FORM B − BUILDING Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number

UMASS No. 81 Williamsburg N/A AMH.106

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
Town: Amherst
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Place: University of Massachusetts
Photograph
Address: 686 North Pleasant Street
Historic Name: Goessmann Laboratory
Uses: Present: Chemistry Laboratory
Original: Chemistry Laboratory
Date of Construction: 1922
Source: University of Massachusetts Facilities Dept.
Style/Form: Georgian Revival
Architect/Builder: James H. Ritchie
Exterior Material:
Foundation: Concrete
Wall/Trim: Brick
Topographic or Assessor's Map
Roof: Slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: None

Major Alterations (with dates): Large addition of 1957-59

on North Side

Condition: Good
Moved: no | X | yes | | Date
Acreage: Total Campus Acreage: 1,348 Acres
Setting: Located between Building #87 Draper Hall and
Building #168 West Experiment Station, in the central
section of the University campus. In September 2008 the
front elevation was partially hidden by paving machinery
and construction fencing.

Recorded by: W. Maros/C. Weed/C. Beagan

Organization: VHB/Pressley Associates
Date (month / year): May 2009

Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.

Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.

Goessmann Laboratory is a 2½ story brick Georgian Revival structure with a high basement and a side gable central section that
is flanked by matching front gable ends. The 1922 building has a rectangular footprint. A large addition of 1957 is attached to
the building’s north (rear) side. Goessmann Laboratory has a slate roof, stone trim, and a concrete foundation. The building is 15
bays wide and six bays deep. The building has a stone-trimmed water table.

The main entry is in at the top of a 13-step stairway, in the nine-bay wide central section of the building’s brick southeast
elevation. The door is recessed within a large, classical stone doorframe which has a segmental pediment that is supported by
Ionic pilasters. The pilasters have been scored horizontally to resemble individual blocks. The doorframe is surrounded by
smooth stone sheathing that rises through the second story, where a 6/6 window is centered above the door frame, with a narrow
incised stone panel at either side. The doorframe contains a large ornamental stone shield in the space between the lintel
keystone and the segmental pediment. The double-leaf door has 3/4 glazing in its upper two thirds and 3/2 glazing in its lower
third. A 3/10 transom is set above the door. Four evenly spaced 6/6 windows are located to either side of the door in each story
of the building’s central section, including the high basement. The first and second story windows have stone keystones.

The ends of the southeast elevation are comprised of three-bay wide front gable sections, which have slightly projecting brick
piers at their corners. Within the brick piers, each front gable section has three pairs of monumental brick pilasters with stone
Corinthian capitals, creating three bays between the pilasters. In contrast to the brick pilasters, the intervening bays have smooth
stone sheathing. The central bay contains a single 6/6 window on each story, including the high basement. The flanking bays
contain paired 4/4 windows on each story.

The southwest elevation is six bays wide, with six evenly spaced 6/6 windows on the first and second stories. The high basement
contains a central door, set in a stone or smooth concrete frame, which is partially below grade and is reached by a sunken
stairway that descends from an adjoining campus walkway. The double-leaf basement door has 2/3 panes in the upper half of
each leaf. A 4/2 transom is set over the door.

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Landscape – Visual/Design Assessment

Goessmann Laboratory is located to the north of the Lincoln Campus Center. A series of bituminous concrete walks that lead to
the building’s main entrance on the south side are oriented on axis with the front entrance, diagonal to the front entrance from
the southeast, and parallel to the southern façade of the building. Vehicular access to the building is accommodated at the east
side of the building from North Pleasant Street via a pedestrian walk that doubles as a service drive. The landscape surrounding
the building is dominated by bituminous concrete walks. Between the walks are areas of mature deciduous trees over lawn.
Planting at the building’s foundation consists of lawn and shrubs. Two bicycle racks are located along the main approach walk
on axis with the front entrance.

2005 orthophotograph of Goessmann Laboratory (center, bottom) and surrounding landscape, north is up (MassGIS).

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
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HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
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.

