FORM B – BUILDING
Assessor's number
3-25
Massachusetts Historical Commission
Massachusetts State Archives Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125
USGS Quad
Shutesbury
Town
Area(s)
Form Number
PEL.38
Pelham
Place (neighborhood or village)
Address
Photograph
(3" x 3" or 3" x 5", only black and white)
Staple onto the left side of the form. Indicate the
address of the property on the back of the photo.
Indicate the roll and film number of the negative
here on the form.
roll
1
film number
17
West Pelham
48 Amherst Road
Historic Name
Uses: Present
Dwelling
Original
Dwelling
Date of Construction 1949
Source
1949 Pelham Tax Valuations
Style/Form
Colonial Revival Cape
Architect/Builder George Merritt Cushman [19001985]
Exterior Material:
Sketch Map
Show the building’s location in relation to the
nearest cross streets and/or major natural features.
Circle and number the inventoried building.
Indicate north.
Foundation
cement
Wall/Trim
wood clapboards
Roof asphalt shingle
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures none
Major Alterations (with dates) skylights added ca.
1990
Condition
Moved
Acreage
Recorded by Robert Lord Keyes [Historical] and
Bonnie Parsons [Architectural]
Organization
Keyes: Pelham Historical
Commission; Parsons: Pioneer Valley Commission
Date (month/day/year)
March 1, 2005
good
No (X) Yes ( ) Date
1.0
Setting House faces south and is set fairly close to
the well-traveled road.
BUILDING FORM
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION  see continuation sheet
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of
other buildings within the community.
This is an excellent example of the well-constructed, post-war housing that appeared in
the Pelham-Amherst area in the 1940s and 50s when demand for housing was high. It
takes the well-known cape form being one-and-a-half stories under an end-gable roof
with a center chimney. Colonial Revival in style, the clapboard sided house is a simple
three bays wide and two bays deep and its center recessed entry is framed with an
architrave surround of modified pilasters and corner blocks to suggest Colonial origins.
Sash is 6/6. There is a short, one-story wing on the east, yet no garage. This compact
house was very popular as it was economical to build, yet it offered plenty of room for
family expansion in the attic beneath its steeply pitched roof.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE  see continuation sheet
Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history.
Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the
community.
48 Amherst Road was originally part of Home Lot No. 32 drawn by William Johnson in
1739. The property was part of 44 Amherst Road since at least before 1812. Owners of
44 Amherst Road included John Harkness, Sr. [ca. 1750-1821], William Harkness, Sr.
[1793-1831], John Harkness, Jr. [1788-1844] [or at least 44 Amherst Road was occupied
by John, Jr.], William Newell [1802-1878], John P. Lovejoy [ca. 1817-1879], Helen
Hammersley [Roper] [b. ca. 1850], Capt. Benjamin Page [1829-1913], Annette Sophia
Page Morgan [1854-1937], Francis [Frank] Henry Morgan [ca. 1846-1892], and Edith
Mary Morgan Thornton [1877-1951]. In 1935, Edith Thornton split off 0.44 acres from
44 Amherst Road to her son, Milton Leroy Thornton, Jr. [1910-1997], for a house lot at
50 Amherst Road.
In 1941, an acre from 44 Amherst Road was sold by Edith Thornton to her daughter Ethel
Lillian Thornton Cushman [1901-1992] and her husband George Merritt Cushman [19001985]. [Ethel Cushman grew up at 44 Amherst Road.] This property set undeveloped
through the war years. In 1949, the Cushmans built a house at 48 Amherst Road just west
of 50 Amherst Road. The house was listed as being “unfinished” on the Tax Valuations
until 1960.
George Cushman was a carpenter from Connecticut and Ethel Cushman a former teacher
and a housewife. They married in 1926 in Amherst and had one son. George died in 1985
and Ethel moved to California.
On Aug. 30, 1985, James E. Cahill [b. 1950] and Patricia A. Cahill [b. 1953] of Storrs,
Conn., purchased 50 Amherst Road from Ethel Cushman. James was an artist and
architect, and later Director of Facilities Planning at the University of Massachusetts-
Amherst. Patricia Cahill is a teacher. They have a son, Andrew Cahill [b. 1985], who is a
video artist. James Cahill was Chair of the Building Committee for the Community
Center of Pelham [2000]. Patricia Cahill was Chair of the Pelham Free Public Library
Board of Trustees.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
 see continuation sheet
Hampshire County Deeds 959-294 [1941]; 2624-208 [1985]. Hampshire County Plan
Book 64-119.
Pelham Tax Valuations, Annual Reports, and Street Lists, [Town Vault, Town of Pelham;
and History Room, Pelham Free Public Library].
Parmenter, C[harles] O[scar], “History of Pelham,” [Amherst, MA: Carpenter and
Morehouse, 1898], pp. 24, 25, 30, 31.
Pelham Vital Records, [Town Clerk’s Office, Town of Pelham].
Board of Assessors, Town of Pelham, Revaluation Card, 48 Amherst Road, 1982.
Campbell, Paul H., Jr., Personal Recollections, Aug. 17, 2004, to Robert Lord Keyes.
Cushman, Ethel, Oral History, 1979, [Copy in History Room, Pelham Free Public
Library].
Keyes, Pearly P., Jr., Personal Recollections, May 19, 2004, to Robert Lord Keyes.
Amherst Bulletin, Sept. 25, 1991.
[Northampton, MA] Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 6, 1998.
Keyes, Robert Lord, 40 South Valley Road, Pelham, MA 01002, Pelham, Massachusetts
History Project: Genealogical and Historical Research.
Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you
must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
Massachusetts Historical Commission
Address
State Archives Facility
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Community
Pelham
Property
48 Amherst Road
Area(s) Form No.
PEL.38
National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form
Check all that apply:
Individually eligible
Eligible only in an historic district
Contributing to a potential historic district
Potential historic district
Criteria:
A
Criteria Considerations:
B
C
A
D
B
C
D
E
F
G
Statement of Significance by ____Bonnie Parsons______
The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.
This property contributes to the potential West Pelham Historic District. The district is
significant according to criteria A and C and it has local significance. West Pelham is
significant as the site of 18th century settlement at four mill sites, one of which exists
today, and for its association with events of Shays’s Rebellion after the Revolutionary
War.
West Pelham, known during the late 19th and early 20th century as “Pelham City”
represents a 19th century agricultural and light industrial village that superceded Pelham
Center as the town center due to the long term success of its industry attracting and
sustaining workers and to its development in the early 20th century as a suburban area for
population spillover from Amherst, long a college town and intellectual center of the
region. A late 19th century resort destination, West Pelham is also important as it retains
a building from this era, and from the resort Orient Springs.
The district retains buildings from its 19th century agricultural, resort and industrial past
as well as from its early 20th century suburban phase, which continues to the present.
There are fine examples of Federal and Greek Revival farmsteads. With a Queen Anne
store and single and double houses from the Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles applied to bungalow, cape and Four-square forms - the district’s stylistic range as a home
to workers and suburban commuters is exemplary.