Sycamores is the 1788 home of Col. Ruggles Woodbridge, a man of many parts.  He was a physician, shop-owner, owner of a potash refinery, a sawmill, a still, and the town’s only chaise–all by the age of 33. He was our representative in Boston for 12 years, and led a regiment at the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Upon his death in 1819 the house became The Woodbridge Scientific School for 40 boys from well-to-do families from New York and Hartford.  At that time the house had so many wings it was said it could fly.  The Montague family lived here for the remainder of the 19th C and then in 1900 it was purchased by a wealthy Bostonian, Rose Hollingsworth who undoubtedly had the recently renovated (by the Adams Family Foundation) water tower constructed.  She also planted renowned gardens. 

Joseph Skinner purchased the house in 1915.  He made it into a private dormitory for Mount Holyoke College students.  The College purchased it in 1937; it continued to be a dormitory until 1971.  For the majority of this time it was inhabited by 14 women, usually sophomores, a housemother, a maid and a cook.  It then became a home for inner city girls who attended South Hadley High School under the A Better Chance program and then accommodation for the male guests of College students. It was a warehouse and then in 1996 stood vacant and neglected, unpainted, with holes in the roof.

The Sycamores Committee purchased the house and the 3.7 acre lot on which it stands from Mount Holyoke College in 1999 for $50,000.  Simultaneously a $107,000 matching grant from the Massachusetts Historical Commission was matched with $157,000 from the Sycamores Committee. The stabilization and restoration of the exterior was completed in 2001.

Rawson House. 

The eight mile trek to Hadley for church was too much for our townspeople, the majority of whom did not have horses.  So South Hadley was allowed to split from Hadley (founded in 1659) on the completion of three requirements: that they build a meeting house which they did in 1732 (it is the former Woodbridges restaurant), that they hire a minister, Grindall Rawson, and that they build him a house, Rawson House.  It was built in 1733 from logs felled in the winter of 1732, as proved by dendrochronology, on the lot now occupied by Sycamores. Disgruntled parishioners removed Grindall from the pulpit in 1741, to be replaced by John Woodbridge.  He was too conservative to them; he did not embrace the Half-Way Covenant.  Ruggles bought the house in 1787 after which the Rawson House was moved up the street and attached to the rear of 40 Woodbridge St (built 1787).  Sophie Eastman, author of In Old South Hadley, lived in the house in 1884.  When she died in the early 20th century Joseph Skinner bought the house and divided it into three units.  The back (west) ell, Rawson House, was used to house his extensive collection of Americana, now housed in the Skinner Museum.  Mount Holyoke College acquired 40 Woodbridge St with Rawson House attached in 1948.  Joseph Brodsky, Mount Holyoke’s only Nobel laureate, lived there.  It was sold to Kay Bernon in 2004 who generously gave it to the Sycamores Committee on the condition it be moved within three months. It did not fit into her plans for the renovation of the remainder of the house at 40 Woodbridge St.  It was moved on Oct 20, 2004, when it got stuck in the mud as it was coming on to this property.  A week later it was in place on cribbing; a foundation was poured under it and it was subsequently lowered into place.  My son-in-law and our intern, Katelyn Perchak, helped me remove 14 radiators from Rawson House and the red ell of Sycamores as well as demolish the interior of the ell in preparation for the construction of the apartment. 

         When we removed the west wall of the red ell we found three shoes in the wall, now on display just above where they were found.  We also found in Rawson half an ox shoe, and a clay pipe bowl, but the only indication of who once lived there is found in an upper bedroom where someone as incised into a purlin “A Brodsky.”  This could be Alexander or Anna, both children of Joseph. 

        I had the timbers of Rawson dated by dendrochronology by Bill Flynt of Historic Deerfield.  All the logs were felled in the winter of 1732 except one that dated 1712.  Extensive rot in the places where Rawson was attached to the 40 Woodbridge house necessitated new timber framing.  We moved windows and doors, made doors wider and I built two windows for the south side of Rawson.  Boards donated by Phil  Marois and colored by Tom Kuclinski gives the south room you see today.

        Two  professional carpenters from Marois Construction built the 12 foot connector and installed the kitchen cabinets and all the drywall.  A new shake roof, new heating and plumbing systems were installed by professionals as well as completely new wiring, including fire and carbon monoxide detectors, cable, TV and all new 110 and 220 V lines.  Wayne Boulais oversaw the removal of no fewer than 5 utility poles from the property and the installation of underground conduits.  Much interior painting was done by prisoners from the Hampshire County House of Correction under their work-release program.

        Meanwhile Barbara Cummings, master guide at Historic Deerfield, donated the reproduction wallpaper in the southeast room of Sycamore which was professionally installed on walls that were prepared by Katelyn Perchak and me.

Ken Williamson