Official town government site. Includes information about departments, the library, and the Cedar Hill Golf Course.Our mission statement is simple: NOBLE: the technology partner for libraries north of Boston The North Of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE) is a cooperative effort of. This page contains a list of public libraries in Massachusetts. If you do not see a listing for your local branch library there is a possiblity that it might be part. History » Danvers Archival Center. Danvers State Hospital. The Danvers Archival Center is the archive of the Town of Danvers. It is housed at the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers. It collects town records, manuscripts. History and Genealogy Room. The History & Genealogy Room is located on the mezzanine level of the Lawrence Library in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Collections housed in. The Wadleigh Memorial Library offers free and discounted passes to area museums. To view the available dates for museum passes and make reservations online, all you. Stoneham Public Library 431 Main Street Stoneham, MA 02180 Telephone: Adult Library: (781) 438-1324 Junior Library: (781) 438-1325 Library Website : www. Peabody Institute Library · 82 Main Street · Peabody, MA 01960 · 978-531-0100. The following are the historical books which are located in the balcony of the barrel vault room of the Ames Free Library. It will be necessary to have staff. The following is a brief synopsis of the historical significance of Danvers State Hospital written by Town Archivist Richard B. Trask in March 1. Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Surveys he researched for Danvers. The Danvers State Hospital came into being during the period when throughout the country insane hospitals were being constructed on a massive scale and with imposing appearances. During the 1. 87. Massachusetts State legislature, it was voted to purchase land and erect a hospital facility in the northeast section of the state. In October of the same year, a site was selected in Danvers, comprising 1. Dodge farm, including Hawthorne hill, a drumlin 2. The purchase price on the site was $3. Charles A. Hammond of Lynn was appointed engineer by the state commission empowered to oversee the project. A plan was drawn up for building locations, support roads and an ancillary farm. The top of the hill had to be graded, and J. B. Dacey & Co. Boston secured the soil moving contract, beginning the project in May 1. Boston architect Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee (1. James F. Ellis, draughtsman. At a later date, Ellis was given the position of superintending architect. The project was to include a large central building for administrative purposes, flanked by three separate step wings on each side, containing space for convalescent and less problematic patients, with an additional wing bisecting the line of the other wings and to be used for “excited patients.” All the wings to be connected by fireproof corridors. A separate boiler building would be built to the rear of these eight patient wings. The connecting wings would be 1,2. The structures were to be constructed of brick with stone dressing, the underpinning to be of Rockport granite. The style was referred to as “Domestic Gothic” and included polychromatic exterior finish highlighting arches, windows, and geometric patterns. Features included decorative stone bands, cross gables, towers, iron cresting, projecting pavilions, and slate roofs. In 1. 87. 4 the foundation was constructed mainly using Cape Ann granite underpinning at a cost of $1. Edwin Adams was awarded the $7. October, 1. 87. 5. In March 1. 87. 5 local contractors Cressy and Noyes were awarded construction for the six other wings, beginning the project in April 2. Danvers- manufactured bricks by the thousands were sold for the project. In August 1. 87. 5, Stuart, Snow, & Foss were given construction for the administration buildings at $1. Sub- contractors included Walker, Pratt & Co. Potter and Huse for glazing, while $2. The total estimated cost for the project was $1,0. Click to Enlarge All Illustrations Though plagued with cost overruns and problems with the building for the first few years of operation, the facility was hailed by most authorities as “foremost in its facilities for convenience in practical operations.”By legislative act of Chapter 2. Among trustees to serve were Danvers residents Charles P. Preston, Augustus Mudge, Edward Hutchinson, William B. Sullivan, and Miss Mary W. Nichols. On October 2. May 1. 3, 1. 87. 8. First superintendent was Dr. Calvin S. May, formerly assistant superintendent to the Connecticut State Hospital at Middletown. His goal was for “a hospital for the cure of patients, rather than an asylum for the chronic insane.”Filled within a few years, by 1. Danvers publication noted “the time has undoubtedly passed when the State of Massachusetts will ever again build a hospital upon similar lines. The tendency now is to erect a substantial and plain structure for such purposes.” In 1. Over the years other facilities were added to the hospital, including a nurses’ building, and a Catholic chapel. The main buildings were also added to, and in April 1. German doctor at the hospital to signal German submarines in the Salem harbor area, and of a phantom who walked in the attic on stormy nights. A gradual phase- out program of the facilities commenced in the 1. Bibliography. Annual Reports of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers. Danvers Massachusetts. Danvers, Mass., Danvers Mirror, 1. Report of the Commissioners Upon the Erection of the New Hospital for the Insane at Danvers, 1. Boston, Wright & Potter, 1. Report of Progress made by the Commissioners in the Erection of a State Hospital for the Insane at Danvers. Boston, Wright & Potter, 1. Salem News, April 7, 1. Specifications and Articles of Agreement for the Erection of Six Wings of a Hospital for the Insane at Danvers. Boston, Wright & Potter, 1. Danvers State Hospital Nomination to. National Register of Historic Places. The following are excerpts from the October 1. Danvers State Hospital be placed upon the National Register of Historic Places. This application was prepared by “Candace Jenkins, Preservation Planning Director, with Marcia Cini, Boston University and Richard Trask, Danvers Historical Commission.” The initial application was prepared and submitted by Cini and Trask to the Massachusetts Historical Commission in early 1. Federal designation. On January 2. 