Parsons, Shepherd and Damon, Houses Historic District
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
2001. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Significant Dates n/a Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) n/a Cultural Affiliation n/a Architect/Builder Isaac Damon”
Narrative Statement of Significance, National Register nomination for Parsons, Shepherd and Damon, Houses Historic District. Machine-read text.
one of 32 National Register listings in Hampshire County · listed in 2001 · category: District.
National Register reference number.01000627- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The city of Northampton has for several years established its cruslaing works near the north line of the town and at a distance from railroads, and works the Hatfield tonalite or hornblendic granite, which is a partly decomposed rock, more brittle than the trap, and in many ways an inferior rock for road ballast. The city has access beside the road or railroad within its own limits to several better ledges than the one it works now. In 1897 the city of Ware opened a quarry on the Coys Hill dike on the mountain side east of the railroad station. The dike is here 5 rods wide, favorably situated for quanying, and will furnish the best material in inexhaustible quantity.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 78 fires within 5 miles of Parsons, Shepherd and Damon, Houses Historic District between
2001 and 2020, burning about 320 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 5 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
24
Equipment and vehicle use
20
Debris and open burning
13
Recreation and ceremony
10
Natural
6
Arson/incendiarism
5
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 6,186 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Parsons, Shepherd and Damon, Houses Historic District between 1781 and
1975: 3,175 Plantae, 1,564 Fungi, 1,239 Animalia, 134 Chromista, 64 Protozoa, 9 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A V Osmun, A., A. Albee and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
22 workings within 5 miles of Parsons, Shepherd and Damon, Houses Historic District: 11 producers, 11 past producers.
11 still produce. What was taken out: Brick Clay, Clay, Stone, Dimension, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Northampton, the town this property stands in, in 36 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 18 thunderstorm wind, 6 flood, 4 hail, 4 lightning.
The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Record flooding along the Mill River caused extensive flooding in Northampton. The river crested at 15.6 feet on the 16th, which was the highest crest on record, and well above the previous record crest of 13.7 feet which occurred in October, 2005. Many roads near the river were closed and some evacuations took place as flood waters threatened nearby homes and businesses.|Minor flooding also affected the mainstem Connecticut River through Northampton. A crest of 119 feet was recorded at 430 pm on the 17th (flood stage is 112 feet).
After receiving roughly four and a half inches of rain from Tropical Storm Irene, an overtopped dike resulted in the closure of West Street in Northampton. At exit 24 on Route 5, there was five to six feet of water flooding the road, with two cars floating down the road.
In the Florence section of Northampton, a 50 foot by 50 foot wooden permanent pavilion structure was blown crooked at a landmark restaurant/tavern. The footings, which were lifted and bent, were attached by a metal bracket to concrete. The pavilion can accomodate 18 tables with 4 people per table. The building inspector classified the damage as $20,000. Slightly farther to the southeast, a 50 ft by 75 ft. section of roofing, including insulation and rubber membrane, was peeled off of the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. There was little in the way of water damage inside the school. The Northampton building inspector rated the roof damage as $30,000. Still farther to the southeast, a tree was down on Washington Avenue, as reported by amateur radio.
Numerous trees were downed in Northampton, including several on Summer Street and one on Massasoit Street which fell on wires. Large trees also were downed in Easthampton, including one that fell on a house and a car on Chestnut Street.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
11,669 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Statement of significance
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) X A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. - B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. X C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. -D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations (Mark "X" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: _A owned by religious institution or used for religious purposes. _ B removed from its original location. _C a birthplace or grave. - D a cemetery. _E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. -F a commemorative property. - G less than 50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years. Narrative Statement of Significance (Explain the significance of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) Hampshire, MA County and State Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions) ARCHITECTURE SOCIAL HISTORY Period of Significance ca. 1730-1951 Significant Dates n/a Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) n/a Cultural Affiliation n/a Architect/Builder Isaac Damon 2.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 01000627, 32 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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