Category: Past Talks

Discover Historic Williamstown!  Week 4

This week’s site is easy to find.  West College was the original building housing the Free School donated to the town in Ephraim Williams’ will, which became Williams College in 1793. You will find it on Main Street, across from the Williams College President’s house.

In this photo, c. 1850, you are looking from the east toward West College, from somewhere between Water Street and Spring Street from the north side of Main Street.

The Free School was conceived by Colonel Ephraim Williams, and described in his will for the direct benefit of the children of the soldiers who had served under him in one or other of the forts of the old French line.

The nine trustees empowered to establish the Free School in Williamstown met for the first time on April 24, 1785, in Pittsfield, and discovered that the $9,157 left by Williams’ was in no way sufficient.

In August, the Building Committee suggested that the “old lime-kilns” where Griffin Hall was eventually sited in 1828, would be a good location for the school, but the protruding rocks were deemed too difficult to level, as indeed they eventually proved to be.

A site directly across Main Street to the south, where the college built their second building in 1797, was also considered. But eventually the Committee decided on the site “south of William Horsford’s house” where General Sloan eventually built the house that has been home to the presidents of Williams College since 1858.

At the second meeting of the trustees, in August 1785 the trustees set out the dimensions of the building, but by May of 1788, when the following plans were announced, nothing had been built. Finances, clearing and leveling rocks, siting a sufficient well, and dealing with a lawsuit brought by the citizens of Adams [now North Adams], claiming that Williams’ had also intended that a Free School be erected in their community, were among the issues causing delay.

“That the house for the use of the Free School in Williamstown be constructed of brick, and be of the following dimensions, namely, seventy-two feet in length and forty feet in breadth, from inside to inside, three stories in height, with four stacks of chimneys and a bevel roof ; that said house be erected on the eminence east of the meeting-house, and south of Mr. William Horsford’s dwelling-house, on the south side of the highway; — provided the sum of five hundred pounds be paid or secured to be paid, to the said Corporation for the use of the said School.”

Finally, on May 26, 1790 the trustees voted: Taking into consideration the importance and necessity of erecting without delay the building intended for the use of said school ; and Colonel [Tompson Joseph] Skinner having this day engaged to sink the well already begun, and partly dug, on the western eminence where the house was ordered…to be placed, and to level the said western eminence sufficient to accommodate the building,— do resolve, that the committee appointed to superintend and direct in the erection of said building shall proceed to set up said building, on said eminence, without delay.”

The trustees, in their 1792 Petition to the General Court of Massachusetts, describe West College as “a large and convenient brick building within the said town of Williamstown, with lodging and study rooms sufficient to accommodate one hundred students, besides a common School-room sufficient for sixty scholars, a Dining room that will accommodate one hundred persons, a Hall for public academical exercises, and a Room for a library, apparatus, &c., the whole being nearly finished.”

David Noble donated a bell, which was rung to signal chapel, study hours, recitations, and evening prayers.

In 1793 the cupola and the top floor were finished, the hall divided by a partition “so as to make two rooms for the Students,” and a lightning rod was added.

Although the interior of West College has been reconstructed due to fire and various renovations, the shell of the building is original.

Where’s the water?

West College never had a well of its own, and never enjoyed a legal right of access to any neighboring well, although the Whitmans (successors to William Horsford) by courtesy allowed its roomers for considerable stretches of time to use the old well. There are two copious natural springs not very far apart from each other on the low ground to the southeast of the West College, from one or other of which the students supplied themselves for the most part till the middle of the nineteenth century.

When [Arthur Latham Perry, Williams class of 1852] as a freshman became a roomer in West College in 1848, there was a well-worn path diagonally across what was then called “Deacon Skinner’s meadow” on which there was not then a building of any kind, leading to what has now long been called the “Walden Spring.” At the same time there was opened a new and narrow street directly down to this spring southerly from Main Street, and consequently named “Spring Street.”

This 1889 Burleigh Lithograph of Williamstown shows West College (red x at far left) and Spring Street (red x near center). Remnants of the “diagonal path” between the two can still be seen here.

About the middle of the [19th] century… the Williamstown Water Company brought water from the “Cold Spring” to the village residences and near to the college buildings.

This wooden water pipe, shaped like a railroad tie with a hole bored through the center, is likely from the first set of pipes carrying water from Cold Spring into town. Wooden pipes were replaced by iron pipes in 1876.

What do we know about the Free School that existed in the West College building from 1790-1793?