Overview
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst was chartered as the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863 but did not accept
its first class until 1867. As one of two land grant universities in Massachusetts, the university’s original mission was
agricultural education. Its mission, however, evolved within the first 20 years in response to the changing needs of the United
States. While agriculture remains, even today, a mainstay of the University’s mission, the University now also supports
engineering, science, education, and liberal arts colleges and departments.

A full historical narrative of the University of Massachusetts from its founding to 1958 is contained in the survey report. This
narrative was prepared in 2009 by Carol S. Weed, Senior Archaeologist with Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.

Shown below are selected highlights from the text of the full historical narrative, along with additional information pertinent to
the specific building that is described in this Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Form. This section contains: (1)
highlights of the historic periods in the development of the University of Massachusetts, leading up to and including the period
when the building was constructed, (2) information about the university in the decade when the building was constructed, (3)
information about the circumstances that led to the construction of the building, along with information about its architect, if
known, and (4) an analysis of the historic landscape of the building.

1863-1867: Administration and Initial Campus Layout

As the educational mission evolved in the years after 1863, so did the university’s approach to its facilities and its landscape.
There was no accepted plan for the layout of the college, despite the preparation of various plan proposals in the 1860s,
including separate proposals from the country’s preeminent landscape planners, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who
had formerly worked together on the winning design for New York City’s Central Park. Neither Vaux’s plan, nor Olmsted’s plan
to create a campus around a central green, were accepted by the University Trustees.

1867-1916: The Early Growth

In the absence of a coordinated plan, the Trustees put existing buildings that were acquired with the campus land into service as
agricultural laboratories. Campus development for several decades after 1863 was sporadic and focused on the construction of
individual buildings to meet specific functional needs of the fledgling university. It was not until after 1900, during a period of
rapid student population growth and resultant new building construction, that the University Trustees again sought proposals for
comprehensive campus planning.

In 1912, a professional landscaping publication reported that Warren H. Manning, formerly affiliated with the Olmsted firm, had
spent over four years preparing a comprehensive plan for the University Trustees. The Trustees had considered it imperative for
the college to plan harmonious development that would conserve the beauty of campus grounds while meeting the needs of a
growing student population whose expanding range of activities was unprecedented.

Manning’s plan designated three distinct sections of the campus, the Upland, Midland and Lowland Sections. Each section was
intended to be the locus of specific functions, with clusters of purpose-built structures to serve those functions. For example, one
section would be designated for faculty, women’s and horticultural facilities. A second section would contain administration,
research, science and student life (dormitory, dining hall, and sports) facilities. The third section would be dedicated to poultry,
farming and sewage disposal facilities.

Although Manning’s Upland, Midland, and Lowland sections are not fully realized, it is apparent that discipline specific
groupings were developed. Building clusters, especially those related to agriculture, administration, and the hard and earth
sciences (physics, chemistry, and geology) continued to expand through the present day.

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1916-1931: World War I and the Transition Years

Long range building programs were developed beginning with Landscape Gardening Professor F.A. Waugh’s 1919 plan. Like
Manning’s 1911 plan, Waugh’s 1919 work emphasized building groups in order to maintain the proper balance between
buildings, cultivated fields, meadows and lawns, forests and trees. By World War I and continuing through the 1920s, University
records frequently refer to the inadequacy of the physical plant; the lack of class room space; the lack of properly ventilated and
lighted spaces; and the danger of having to cancel classes because of a lack of appropriate facilities. Expansion of the campus
through acquisition of additional land was considered essential if the University were to construct new and better facilities to
address these deficiencies and excel as an institution of higher education.

1920-1930
Following World War I, the administration was cognizant that its core missions had to be expanded to meet the educational
requirements of a rapidly industrializing world. For the first time, the university administration focused on the development of
comprehensive 5- and 10-year plans which meshed curricula needs with facility upgrades and expansion. During the decade, the
agricultural experiment station was expanded, the Brooks tobacco barn and associated farm land were acquired, new laboratories
(Chenoweth, Goessmann) were built, and common spaces created (Memorial Hall). Funding, however, continued to inhibit
development and the capital expenditure program was still heavily indebted to public sources.

Goessmann Laboratory
The structure was named for Charles Goessmann (b.1827, d.1910), who was Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Chemistry
Department (1869-1907) and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station (1882-1907).

