Williston and Knight Button Works at 19 Payson Avenue is from 1891. It is now part of the Williston Academy campus. The first ever mill of the Williston and Knight Button Works was at 1 Cottage Street. By 1910 it was part of the United Button Company. The Williston and Knight Button Works was started in 1847 by Horatio Knight and Samuel Williston. They would make covered buttons. To get power they would dam the Broad Brook which comes out of Holyoke into Easthampton. It is as named a wide brook and meets the definition for a creek. An earthen dam was made with a spillway and both are still in place and make up cottage street. The reservoir that they formed is called the Nashawannuck.
Williston started the academy in 1841.
