Canal Days

Texon Park

Click on the link above to read about this stop. (LOCATION) The South Hadley Canal is the first canal for navigation on the continent. The only competitor to this claim is the Carondelet Canal. This canal was made in 1794 from Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana to the Bayou Street Juncture in New Orleans. A two mile canal was dug at first at 15 feet wide. There was no locks on the system. The canal might have been used first in December of that year. The South Hadley Canal might have also been used in December of that year. The Carondelet was not in the territory of the United States yet. Thus the South Hadley Canal beats the Carondelet Canal in two aspects that of being within the United States has it was defined in 1794 and also in that it had a lifting mechanism.

The South Hadley Canal is one of six navigation canals along the Connecticut River. Read about this incredible system at the LINK.

The Carew Paper Mill was here from June 19 1848. The old navigation canal was redone so that it was both at the same time a navigation canal and a power canal. In 1873 their mill burned but it was rebuilt. The Carew lasted as a company until 1948. Texon took it over and they kept the building open until 1986.

Between Texon Park and Lower Riverside Park there was the Hampshire Paper Mill. This was built alongside the Carew in 1864. It lasted until 1935 when it finally closed. The Stevens Paper Mill moved into this mill in 1940 and kept it until 1968 when it razed the building two years later. A plan of the Stevens is HERE.

Holy Family Institute at Brightside

The original Catholic orphanages were in the downtown Holyoke area. When the Sisters of Charity nuns arrived in 1873 from Ontario they were teachers and ran a tiny orphanage. The first one was in the Providence Hospital in South Hadley that had been used as a hospital for one year and then as an orphanage for a year. The orphanage was then moved to a house in Holyoke for about a year. Then it was moved into the top floor of the Providence Hospital for a year. Then into the second floor of the Saint Jerome Institute (on Hampden Street) for a few years. Finally, in 1880, into the Ingleside area at the Mount Saint Vincent Asylum.

Brightside was the name of a farm along the West Springfield and Holyoke border. That name Brightside was the name taken on by the orphanage for boys. Its formal name was Holy Family Institute at Brightside. Most people then and now call it Brightside. Brightside was owned by Warren Wilkinson. When he died in 1892 the bishop purchased the property and land (123 acres in all) in order to build an orphanage.

The boys orphanage stayed at this location until 1954 when they moved a quarter mile to the south into a newly built Brightside homes. From 1954 to 1991 it was called the Sisters of Providence Children’s Home and was for both boys and girls. Then the name was changed back in 1991 and then Brightside closed in 2009. Adjacent to Brightside housing was their school and administration. This is now the new Hillside Residence is a 34-unit affordable elderly housing facility and also the refurbished de Paul Center which was the school. The entire campus is called the Hillside at Providence.

LIST of boys at the Holy Family Institute School in 1911.

Between the motherhouse and Brightside is a new place called Mary’s Meadow (IMAGE) and it opened in 2005. It is a 40-bed, small house concept skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility.

Sisters of Providence Motherhouse

The Sisters of Providence of St Vincent de Paul served in many locations around the Connecticut River Valley. When they served an institution they would have a convent nearby to house themselves. This was a decent arrangement but having a motherhouse was better. In 1932 they finally had a motherhouse built for themselves. It is located down Gamelin Road in the Brightside neighborhood. Near the corner of their Brightside motherhouse there was erected a statuefor Catherine Horan who was the first mother superior for the Holyoke order.

You met her back at the Calvary Cemetery for the Sisters of Providence. Great woman with a fitting memorial for her. Their motherhouse is now called Providence Place at Ingleside.

The base of the statue reads:

• “… from the hilltop I view the progress the tiny seed has made under the protection of Divine Providence.”
• Mother Mary of Providence Horan
• July 19, 1850 – January 25 1943 (her obituary)
• Foundress Sisters of Providence Holyoke

name	range
Mother Mary of Providence
Reverend Mother de la Salle	1953
Sister Mary Consilii	1941 to 1949 at least
Sister Mary Caritaus	1971

The Sisters of Providence Chapel is very beautiful. It is named the Mother of Sorrows Chapel. The CHAPEL can be seen in all its glory at this LINK. It was finished in 1933. The chapel has a Skinner Organ.

