
A second enclosed staircase leading to the second floor separates the kitchen from the bedroom, and extends to the basement. The center chimney opens to fireplaces in the hall, parlor and kitchen. The fireplaces in the two front rooms are shallow (Photograph No. 6); the opening in the kitchen is deep and accommodates a rear wall bake oven and beneath it a typical dry-storage safe (Photograph No. 5). The oven has been coated with a layer of cement on its interior. The position of the bake oven at the rear of the fireplace, rather than the later position to the side of the opening, is either very conservative or suggests a date prior to the last quarter of the 18" century. Mortar in the first floor level of the chimney is clay. At second floor and attic levels the chimney has been rebuilt, but its size and configuration were maintained.
In the parlor and hall the brick fireplace lintel is laid in a chevron pattern (Photograph No. 6). In the kitchen the lintel was rebuilt in a soldier row supported by a metal lintel piece (Photograph No.5). Crane hardware is found in the hall fireplace. Identically patterned, raised and feathered paneling ornaments the fireplace wall in each of the front rooms (Photograph No. 6). To the left of the fireplace from floor to ceiling there are three stacked panels. The upper panel opens to a cupboard. Then across the fireplace opening are four equally sized panels. On the right of the opening an upper and lower panel on H and winged hinges each opens to a cupboard space. In the narrow space above the cupboards and the following door opening are two long horizontal panels. In the hall the overmantel includes a mantelpiece shelf. There is none in the parlor.
In both rooms there is a narrow molding that surrounds the door and double cupboards. Small sections of paneling have been cut out in both the hall and parlor at the fireplace wall. Both hall and parlor have horizontal board wainscotting on the other three walls, topped by a molded rail, below plaster walls and plaster ceiling. Flared corner posts have been boxed in these rooms as well. Doors of both the hall and parlor are flat, four-panel doors with strap hinges. In the hall there is a hand wrought latch commonly used through the 18* century, on the door to the kitchen and a wrought latch (more often used from 1800) into the porch. Both parlor doors have hand-wrought latches. (continued) OM18 Aaproval No.
1024-0018 KrS Form 10-900-8 (5-86) United States Department of the Interior Nationai Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number - 7 Page_3 Thomas and Esther Smith House Agawam (Hampden), MA The paneling is quite different in the kitchen. Here vertical and horizontal beaded sheathing decorates the entire length of the fireplace wall in the kitchen with a single raised panel section across the width of the fireplace (Photograph No.5). On the fireplace wall the sheathing does not extend to the second level flooring in a consistent height, but was concealec ehind a plaster ceiling that has since been removed. Beaded horizontal sheathing covers the north wall and ghosts of lath and plaster that had at one time been laid on top of the paneling are still visible (Photograph No. 8).
The wood panels on this and the west walls measure at widths of up to 19". The paneling above the fireplace was oiled giving it a darker appearance. There is a short stretch of beadboard that was probably installed beneath the inserted windows at the time of their installation on the west wall. A wooden painted cupboard is attached to the west wall of the kitchen on its north end. From the cupboard to the opposite wall, in a position often occupied by a buttery wall, there is the ghost of a partition on the floor; the former door opening is at the cupboard (Photograph No. 8). In this room a door leading from the original kitchen to the ell kitchen is two-layer, with vertical and horizontal boards on its respective sides (Photograph No. 8). As is the case throughout much of the rest of the house, the door has strap hinges and a latch. The kitchen ceiling reveals second floor joists.
Most of these joists are unusually narrow being about 3" wide, with three in the more usual 6" width spaced evenly among them (Photograph No. 8). The kitchen stairway to the second floor is enclosed with vertical beaded boards. The south side of the enclosure forms the inner wall of the first floor bedroom. This small room has plaster walls and ceiling, a wide wood baseboard, and a wooden closet extending from its southeast corner. The corner flared post is cased. The door is a flat, four-panel door. There is a wood partition that separates the bedroom from the hall on the east. The porch stairway to the second floor has a wooden apron that opens to a closet space beneath the stairs (Photograph No. 7). The stairway has a short run of balustrade 17 ½ "high composed of narrow, square posts and a molded handrail. The steep stairs have risers 8 ¼" high and treads 7 ¾" deep.
On the wall at the turning of the treads are several wood panels that are currently fixed in place, but when open would give access to the chimney enclosure space. A simple post and rail encloses the stair opening at the second floor (Photograph No. 9). The first room in the ell is a kitchen whose interior finishes date from the 1930s-40s. It is at the same floor level as the main house's first floor and is reached from the ell porch or a door on the north side of the room. There is a linoleum sheet on the floor and walls and ceiling above the wainscotting are beaverboard fastened by wooden strips. An interior door on the west wall opens to a set of stairs downward to the ell first floor level and also rise to the second floor from a landing. This section of the ell was altered to serve as a two-story apartment.
