Barber - Williamsburg View 1839

Rev:  March 2, 2025 ... d.allen

Perhaps the oldest "picture" of Williamsburg was printed in the 1839 book "Historical Collections ..." by John Warner Barber. This image is from the 2nd edition (1844) of the 600+ page book.

The working sketch was made by Mr. Barber in August 1937, per this drawing (below) from
the online archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The numbers were added for easier study.

The buildings, many of which stand today, have been identified by town historian Eric Weber:
***** Scroll to the bottom of this page to see Eric's more expansive text. *****

1) Unknown house, long gone.  Site of present Historical Society Museum.
2) Methodist Church, built in 1832, dismantled ca. 1950. Now Veterans' Memorial Park.
3) "Gross Williams Esq." house, opened in 1812 as a tavern. Now a brewery /brew pub.
4)  House on land now occupied by Route 9 (Williams Street) & partly on lawn of the Meekins Library. Razed in 2003.
5) "Gross Williams Store" –  home & office of Dr. Daniel Collins in mid 1800s. Removed ca 1895.
6) House possibly of Enoch James (1793-1867). He owned a store across the street. The house in the sketch has the same general shape as the one that stands there today.Is it the same house?
7) Congregational Church, was built in 1835-6.Modified in early 1900s. Still standing.
8) "Hubbards Tavern" "Brick" ... Store built in 1796.… now the Williamsburg branch of Florence Bank.
9)  “Bartlett's tavern” .. Long gone,
10)  "Old Congregational Church" (steeple only). Built 1779.  Removed after #7 was built.

The un-marked image is below.  (contrast etc improved in Photoshop)

Notes on the 10 sites by Eric Weber, February, 2025

#1 (not identified on Barber's sketch) is a house of unknown ownership on the present site of the Old Town Hall, which was built in 1841-2 and now serves as the Historical Society's principal museum, though the Town still owns it.

#2 is the Methodist Church, built in 1832. It had in its early years a very large congregation led by the Hayden brothers, Josiah and Joel, who were just beginning to put their enduring stamp on the village of Haydenville. Many of the town's prominent families attended. By the 1930s its membership had dwindled away, and in 1940 the church disbanded. It was dismantled about 1950 and some of it was moved to become part of a fine new Grange Hall. The church site is now a small Veterans' Memorial Park.

#3 is the Williams House, opened in 1812 as a tavern and inn by Gross Williams (1771-1846), then the village's leading business entrepreneur. It has had many lives as tavern, hotel, restaurant, livery stable, and trolley and stagecoach terminus. It burned in 1873 and was rebuilt in much the same form in 1874, and has continued through many ownerships and managements, mostly as a restaurant since the 1930s. It is currently being resurrected as a brewery and brew pub.

#4 is a house that stood partly on what is now Route 9 (Williams Street) and partly on what is now the side lawn of the Meekins Library. When Williams Street was incorporated into the state highway system as part of Route 9 and greatly widened in the early 20th century, this house was moved out of the new roadway and re-sited in back of the library. In 2003, when the library was expanded, the house was bought and razed to make room for the library addition and parking.

#5 was a store owned by Gross Williams -- one of his many businesses. Also in the building were the home and office of Dr. Daniel Collins (1780-1857), the village's leading and beloved physician from 1804 until he retired in 1850. Never married, Dr. Collins left the town $15,000 in trust for the benefit of its schools. That bequest is now worth nearly $1 million, and it distributes tens of thousands of dollars in interest to our schools every year. This structure was demolished prior to the construction of the Meekins Library on this site in 1896.

#6, beside the Congregational Church, is a house whose owner at the time of the sketch may have been Enoch James (1793-1867). He owned a store across the street. The house in the sketch has the same general shape as the one that stands there today. If it's the same house, it was later heavily (and attractively) embellished by Enoch's son Henry, a successful merchant and manufacturer in the latter half of the 19th century who also lived in this location.

#7, the Congregational Church, was built in 1835-6 to replace the original meetinghouse on the top of Village Hill (also seen in this sketch). As local industry burgeoned along both branches of the Mill River in the early 19th century, the population shifted downhill off the high ground that had been settled first by farmers, and the old church on the hilltop was no longer so convenient for many parishioners. So a new church was built where more and more of the people lived. Barber drew its original facade, much simpler and more severe than the one that replaced it in the the early 1900s.

#8, one of very few brick buildings in Williamsburg, was built in 1796 by Elisha Hubbard (1758-1843) as a store. In 1800 he converted it into the Hampshire House hotel and tavern, and it continued in that use for at least 75 years, competing head-to-head with the Williams House across the main intersection.

#9, the Bartlett Tavern, was an early tavern near the First Meetinghouse favored by local folk as a cozy and convivial refuge after a long, cold winter service at the church. Its ownership in 1837 has not been determined.

#10 is the steeple of the First Meetinghouse. Design and construction began in 1778 and was not completed until the mid-1780s, when glass was finally purchased for the last of the windows. Even ordinary window glass was very expensive, and the 1780s were hard times here. Pews from this meetinghouse were moved and reused in the balcony of the new church (#7) after 1836.