Nomination for Hampden County Courthouse

From the form

The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.

SHOMLNTISNI Form 10-300 (July 1969) PH0015971 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 72000134 STATE: Massachusetts COUNTY: NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM Hampden FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER (Type all entries - complete applicable sections) NAME COMMON: DATE FEBT 1972 Hampden County Courthouse AND/OR HISTORIC: Hampden County Courthouse LOCATION STREET AND NUMBER: Elm Street CITY OR TOWN: Springfield Congressional District No. 2 STATE CODE COUNTY: 025 CODE 013 Massachusetts CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY (Check One) District. Site Building Structure Hampden/ 3.

OWNERSHIP Object X Public Private Both Public Acquisition: - In Process Being Considered STATUS * Occupied Unoccupied - Preservation work in progress ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC Yes: Restricted Unrestricted No PRESENT USE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Agricultural Government Commercial Industrial Educational Military Entertainment Museum Park Private Residence Religious Scientific Transportation - Other (Specify) - Comments OWNER OF PROPERTY OWNER'S NAME: Hampden County Commissioners STREET AND NUMBER: Hampden County Courthouse, Elm Street CITY OR TOWN: STATE: Springfield LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION COURTHOUSE, REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC: Hampden County Courthouse STREET AND NUMBER: Elm Street Massachusetts CODE 025 CITY OR TOWN: STATE Hampaen Springfield Massachusetts CODE 025 STATE: COUNTY: REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS TITLE OF SURVEY: Inventory of Historic Assets of the Commonwealth DATE OF SURVEY: 1971 - Federal X State DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS: Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET AND NUMBER: Office of the Secretary, State House CITY OR TOWN: TSTATE: Boston - County - Local ENTRY NUMBER Massachusetts T CODE 100 025 FOR NPS USE ONLY DATE 7.

DESCRIPTION (Check One) - Deteriorated X Excellent CONDITION Good (Check One) - Fair Ruins O Unexposed (Check One) / Altered - Unaltered Moved X Original Site DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (if known) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Description of the property

H. H. Richardson was awarded the commission for Springfield's Hampden County Courthouse in a competition held in 1871. The architect employed the basic I-shaped plan, with the entrance (northwest) facade on one base of the I, a very simple rear facade on the other. The two-story main facade of the Court- house faces Elm Street just off Court Square. The original high, hipped roof with its tall dormers (removed when Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge remodeled the Courthouse in 1906) added another story to the central mass of the building. bell tower rises from the cornice line at the center of this facade. The material used in all the random ashlar facades of the Courthouse is a local Monson granite (light grey in color) of the kind used in two of Richardson's earlier Springfield works, the Agawam Bank and the Western Railroad offices.

The first floor of the main facade of the Courthouse contains a tall slit window on either side of a triple-arched entrance porch. A wide double flight of stairs originally descended from the porch to the street. On the second floor, a double window with stone mullions is located over each of the three arches in the entrance-way. A balcony at the northern corner of the second story creates the only real break in the symmetry of the facade; it is supported by a number of corbelled brackets. An attempt has been made to counterbalance the asymmetri- cal balcony with a narrow slit window to the right (southwest) of the second story windows. The base of the balcony interrupts a granite string course that runs around the building separating the first and second floors.

The height of the main facade is marked by a narrow corbel table; above this rises a parapet with stepped crenelation which projects from the facade the width of the table. Over the center of the main facade the crenelation is broken by the bell tower which projects the width of the corbel table and rises above the central mass. The entire tower, minus the tall pyramidal roof on the bell stage, bears a close resemblance to the watchtower above the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (1298-1314). At the base of the tower, just above the break in the crenelation, is an empty clock casement, A large triple window divided by stone mullions is positioned directly above the casement. Above this large window, machicolations and crenelation separate the bell stage or belfry from the main section of the tower.

The bell stage itself, with its tall Romanesque arches, is topped with more crenelation at the base of its pyramidal roof. The dormers in the original high, hipped roof "were of stone with gables and mullions of Late Gothic type."1 One was placed on each side of the tower helping to integrate it with the main mass of the building. The tall triple window in each of these dormers was basically a smaller version of the triple window at the base of the tower. Existing sketches and photographs of the original roof give little information about dormer placement other than the location of a single dormer at each of the narrow ends of the hipped roof over the main facade. Finally, the rear facade has regularly spaced mullioned windows in both stories, with bearing arches in the masonry above the lintels of the lower row. Similar windows are used around the sides of the building on both floors.