Two departments of instruction were established at first : an English free school with students recruited from the higher classes in the town schools, such as these then were ; and a grammar school or academy, to which a yearly tuition of thirty-five shillings was charged.

Only two teachers were provided at first for both schools, a preceptor and his assistant; an usher was afterward added.

Only two Williamstown boys – Daniel Kellogg and Billy J. Clark, a grandson of Colonel Benjamin Simonds – are positively known to have been trained at the Free School, and while both became distinguished men, neither of them graduated from the College.

When the school became a college by an act of the Legislature in 1793, the common department, which was entirely free, fell at once into “innocuous desuetude;” but the tuitioned grammar department continued for a few years as a sort of preparatory school for the College, before it too closed.

Many of the citizens of Williamstown deprecated the action of the General Court in transforming the school into a college to the utter loss of Ephraim Williams’ original intention.

The 19th century saw many changes to the West College building.

In 1829 three students try to burn it down. William O. Parker & Stephen Thayer “concerned in firing the West College” were expelled, and Nathan T. Rosseter was “sent from college in disgrace.” (Records of the Faculty, 1821-1871).

As the College built more buildings to serve specific purposes – chapel, library, dining halls, etc. – more and more space in West College was converted to student living space.

In 1855 a major remodeling of the building saw the East-West hallway replaced by non-communicating entrances at the North and South ends. The annual commencement day march through that hallway had been referred to as going “through college.”

In 1871 the brick exterior of West College was painted yellow in a “renewal of youth and freshness,” according to the Williams Vidette.

The lighter color of the building can be discerned in this 1898 photo by Alexander Davidson (original in the Williams College Archives). The Davidson photo, taken from Lab Campus Drive, shows the stairs in place before the construction of Hopkins Gate.

To West College
…For every one
Who in the past has found a home in thee,
And for the countless students yet to be,
Whom thou shalt shelter from the rain and sun,
We love thee, old West College
– J. B. Pratt (Williams Class of 1898)
Williams Literary Monthly, April 1896

The West College building was gutted right down to its brick shell twice in the 20th century.

North Adams Transcript, June 8, 1904

In 1904 everything except for the exterior walls was demolished and rebuilt with “all the necessities and luxuries of a College dormitory” according to the Williams Record, although one letter-to-the-editor judged the renovation: “as dangerously threaten[ing] the democratic spirit in Williams College.”

North Adams Transcript, July 1, 1904

In December 1904, fire escapes were placed on the building.

In 1928, after 57 years, the yellow paint was finally sand-blasted off the brick exterior.

Then on January 2, 1951 a devastating fire gutted the building. Three students who had returned early from vacation escaped with their lives, and all the residents lost their belongings.

North Adams Transcript, January 2, 1951

The $225,000 renovation wasn’t complete until the 1952-1953 academic year. The architectural firm Perry, Shaw, Hepburn, Kehoe, and Dean assured the North Adams Transcript that from the outside, the building looked “exactly as it was in 1790.” Inside, there were fireproof stairways, rooms for 48 upperclassmen, and a vault in the basement for College records.

A “West College Room” built from salvaged timbers, was added to the Alumni House, now known as The Log.

Can you find the historic site marker for West College and the building? If you find it, please photograph the marker, the building and anything around it and email your photos to info@williamstownhsitoricalmuseum.org so we can add your images to our collection of recent photographs of historic sites in our ever changing town.

If you would like to visit other sites in this series, click on the button below.  Please be safe, enjoy yourselves, and have fun!

Historic Marker Scavenger Hunt

Historic Site 3. South Williamstown Five Corners

This week’s historic site marker is located in the center of South Williamstown at the Five Corners.

The Sloan, Stratton, Jordan, Phelps, and Steele families are just a few of the folks who made the “south part” the vibrant community it remains today.  We invite you to explore the Web site of our friends at the South Williamstown Community Association to learn more about the area yesterday and today. https://southwilliamstown.org/

Isaac Stratton, South Williamstown’s first European settler, was born in Warren, MA, in 1739 and moved to Williamstown with his parents and seven siblings in 1760. In 1762 he built his first cabin on the site of the The Store at Five Corners, which he subsequently sold to Samuel Sloan.

Stratton served as Justice of the Peace and had an illustrious military career, distinguishing himself as a Major in Colonel Simonds regiment at the Battle of Bennington.

Isaac Stratton married Mary Fox in 1761 and they had at least five children. They are buried together in Southlawn Cemetery.

Regina Rouse delivered this excellent presentation “Honoring Isaac Stratton” for us back in 2018. We encourage you to watch for a detailed account of this important founding member of our community.

