Memorial Hall, a three-story, hipped roof, granite building in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, is situated in the center of the suburban-industrial hill town of Milford, in south-central Massachusetts. The building is placed at an angle on an irregularly shaped lot. Set on a low rise, the building fronts on School Street on the east, while Spruce Street bounds the property on the north. The building is set back about thirty feet from School Street and is surrounded by a spacious 1awn planted with several trees and bushes. A low concrete retaining wall encompasses the property. Memorial Hall's grounds also include four cannon (three dating from the Civil War and one from the First World War) and a flagpole.
Typical of the eclectic Richardsonian Romanesque style, Memorial Hall is essentially rectangular in plan, but with asymmetrical projections on three sides in the form of a cross gable with entry porch (main east facade) half-round tower (north facade), and single-story porch (south facade). Rough-faced ashlar pink granite, locally quarried, is the structure's primary building material; red Longmeadow sandstone serves as the building's trim. The building rises three stories from a full granite foundation, topped by a sandstone water table. A central chimney with polychromatic detailing is located just in front of the ridge. The hipped roof is sheathed with slate and is punctuated on the south and west by gable dormers.
The main elevation of the building, with an asymmetrical two-bay facade, is dominated by the three-story projecting gable pavilion that contains the entrance and comprises the facade's right half. The entrance porch, set within the gable, is framed by a wide, low, sandstone arch resting on squat, polished-granite columns. Six steps lead from grade level beneath the arch and up to the door (a modern replacement of the original oak door). Sandstone blocks form the arch surrounds for both the door and the pair of round-arched windows flanking it. A band of sandstone, in which are incised the gold-painted words "MEMORIAL HALL," forms a belt course across the gable. the second story, a pair of sandstone-framed 4/4 narrow rectangular windows are united by a sandstone arch, beneath in the center of an ornate floral frieze. rieze.
tharrow sandstone batds form beit courses ," is carved across the gable facade at both the second and third stories. A closely set pair of round-arched windows, framed again by sandstone, are centered in the gable. Immediately above in the gable peak is a broad checkerboard band of rough granite and sandstone. To the left of the entrance porch, two pairs of closely set 4/4 windows are symmetrically stacked on first and second stories; surrounds of sandstone frame the NPS Form 10.900-8 (3-82) OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp. 10-31-84 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form For NPS use only received date entered Continuation sheet Memorial Hall, Milford Item number 7 Page / windows.
Separating them are ornately carved stone plaques bearing military motifs: the left, with crossed swords beneath a shield of stars and stripes, commemorates Gen. Ulysses S. Grant; the right, with an anchor over acanthus leaves, honors Admiral David G. Farragut, who uttered the words, "Damn the torpedoes!" during the Battle of Mobile Bay. Heavy dentils of sandstone punctuate the narrow cornice. Above rises the steep hipped roof, capped with a decorative flashing ridge. The polychromatic granite-and-sandstone chimney sits just in front of the ridge. The north elevation is dominated by the three-story tower, asymmetrically placed on the northeast side of the building. Three stair-stepped round-arched windows mirror the stairway within. A broad checkerboard band, of sandstone and granite squares, forms a frieze beneath the tower's conical slate roof.
right of the tower contain, on the first story, two groups of three 4/4 windows, united by sandstone lintels and sills, and directly above on the second story, two paired 4/4 windows set into round arches of sandstone and joined by a sandstone blind arch. A continuation of the front facade's heavy dentilation marks the cornice. The western, rear elevation contains a broad, single bay of windows in the center of the facade. Three 4/4 rectangular windows on both first and second story, identical to those on the north elevation's first story, are united by sandstone lintels and sills. A gabled dormer, immediately above the centered bay, contains a trio of square, four-pane windows. The southern elevation contains elements found on both north and west, with a few alterations.
Fenestration in the symmetrical three-bay facade is regular: two groups f windows, three 4/4 rectangles each on the first story, are framed by sandstone lintels and sills and flank a wooden entry porch with stick-work rail and trim. A single 4/4 sandstone-framed window balances the porch in the center bay. On the second story, paired 4/4 round-arched windows set into a sandstone arch surround, and united by a sandstone blind arch, form the outer bays. The center bay is composed of two 4/4 rectangular windows, set into a sandstone round arch and held together by a short sandstone belt course. Projecting from the roof is a gabled dormer, adorned like its counterpart on the front facade by a sandstone-and-granite checkerboard gable field. The interior of Memorial Hall remains much as it was in the late 19th century.
Ringing the large front vestibule are marble tablets listing the names of Milford's Civil War and Spanish American War veterans (the latter is a post-1898 addition). Above the vestibule fireplace is a bas-relief depiction of camp life. Woodwork and encaustic tile flooring in the vestibule are original, as is the stairway of polished granite leading from the vestibule up to the second story. Incised on the riser of each step is the name of a Civil War battle.On the second past entury, emorial iat noi ai e houses s trara irsane a ianr nedgaerer tor the retains the stage erected for commemorative events, past century, Memorial Hall now also houses a library and historical museum.
NPS Form 10-000-a (3-82) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form For NPS use only received date entered Continuation sheet Mémorial Hall, Milford Item number 1 Page On the other side of Main Street, the 1912 Armory, a rusticated castle with crenellated roofline and corner towers, was also of granite construction, as was the 1914 Post Office Building, a Colonial Revival design on Main Street (both extant), which was the work of government architect James Knox Taylor. Granite provided the major building material for Main Street's four-story Thom Block of 1891 (NR 1983), distinguished by its piers of polished polychromatic granite blocks that divided the storefront bays.
Other granite and granite-trimmed buildings were constructed throughout the Main Street corridor marking the town's commercial and institutional core, but the Thom Block is the town's only surviving granite commercial block. Amongst all these structures, however, Memorial Hall remains Milford's most imposing, high-style Richardsonian Romanesque building. Milford's granite industry thrived throughout the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Between 1885 and 1915, more than a dozen new quarries went into operation. Both pink and gray granite were quarried and widely used for gravestones, monuments, architectural trim, and buildings.
Among the more * wel1-known buildings in which Milford granite was used are both the old and new sections_of the Boston Public Library, the approaches to the Lincoln Memorial, and the Freer Art Collection Building of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., the Wilmington, N.C., U.S. Customs House, the Amherst College Library, and Union Station in Baltimore. The quarries were all located to the north and northeast of Milford's town center in the rough hills aptly named Rocky Woods. Nearly all were within one mile of a rail line or siding, along which cutting sheds and loading facilities were located. During this period, a large number of Italian immigrants came to Milford to work the quarries as skilled stonecutters.
They were very active in union organization and called a number of strikes against the quarry operators; several local sources identify this as the reason for the closing of many of the quarries by the mid-1920s. With the arrival of the Depression, the few remaining quarries, operated only sporadically, used mechanization rather than numerous laborers to cut the granite from the earth. Since 1884, Memorial Hall has served as headquarters for Milford's veterans organizations, and more recently, has also housed the town library and historical museum. At present, the town is studying the possibility of using the building as a cultural center. OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp. 10-31-84 2 8.
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