It has a concrete floor at the first level and is divided into a bathroom and several utility rooms, with a sink and pantry shelving on its south wall. There is an exterior door on the west end of the first floor. The ell second floor has two bedrooms with wood paneling. Windows are replacements and floors are carpeted. The second floor of the main block of the house is divided into four bedrooms separated at the chimney by center spaces into which the stairs land. On the eastern side of the second floor, the center room is unfinished to reveal the gambrel roof construction and full interior height of the chimney. On the western side the walls of the center space have been covered with cardboard boxes as insulation. Finishes in the four chambers are two-coat plaster on accordion lath on ceilings and exterior walls. Floors are random width, unfinished wood.
(continued) NºS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior Nationai Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet N OMB Approvel No. 1021-0018 Thomas and Esther Smith House Agawam (Hampden), MA Section number - Page - The hall chamber at the southeast corner of the house has a board and batten door with cast-iron latches and butt hinges on its two doors (Photograph No. 9). A third door on the interior wall, probably opened to allow heat from the chimney into the room, is a single board with a narrow added strip. Door surrounds are all plain. A surface mounted electrical line leads to a wall light fixture on the room's west wall. The chamber at the northeast corner of the house is divided from the kitchen chamber by a plaster wall.
This room's purlin post has been boxed, as has the summer beam on its dividing partition, Sash in the room is 12/12, double hung. The door nearer the stairs is board and batten construction. The interior wall in the bedroom chamber, or southwest room, is wood, and fragments of floral wallpaper are found here in two layers. The kitchen chamber or northwest room also has wallpaper remnants on its plaster walls and has an entry to the ell that was altered to allow a door (now removed) to be inserted in the gambrel roof. The framing for the door has been removed. Purlin and braces are exposed in this room at the ell entry. The post and beam ell attic is entered through the northwest room. Its principal rafter roof structure is visible and members are sleepers. The second floor ceiling protrudes into the attic space above its east end floor level and effectively blocks the attic space.
Metal dogs at each side attach the ell to the main block of the house. There is a basement under the south half of the house and a crawl space under the north half. Sleepers run in an east- west direction in the crawl space on the north half of the house and they run in a north-south direction in the south half of the house. There is no basement under the ell. Rather, steps down from the ell's kitchen lead to a lower room whose floor follows a natural slope of the land, giving 2/3 of the length of the ell a 2½ story elevation. Southwest of the house is a shingled, one-story garage with a front-gable roof (Photograph No. 11). The garage is two bays wide and each bay is enclosed with double leaf, crossbuck doors that have cast iron strap hinges. There are two, 12-light, fixed sashes reused in the garage; one is on the north and one on the south elevations.
It has fieldstone footings and an asphalt shingle roof. On the north side of the garage are five uprooted gravestones marked with the names "Ned", "Tip Top", "Old Mother", and others. These are horse and pet graves rescued from an animal cemetery in the Feeding Hills neighborhood and moved to the property in the 1990s. A relic of the Smith family ownership of the two Smith houses on one piece of property is a pre-1850 barn northwest of the house (Photograph No. 10). Now on the lot of the Thomas and Esther Smith house, for many years it belonged to the Joseph Smith House on the north and was reached by a right-of-way recorded in its deed. This barn has openings on both gable end and longitudinal elevation, so it is both New England and English in style. Siding is both horizontal and vertical. There is a fixed, 12-light sash in the east gable end.
Fieldstone foundations extending west from the barn, which would double its size, reveal that the barn has been shortened. Archaeological Description While no ancient Native American sites are recorded on the Smith House property, sites may be present. Eight sites are known in the general area (within one mile). The house is located on a well drained, level to moderately sloping stream terrace east of the Still Brook headwaters. The brook is located slightly over 1,000 feet from the house on an outwash plain at the eastern base of Provin Mountain. The area lies within the Farmington River drainage. Most known sites in the general area are found in similar environmental locations as the Smith House.
Given the above information, the small size of the nominated property, and historic land use, a low to moderate potential exists for locating ancient Native American resources on the Smith House property. (continued) NRS Form 10-900-a 8-86) United States Department of the Interior Nationai Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number - 7 Page 5 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Thomas and Esther Smith House Agawam (Hampden), MA There is a high potential for locating historic archaeological resources on the Smith House property. Additional documentary research combined with archaeological survey and testing may locate artifacts and archaeological features related to house construction and renovation since ca. 1750.
Similar research might locate structural evidence of barns and outbuildings associated with agricultural, domestic, or manufacturing activities that may have occurred on the property. Archaeological evidence of occupational related features (trash pits, privies, wells) should also exist. (end) Name of Property Thomas and Esther Smith House County and State_Hampshire, MA 8. Statement of Significance