Honoring Isaac Stratton Video

The Five Corners Historic District, encompassing the central district of South Williamstown, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. It is centered at the junction of Cold Spring Road (Rt. 7 north), Green River Road (Rt. 43 northeast), Hancock Road (Rt. 43 southwest),New Ashford Road (Rt. 7 south), and Sloan Road. The junction has been a prominent center in the area since 1760.

South Williamstown was formed out of the junction of four large parcels of land, and developed in the late 18th century as a stop on the main north-south stagecoach route (today United States Route 7). By the turn of the 19th century the village had a tavern, store, and cemetery, and the first church was built in 1808. The area remained agricultural through the 19th-century, having been bypassed by railroad construction and significant industrial activity.

Map of South Williamstown in 1876.

A History of the Store at Five Corners

Isaac Stratton built the original building, a log cabin, in 1760, then Samuel Sloan built a tavern on the site in 1770 where it became a gathering place for Colonial troops, including a brief stop-over by General George Washington.

Nathan Rossiter

In 1816 Nathan Rossiter had a tavern on the site. As Jordan’s Tavern, under the ownership of John Jordan from 1833-65, the second floor and Greek Revival portico were added. After two changes of ownership, in 1875 Thomas Sabin gave it the name Sabin House and conducted it as an inn.

While the Mills School was in existence just up the hill, the tavern was a haven for parents and visitors. Business took a hit with the closing of that school in 1889.

Photo of the Five Corners in 1880, featuring students from the Mills School.

In 1905 Thomas and Jane Hoy Steele and their ten children moved from Shushan, NY, and bought the Sabin inn for use as a family home. They lopped off a wing of the building and had hauled north on Green River Road by teams of horses. Eventually the Steeles started selling bread from their home and the Steele’s Corners Store was born.

Images from the Berkshire Eagle

Jane Steele ran the South Williamstown Post Office from the Store from 1916 until her death in 1930. The branch was closed the following year.

James A. “Jim” Steele took over the operation of the Store after his mother died and operated it until his death in 1963.

In a 1992 article in the Eagle, neighbor Harold Guiden remembered the Store being the hub of the community in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when “South Williamstown was a long ways from anywhere,” and going into Williamstown seemed as big a trip as going to Pittsfield.

Image from the Berkshire Eagle

The Store opened when Jim Steele got out of bed in the morning and closed when he retired at night, Guiden recalled. All day long there were at least a half-dozen people gathered around, drinking Cokes and shooting the breeze.

Jim Steele’s generosity was legendary, and he helped many members of the community during the Great Depression. Children of that era have fond memories of buying penny candy and ice cream and hanging out at the Store. Many teens had their first jobs working for Steele’s.

After Jim Steele died in 1963 his widow, Susan, leased the Store to Janet and Carroll Cummings, before selling it to William H. and Helen Cook Vanderbilt in 1978. The Vanderbilts renamed Steele’s Store the Store at Five Corners, removed the upstairs porch and expanded the sales room. While William Vanderbilt, the former Governor of Rhode Island, was known to pump gas for visitors, the Cummings remained as managers.

William Vanderbilt died in 1981 and Helen Vanderbilt put the Store up for sale in 1984. A year later she sold it to Patricia and Dr. Roger Gould, and Bernard and Cecelia Bandman, who also retained Janet Cummings as manager.

In 1987 the Store was up for sale again. Bryan and Donna Livsey appear to be the owners in 1990. Then in April of 1992 Stuart and Andrea Shatken purchased the property, holding a grand reopening in May with State Senators Jane Swift and Shaun Kelly cutting the ribbon while the Mt. Greylock Regional High School Band played.

The Store flourished during the five years the Shatkens owned it, being featured in Gourmet magazine. In September of 1998 they sold to Meredith K. and Jeff Woodyard, who replaced all the windows and added a deck and enclosed dining porch.

In July of 2009 the Store passed into the hands of the current owner Franklin C. Lewis, who also purchased the abutting Green River Farms property. In January of 2011 he closed both businesses, marking the first time in more than a century that the Store had been out of business.

The South Williamstown Community Association attempted to purchase the Store to operate it as a non-profit entity but couldn’t come to a sales agreement with Lewis. Lewis briefly reopened the Store in 2012-2013, after which it remained closed for another two years.

Since 2015 the Store has been open for business under various managers.

If you have found the marker we encourage you to take a photo of it and the surrounding Five Corners area and email it to us at info@williamstownhistoricalmuseum.org.  We are grateful for our members and friends who help build the collection of historic photos of Williamstown!  Thank you!