Sanborn 1949 map

Sanborn 1956 map

The Sisters of Providence nuns also ran the Mercy Hospital in Springfield, the Farren Memorial Hospital in Montague, the St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, and St. Luke’s Hospital in Pittsfield.

Mont Marie of Holyoke

In 2001 the Rutland Vermont congregation joined with the Springfield congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. This was likewise a union that preserved the nuns in their location but joined the administrations. This Rutland order had started September 6 1873. They opened a convent in 1882.

The Sisters of Saint Joseph have a long history in Holyoke. They are an international order of nuns. In Western Massachusetts they started out in Springfield in 1883. Their motherhouse was in Springfield from the 1880s to the 1960s. Mont Marie was their summer house. It was started here in 1894 as a connected set of buildings similar to the layout now seen. It also functioned as a novitiate for their novice nuns. In 1953, a new Mont Marie structure was built here and this location became a permanent home.

Before 1894 there was another structure at this location. It was called Ingleside. It was a resort but only lasted from July 4 1868 to July 26 1875. The structure burned on the latter date. The hotel was located outside the fire limits of the city and so there was no water to draw upon. Only the furniture could be saved.

Ingleside Hotel explained at this LINK

In 1974, the Fall River Massachusetts congregation joined with the Springfield congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. This was a union that preserved the nuns in their location but joined the administrations. This order was founded in 1902 at the St Roch Church.

Read more about the order at their HISTORY page.

Sanborn 1915 map

Sanborn 1949 map

Sanborn 1956 map

Dwight Manufacturing Company Housing on Sandy Hill

Parallel streets are Lyman, Lawrence, Gardner, and Coolidge Roads. Perpendicular street is Nichols Road. The houses on Lawrence, Gardner, and Coolidge are from 1907 to 1908. The houses on Lyman are from 1921 to 1927. Take Lawrence Road from Chicopee Street to get to this worker home area. On the eastern side of Nichols Road are back to back housing of the same era (post-1927). Dwight Terrace leads to Chicopee Street via a series of wooden steps. There is an abandoned fire station at Lawrence and Nichols.

Ames Manufacturing Houses

The homes around the central portion of Front Street were made by the Ames Factory for their workers. (LOCATION)

279 Front St Chicopee 1834

291 Front St

301 Front St

12 Canal St 

22 Canal St 

30 Canal St

Cabotville

Wisniowski Memorial Park

The original settlement in this area was centered around the Cabotville neighborhood. (LOCATION) It includes a park and many homes and once included a school. The streets that form the area are West, Park, School, and Chestnut Streets. Most of the homes that you see are from the 1850s to the 1870s.

Dwight Manufacturing Housing in Chicopee

The Perkins and the Cabot Mills have lost their workers’ homes through the years but Dwight Mills still have all of their homes. This area is quite old. The streets with the most houses from the factory and canal era are on Front, Exchange, and Dwight Streets. (LOCATION) These are called Springfield Canal Company Workers’ Housing and Springfield Canal Company Boarding Houses.

Dwight Mill in Chicopee

The Dwight Mill came in last of the three mills. They started here in 1841. The had three major mills between the canal and the river. These thusly used hydromechanical power.

Only mill number 7 is the original. (LOCATION)

Edmund Dwight the founder of the canal and the company died in 1848. FINDAGRAVE – in that year in the three mills there were 786 looms and 28,576 spindles.

In 1856 the Dwight Manufacturing Company was created as a combination of Cabot, Perkins, and Dwight.

Perkins Mills

The Perkins Mills came next to this section of Chicopee. They built here in 1836. They also built two main mills and they built two secondary buildings in the front of the canal. (LOCATION) These buildings did not use canal power nor need it but they were for processing cotton before and after the production process.

Lewis Hines image of boy at these gates. (1912) – IMAGE

The storage building to the west is the only original structure left from the Perkins era and all other buildings are from when Dwight consolidated all production under their name.

In 1848 production in the Perkins was 428 looms and 14,973 spindles.