[see Continuation Sheet] M Z -

From the form

The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.

SIGNIFICANCE PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) - Pre-Columbian| 15th Century 16th Century 17th Century SPECIFIC DATE(S) (If Applicable and Known) AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Abor iginal Education - Prehistoric Engineering Historic Industry Agriculture Invention Architecture Landscape Art Architecture Commerce Literature Communications Military - Conservation Music - 18th Century * 19th Century 1871 - 20th Century Political Religion/Phi- losophy Science Sculpture Social/Human- itarian Theater Transportation - Urban Planning - Other (Specity) STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Statement of significance

The Hampden County Courthouse was designed in 1871 by Henry Hobson Richardson, who is generally considered the first great architect to work in a truly American idiom. Richardson is best known for his massive, monumental works of stone and brick and his use of very low arches which rise, in Syrian style, almost from the ground. The three arches in the entrance porch of the Hampden County Courthouse are rather high, however, indicating that the low Richardsonian arch had not yet evolved as part of the architect's style. The bell tower is the most prominent feature of the Springfield Courthouse. A similar tower was a major feature in Richardson's two previous works, the Brattle Square Church (July, 1870) and the Worcester High School (November, 1869), but in this case its use marked a change in his style: While this tower...

may be agreeably seen from a distance and from all sides above the building, it is really an integral part of the building and not an attached independent motif like the Worcester or even the Brattle Square Tower.3 Richardson's next commission was Trinity Church (1873) and in it one detects an even greater integration of tower and central mass. Much of the success of the Courthouse, as it relates to the tower, was negated by the Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge remodeling of the building in 1906. The whole question of the removal of the original roof and dormers suggests other ideas concerning the significance of the building.

Speaking of the 1906 alterations, Professor Henry-Russell Hitchcock remarks, The difference in architectural quality due to these modifications, made only twenty years after Richardson's death by men who were his collaborators and pupils in the early eighties, provides an extraordinary demonstration of the sureness of his hand at this early date. It also indicates the almost total incapacity of his imitators and pupils to understand what really made his work so fine. In Mrs. Marianna Van Rensselaer's opinion, it is the rear facade of the Courthouse, not the elaborate front facade, that is more significant architecturally. [see Continuation Sheet]

The rest of the file

Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.

MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Hitchcock, Henry Russell, THE ARCHITECTURE OF H. H, RICHARDSON AND HIS TIMES, Cambridge, The M. I. T. Press, 1966. Van Rensselaer, Marianna Griswold, HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON AND HIS WORKS, Boston, 1888. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES DEFINING A RECTANGLE LOCATING THE PROPERTY CORNER R LATITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds LONGITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES DEFINING THE CENTER POINT OF A PROPERTY OF LESS THAN TEN ACRES Degrees 42 LATITUDE Minutes 06 LONGITUDE Seconds 01 Degrees 72° Minutes Seconds 35 - 21 " NW NE " "9 SE SW APPROXIMATE ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY: c.

one acre ILIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES STATE: CODE COUNTY CODE STATE: CODE COUNTY: CODE STATE: CODE COUNTY: CODE STATE: CODE COUNTY: CODE FORM PREPARED BY NAME AND TITLE: Anne Wardwell, Survey Director ORGANIZATION Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET AND NUMBER: Office of the Secretary, State House CITY OR TOWN: Boston STATE LIAISON OFFICER CERTIFICATION DATE October 1, 1971 STATE CODE 025 Massachusetts NATIONAL REGISTER VERIFICATION As the designated State Liaison Officer for the Na- tional Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.

The recommended level of significance of this nomination is: National State Local I hereby certify that this property is included in the National Register. +a Canually Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation 7.X. Darnku Secretary of the Commonwealth, Chair- man, Massachusetts Historical Title - Commission Date FEB 1 1972 July 27, 1971 ATTEST: loillia Keeper of The National Register JAN 8 1972 Date Date 699580 46635 00 F Form 10-300a (Dec. 1968) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE - NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES *.INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM (Continuation Sheet) STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Hampden FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER FEB1 DATE 1972 (Numberallentries) (7.) DESCRIPTION, Hampden County Courthouse, Springfield, Massachusetts In 1906 Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge remodeled the courthouse to meet the need for more space.

