West Main Street

The Academy of Music in the 1890s

The Academy of Music, built in 1891, was a gift to the city from Edward H.R. Lyman.  It was designed as an opera house by William Brockelsby.  With its rich terra cotta façade, it echoes the neo-classical style of the Italian Renaissance.  In 1912, a stock company was formed and achieved national fame as the first municipal theater company in the United States.  Lectures, concerts, opera and dramas were regularly presented.  Mark Twain entertained Academy audiences.  Sarah Berhnardt, the Barrymores and Mae West graced its stage.  Later, vaudeville and then the movies became regular features.

St. Mary’s Church as it appeared in 1885

The first Catholic church in Northampton was built on King Street in 1845.  It was soon outgrown and a larger church was built in 1866.  Waves of immigrants in the 1880s contributed to the exponential growth of the Catholic population and by the 1880s separate parishes were organized for the outlying districts of Northampton.  St. Mary’s Church was designed by Patrick Ford of Boston and was built on the site of the old Mansion House Hotel. Begun in 1881, the church was dedicated in 1885.  Two uneven towers and stained glass windows are prominent features.  The spires were added in 1895.  The rectory was constructed in 1888.

Smith College about 1895

When Sophia Smith died in 1870, she left her estate to “furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are offered now in our colleges for young men.”  The next year Smith College became the first woman’s college to be chartered in New England.  From the beginning, the college saw itself not as a finishing school for young ladies, but as the home of the feminine scholar.  Built on a hill overlooking downtown Northampton, College Hall was the first building to be built on the Smith Campus. Designed by Peabody and Stearns of Boston in 1874, the high Victorian Gothic building housed the entire college when it opened its doors in 1875.

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