6, 1. Danvers State Lunatic Hospital” was accepted for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, including 4. The following excerpts concentrate on the Kirkbride Complex itself, and not on other structures at the crest of the hill or the numerous support buildings and housing in the low areas near Maple Street or on the hill’s service road. In the final analysis, this prestigious National Register listing indicating that the Danvers State Hospital Complex was recognized as a nationally significant property, both for its architecture and history, had no effect in preventing the overwhelming majority of the hospital structures from being destroyed. History of the Hospital. Danvers State Hospital, an extensive mental health care facility dating from 1. It is dominated by the 1. Kirkbride Complex, a huge brick with granite trim structure designed by noted Boston architect Nathaniel J. Bradlee in the Victorian Gothic style. Closely modeled on the precepts of Thomas S. Kirkbride, it includes space for patients, attendants, and administration, reflecting a centralized approach to care. Later buildings such as the Male and Female Nurses Homes represent the segregation of patients and staff; the male & female tubercular buildings and the Bonner Medical Building represent specialization of medical treatment; the cottages, repair shops and farm buildings represent an increased self- sufficiency for the hospital, an emphasis on occupational therapy and increased dispersal of the hospital population. A circumferential and interior road network services the entire complex. Danvers State Hospital occupies a hilltop site of over 5. Boston 1. 8 miles to the south. Variously known as Hathorne Hill, Prospect Hill, and Dodge’s Hill, the site is a glacial drumlin with a rocky northern slope. When the Commonwealth purchased the site in 1. Visually and functionally, the hospital grounds now consist of four district areas. The first is the southeastern highland area, topped by the 1. Kirkbride Complex, auxiliary buildings and reservoir. Second are the northeastern lowlands bordering the Maple Street entrance which include a scattering of turn of the century cottages as well as the hospital’s power/service/agricultural complex. Third, is the central section dominated by the Hogan Center for the Mentally Retarded, an extensive, modern, one- story treatment complex. The fourth and westernmost parcel, extending into the neighboring town of Middleton, includes the Middleton Colony constructed at the turn of the century for long term custodial female patients. At this time [1. 98. National Register of Historic Places. The Kirkbride Complex. Nathaniel J. Bradlee, architect. Plan: The massive 3½ story Kirkbride Complex occupying the crown of Hathorne Hill, is the original central element of the Danvers State Hospital. It was designed in the Victorian Gothic style by prominent Boston architect N. J. Bradlee who followed the current planning principles espoused by Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride (1. Typically, it consisted of a central administrative core flanked by three identical stepped back wings to each side which houses female patients to the right and males to the left. Designed for a total of 2. In keeping with the Kirkbride plan requirements for fireproofing and fresh air, there was built “a fire proof passage from one building (wing) to another…with double iron doors at each end. The ventilating towers (were placed) over these passages and were built up with brick above the highest point of adjoining roofs, thus becoming a fireproof barrier between them” (Bradlee, N., Final Report of the Architect; 1. Terminating the complex, but actually constructed first, were two wings for “excited patients” connected to the main building at right angles by octagonal entrance towers. Built for a total of 7. Materials: The requirements for building materials were clearly spelled out by the architect in his Specifications and Articles of Agreement for the Erection of Six Wings of a Hospital for the Insane in Danvers. Bradlee called for hammered Rockport (MA) or Concord (NH) granite trim on a building of red Danvers brick. Walls were to be laid up with Thomaston or Rockland lime mixed with Plum Island sand and Rosendale cement, and to be bonded with seventh course. The roof was to be covered with Maine slate, sealed with elastic oil cement and pine tar, and flashed with copper. The building was to be framed in spruce with clear pine. Interior finished were not specified but early 2. These same fashionable Eastlakian details are also seen in Worcester State Hospital of 1. National Register, 1. Exterior: Despite its symmetrical, centralized plan, the Kirkbride Complex achieves complexity through its massing and detail. The form is enlivened by steep slate roofs, projecting towers and pavilions, façade gables and picturesque ventilating turrets over the wings.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2016
Categories |