The most drastic change involved the removal of the high roof and dormers. They were replaced by a flat roof that severely damaged the three-dimensional relation of the tower to the rest of the building. The addition of an east wing created the extra space needed without architectural conflict. The northwest and southeast facades of the addition contain a single range of mullioned windows on the first floor. The first and second story windows of the northeast facade of the addition repeat the arrangement found on the rear facade of the main building. A major change to the main facade has been "the inexcusable substitution of a direct flight of stairs for the wide double flight before the entrance and the equally pointless introduction of Italian Gothic tracery in the belfry, "2 1 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, THE ARCHITECTURE OF H. H. RICHARDSON AND'HIS TIMES, Cambridge, The M. I. T.

Press, 1966, page 126, "Ibid., p. 128. (8.) SIGNIFICANCE, Hampden County Courthouse, Springfield, Massachusetts She prefers the rear facade "which is very plain, frankly utilitarian in accent, yet so massive, dignified and well proportioned as to be really monumental. "d elaborating on her preference, Mrs. Van Rensselaer states: It shows how much may be done for the simplest walls by carefully designed, strongly battered foundation courses. No device was used by Richardson more constantly or artistically than this, and there is none Which plays a greater part in explaining the admirable sturdiness of all his structures. 3 Ibid. p. 12T. 4 Ibid., P. 128. 5 Marianna Griswold Van Rensselaer, HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON AND HIS WORKS, Boston, 1888, p. 55. 6 Ibid Spring field, Massachuselts Hampton County Courthouse NORTHWEST (front) façade NPS Number.

teh l, 1912 7120: Hampdea Couaty Ciauthanse 1oo. Hampdes County, Mass. Hampdes Count Cothause harthweet (frfnt) facade UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PROPERTY PHOTOGRAPH FORM (Type all entries - attach to or enclose with photograph) STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Hampden FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER - NAME COMMON: Hampden County Courthouse AND/OR HISTORIC: Hampden County Courthouse LOCATION STREET AND NUMBER: Elm Street CITY OR TOWN: Springfield STATE: Massachusetts CODE COUNTY: 025 PHOTO REFERENCE PHOTO CREDIT: Massachusetts Historical Commission DATE OF PHOTO: July 1971 NEGATIVE FILED AT: Massachusetts Historical Commission IDENTIFICATION DESCRIBE VIEW, DIRECTION, ETC. Hampden County Courthouse Northwest (front) facade Hampden FAUILI DATE 197 CODE 013 LEVE LIERIANEO ENSR RETIE CRACDAN John F. X.

Davoren Secretary of the Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the Secretary Peate House, Boston 02133 October 27, 1971 The Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation National Park Service 801 19th Street, N.w. Washington, D. C. 20006 Attention: M7*//$#XXy/Matkøtt Miss Mary Means REGISTERED MAIL Dear Sirs, Enclosed are National Register submissions for: Rocky Hill Meetinghouse, Amesbury Major Joseph Griswold House, Buckland Hampden County Courthouse, Springfield These have been declared eligible for submission by the Xaasachusetts Historical Commission, the State Reviaw Board, and have been signed by Secretary of the Commonwealth, John F. X. Davoren, Chairman, Massachusetts Historical Commission and designated the State Liaison Officer. Sincerely yours, Quichndl W. Hkale fu Richard w. Hale, Jr.

Acting Chairman RWH: aw Massachusetts Historical Conmission ENTRIES IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER STATE HAASAOLGSENIS Date Entered FEB 1 1972 Name Location Pirst Church of Christ, Congrogational (Hanpden County Courthousa Springfield Hampden Cousty Springfield Hangeon Couty Also Notified Hon. Edward M. Kenneay lion. Idward w. Drooke Hon. Edward P. Ioland LHR Director, Northeast Region NRowland: mm 1/31/72 State Iiaison Officer Eon. Joan F. %. Davoren Sccretary of the Coronwealth Clinirran, Mascachusetts fistorieal Cormiesion Cftice of the Secretary State Louse Doston, Massachucelts 03133