Massachusetts
The Story
A contributing property in the Cabotville Common Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Laid out by the Springfield Canal Company to house workers recruited to Chicopee's mills, this six-block working-class neighborhood surrounds a nearly two-acre common in the heart of Chicopee Center. The area became an Irish enclave and later drew Canadian and Polish immigrants as the city grew from a rural district into a prosperous industrial city between 1800 and 1915. Its modest Greek Revival masonry houses and later multifamily blocks reflect the means of the middle tier of industrial workers who lived there, while the common was the town's first piece of public open space.