Parsons House

Photograph of a large, two-story historic New England Colonial house featuring white clapboard siding and a central brick chimney. A light snow covers the ground, with a bare tree trunk and small shrubbery positioned directly in front of the house. A low white wooden fence borders the property in the foreground, and another yellow historic house is visible in the background to the right
Parsons House, Winter 2023.
A black-and-white photograph captures the front view of the the Parsons House, taken from across the street. The main structure is a two-story Colonial-style home with a side-gabled roof, light-colored horizontal siding, and a large brick chimney emerging from the center of the roofline. A small, covered front porch with simple white columns shelters the central entrance, adorned with two dark holiday wreaths. To the far left, a smaller, one-story gabled wing attaches to the main house, featuring its own end chimney and shuttered windows. In the foreground, a dark wrought-iron fence separates the property from a dirt roadside bank, where a single fire hydrant stands. Bare, leafless winter trees flank both sides of the house. Handwritten text in white cursive script at the bottom left reads "The Cornet JOSEPH PARSONS HOUSE," while "Northampton" is written at the bottom right.
Photograph of the Parsons House, c. 1960. The writing “The Cornet Joseph Parsons House” reflects a myth that it was the original Cornet Joseph Parsons House from 1654, where wealthy Joseph Parsons and his wife Mary Bliss Parsons lived. Historic Northampton (ID no. 1976.142.4).

The Parsons House was built in 1719 on its present site on Bridge Street. It is one of Historic Northampton’s three historic houses, all of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. It stands on a portion of the original four-acre home lot laid out in 1654 and granted to Joseph and Mary Bliss Parsons.

The Parsons House tells both a Northampton and a New England story. The original part of the house was one room deep with two stories and a center chimney. The house’s framing and architectural details are evidence of how generations of Northampton farm families lived and what they did when faced with declining economic circumstances.

After its 1719 construction (confirmed by dendrochronology, which determines the date a tree was felled by analyzing the pattern of the tree rings) by Nathaniel Parsons and for the next 100 years, multiple generations of Parsons families lived here but never had the funds to finish the interior (except for the parlor, completed a decade after construction) or cover the exterior with clapboards or paint it.

Well into the 1780s, the house still had its original leaded diamond-pane casement windows, when most local homeowners had replaced casement with sash windows.

As they did for many New England farmers, matters became more dire for the Parsons in the financial squeeze after the Revolutionary War, which culminated in Shays’ Rebellion. During those years, the Parsons mortgaged their property four times and sold piece after piece of farmland, the building lots next to the house (Historic Northampton’s Shepherd House is on one of them), and finally, in 1807, the house itself.

A black-and-white photograph shows an interior parlor filled with antique furnishings and decor, documented by the Northampton Historical Society in 1943. In the left foreground, a tufted armchair faces toward the center of the room, positioned next to a small round side table holding a tall, ornate glass oil lamp with a wide, frosted shade. Behind it sits a dark wood slanted-front writing desk. Along the back-left wall, a square clavichord or spinet piano stands with an open music book resting on its rack, paired with a small upholstered footstool underneath. Hanging directly above the instrument is a large, dark-framed portrait of a man, flanked by a smaller decorative mirror to its left and miniature framed portraits to its right. Two tall, ornately carved wooden chairs flank the musical setup. An open doorway near the center of the background reveals a glimpse into an adjacent, sunlit dining room containing a table and chairs.To the right of the doorway, a tall, built-in bookcase filled with books stands next to another large framed portrait hanging on the wall. In the center-right foreground, a wooden drop-leaf table features turned legs and holds a wide ceramic bowl and a book. It is surrounded by three matching wooden chairs with patterned, upholstered seats. On the far right, there is a large brick fireplace with a white mantelpiece, adorned with a long, horizontal rectangular mirror hanging above it and a pair of candlesticks on the shelf. A spinning wheel sits tucked in the corner between the bookcase and the fireplace hearth. The entire room is covered in a dark, textured wall-to-wall carpet. Handwritten text along the bottom border reads "Northampton Historical Society" near the center, and a photographer's signature with the date "1943" is visible in the bottom right corner.
Interior of Parsons House, 1943. Photograph by Eric Stahlberg. Historic Northampton (ID no. 2004.5.3).

The new owners in 1807, the Wrights, were another longstanding Northampton family. Similar to the Parsons, they were also in reduced economic circumstances and forced to sell their large house to move into the smaller and partially unfinished Parsons House. In the Wrights’ case, their financial troubles were due to overextending themselves on land speculation in Ohio.

The Wrights experienced a financial comeback and then made improvements to the Parsons House, including new additions in the 1820s and 1830s. They finished the interior with bright paint and wallpaper, which are still visible. By this time, however, the house was considered “archaic,” and people began to talk about it as the original Cornet Joseph Parsons House from 1654, where wealthy Joseph Parsons and his wife Mary Bliss Parsons, who was tried for witchcraft, lived. That lore was reinforced by a Wright-Parsons descendant, Anna Catherine Bliss, who bequeathed the house to Historic Northampton in 1941.

Beginning in the 1950s, a portion of the house was open to the public to tour as an historic house, while one room was used as administrative offices, and another area was rented to tenants as an apartment. In 2007, the building’s disrepair and changes at Historic Northampton led to its closure to the public, and in 2015, the last tenant moved out of the rear apartment.

RESEARCH & RESTORATION

In 2024-2026, Myron Stachiw performed comprehensive building archaeology research, which resulted in a Historic Structures Report in 2026. The project was funded by a Community Preservation Act grant. With that report in hand, in 2026 – 2027, Historic Northampton is working with an architectural firm to plan the restoration. It will include urgent repairs and plans for new mechanical systems, accessibility, and a new way of presenting its history. Our goal is to re-open it to the public in 2028.

Read the Historic Structures Report

Image of a man working in a dimly lit, narrow attic space filled with loose-fill insulation, using a yellow and black cordless drill on a structural wooden beam. The man, who has gray hair, glasses, a face mask with yellow straps, and a dark blue t-shirt, is positioned on the right side of the frame, facing left. He is kneeling on the insulation-covered attic floor, wearing gray work pants and a leather tool belt equipped with multiple pockets on his left hip. With gloved hands, he holds the DeWalt cordless drill, which is angled downward as he drives a screw into a metal plate attached to a thick, weathered diagonal wooden beam. In the lower right foreground, a yellow and black DeWalt LED work light stands upright on the floor. The surrounding attic space is dark, with exposed wooden rafters visible in the background and thick layers of gray insulation covering the floor joists.
Photograph of the side-profile of a woman with light brown hair, wearing a red fleece jacket and a pink-striped collared shirt, examining a wooden staircase riser indoors. Positioned on the left side of the frame and facing right, she holds a black flashlight in her left hand, directing a bright beam of blue-white light onto the vertical surface of the stair riser. With her right hand, she carefully holds a small, thin white tool or swab against the illuminated wood, collecting a sample. In the background, the wall adjacent to the staircase is covered in a light-colored vintage wallpaper featuring an intricate, symmetrical gray damask or gothic-style architectural pattern.

Bill Flynt takes a core sample of the roof frame for a dendrochronology study of the date the timbers were cut. The results showed that selected timbers were felled in 1717 to 1718 and so, according to custom, the house would have been built the following year, 1719. 

Conservator Christine Thompson takes a sample of paint for analysis. This revealed that in the original kitchen, the walls (after an initial whitewash layer) were painted lavender-gray, then blue, and then ochre.