My first 23 years of life were spent growing up in this home. I have had many wonderful memories and believe the love of local history embedded itself within me during that time. Some of my fondest memories would be looking out my bedroom window at the church and listening to the sweet music of its bells on Sunday morning or watching a thunderstorm from the second-floor porch and seeing the lighting light up the old Collins mill house and barn. The neighborhood is full of history with its nineteenth-century homes and barns. As kids, we played in many of these structures and hiked the historic woods and its long-forgotten road of centuries gone by.
As you can see today, the neighborhood still retains its mid to late nineteenth-century look but as one who grew up there from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, one can see many changes.
One would have to remember that this area goes further back in time, with the Old Bay Path going through the heart of this neighborhood back in, circa 1636. The general thought was that William Pynchon came this way from the Bay Colony to the Great River to establish the settlement of Springfield, on what would be a "Great Indian trail." The real fact is that there was no such great trail and Pynchon came by ship, leaving the Bay and sailing around the Cape, and up the Great River (Connecticut River), from the mouth to the Connecticut settlements and further north to Springfield. Then afterward the Bay Path was created by those traveling east to the Bay Colony and so the highway begins.
Back in those early days, the landscape was much different. People would think of it as being a great forest with thick underbrush. But the exact opposite, with the land, lay open and passable in nearly every direction. The Native Americans would burn the land every year to bring in the grass and berry bushes, to attract the deer. The only dense forest of those days was in swampy areas where the fire did not reach. For this reason, Native Americans roamed at will and also used footpaths, established by long use, to move between settlements and seasonal camps. Paths lead between spring sites for gathering plants and fishing and summer cornfields. These narrow paths were not always the straightest link between two places. The early people created the paths for ease and convenience, avoiding steep hills and crossing streams at shallow fords.
Chapel Street, so-called after the church was built in 1877, was laid out sometime in the 18th century. Around 1839, there were two houses on the lower part towards Boston Road, both now long gone. Early maps reveal two Barns, one on each side of the street, possibly belonging to these prior homes. As the population grew in this area of town, especially from the 1870s and later, largely due to the relocation of the railroad station in 1851, Collins Paper Company in 1872, Cutler Company in 1876, and the church, Grace Chapel Parish of Collins Depot, which was built in 1877. This meant that workers in the mills at all levels moved to the area. Other businesses included a Cheese Factory, several stores, a hotel, a blacksmith shop, and a livery stable.
Charles and Helen Stacy were among those who came to this area, building the house at 6 Chapel Street in 1878, next to the newly constructed church, at the young ages of 29 and 30, although Charles was not associated with the mills. Rather, he was a beef dealer. The Stacys were in the house through 1894. Charles was involved in local government and was the Wilbraham town clerk from 1880-1885 and 1891-1897.
The next owner of the house was Charles Garvin, who moved to Wilbraham from Agawam to work in the Collins paper mills. In Agawam, he had lived at home working in a paper mill along with his father Orrin who was a paper mill supervisor. Charles and his mother Sarah, by then a widow, remained in the house only a few years until 1901 when they moved to Newburgh, New York.
The next occupants were Dr. Arthur L. and Grace Damon. One of Wilbraham’s most respected and beloved general practitioners, Dr. Damon served the people of the town for almost 50 years during the first half of the twentieth century. He also kept an office in the house. He was very active with the town and served as a faithful library trustee from 1910 to 1942 when he passed away. Arthur and Grace Damon did not have any children but he did have his Sister-in-law living with them in the 1940s.
In 1901, when Dr. Damon moved in, he made several alterations to this home. It has become very eclectic. It began as an Italianate-style, two-story house under a pyramidal, hipped roof. The Italianate style aimed for a flat roof, which in New England in the 1870s usually meant a low-pitched hipped roof, but here the pitch is relatively steep. A corner tower was added after he and his wife moved in. The first floor of this addition served as his medical office.
Around 1920, to its southwest corner, an English cottage-style, sloping roof portico that is fully enclosed was added along with an exterior chimney. The exterior shingle siding would also date from this time as well.
Similar to its neighbor at 4 Chapel Street, the house has a rear ell which this house had a pitched roof instead, which dates to its original construction in 1878. Here the roof has been altered and raised most likely when the corner tower was added. A glassed-in corner porch on the second floor, north side, along with enclosing the first-floor porch below, would date around 1920. Again like its neighbor at 4 Chapel Street, has retained its two-story barn and attached a one-story carriage shed.
According to Roger Whitehill, Retired Wilbraham Call Fire Captain, he and his wife Gail lived in one of the three apartments located in the home back in 1955, when Grace Damon still owned the property. In 1959, Grace sold the property to Robert Dietz for around $18,500.00, which was a large sum of money back in the day.
Robert Dietz, who was on the Wilbraham Fire Department still maintained his home in the center of town. He would eventually become Fire Chief for the Town of Wilbraham.
In 1961, My parents moved from Chatham Massachusetts to one of the apartments, and soon after I was born. Robert Dietz, the current owner of the property, recruited my father to the Wilbraham Fire Department, which he retired many years later in 1993, as a Call Fire Lieutenant.
I believe my love for the fire service started here as well. This home along with the neighborhood and the people who lived there has shaped my life in such a way that I will be forever grateful. The passion for history, fire service, and the love of this community has come full circle. It helps me in my retirement years to keep engaged and do the things that I love. This website is an outlet to let others who enjoy local history, learn as much about their town, with short stories that I hope convey the real spirit of the community. Enjoy...
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