Goessmann was born in Germany, and was trained at the University of Gottingen and the Electoral College of Hesse-Cassel. His
early research was in theoretical chemistry, organic and analytical. He then turned to technical and industrial chemistry for
which he first gained international attention. Through the latter part of his career he focused on agricultural chemistry with
applications in food production and crop growth.

He came to the United States in 1857, working in industrial chemical firms on sugar, sugar beets, sugar cane, sorghum, and salt
manufacture. This led to his appointment to the faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1868 he moved from Rensselaer
the Massachusetts Agricultural College where he established the College’s first Chemistry Department and a program of
research and experimentation on agricultural chemistry. This led to his concurrent appointment as Chemist of the Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture, a position that he held until his retirement.

Goessmann’s research at MAC focused on seven areas of importance to the state in an era when food production within the state
was of significant importance to the state’s economy and well being of its citizens:
1. The potential for beet sugar production in Massachusetts.
2. Reclamation of Massachusetts’ salt marshes, with special emphasis on Green Harbor, Marshfield.
3. Analysis of the value of different varieties of corn as feed for livestock.
4. The chemistry of preservation of green silage in silos.
5. Established a scientific basis for inspection and regulation of commercially sold fertilizers. This led to the enactment in
Massachusetts of the first law in the United States requiring official inspection of commercially sold fertilizers.
6. The value of sorghum as a sugar producing plant.
7. Established scientific basis for fertilizer use in fruit culture.

In his professional career (1853 –1907) Goessmann produced a total of 362 published scientific papers in journals and reports of
international circulation. He established the Section on Agricultural Chemistry of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was elected a Fellow of that organization. He was a Charter Member and President of the
American Chemical Society, recipient of an honorary doctorate from Amherst College, Consulting Chemical Expert for the
Carnegie Foundation, and awarded the title of Professor Emeritus on his retirement from MAC in 1908.

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Professor Goessmann and his wife, Mary Anna Clara (Kinney) led the successful effort to establish the first Roman Catholic
Church in Amherst, Saint Bridget’s, which is still serving the community today.

The architect, James H. Ritchie, was based in Boston and would later design Memorial Hall on the campus. His other works in
Amherst include the Ray Stannard Baker House at 118 Sunset Avenue (which later served as the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
house) and the Lincoln Building at 40-50 Main Street. Ritchie’s work in Boston includes the Boston Consumptives Hospital.

Landscape Analysis
West Experiment Station, East Experiment Station, Draper Hall, Flint Laboratory, Stockbridge Hall, and Goessmann Laboratory
were constructed between 1885 and 1922 along the north side of Olmsted Road. Although oriented in an irregular pattern today,
historically, the buildings were organized along the northern portion of what used to be Olmsted Road, later Ellis Drive.
Historically, Olmsted Road was a street-tree lined road that curved around the west side of the pond, connecting to North
Pleasant Street at both its northern and southern ends. Olmsted Road was removed between 1959 and 1973.

To the southwest of the complex were Flint Road (now Campus Center Way) and a ravine that ran to the south of what is now
Campus Center Way, draining the Campus Pond. The area to the southeast of the complex was historically open lawn leading to
the Campus Pond with a few scattered deciduous trees and desire-line paths. A pedestrian walk led through the open lawn,
connecting Draper Hall to the intersection of the cross-campus walk and North Pleasant Street. This walk is no longer extant,
obstructed by the construction of the Lincoln Campus Center. The construction of Hasbrouck Laboratory (1950) and addition
(1963), Student Center (1957), and Lincoln Campus Center (1970) destroyed the visual connection between the Olmsted Road
buildings and the Campus Pond.

Goessmann Laboratory (1922), located between Draper Hall and West Experiment Station historically featured a simple
landscape consisting of a pedestrian access walk perpendicular from Olmsted Road to the building’s main entrance on the
southern façade. Vegetation surrounding the building historically consisted of a low foundation planting. The loss of views of
the Campus Pond, the loss of Olmsted Road, and the loss of historic vegetation patterns, primarily consisting of broad, open
lawn with scattered deciduous trees has resulted in the diminished integrity of the landscape associated with Grossman
Laboratory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES

David L Adams, Brief History of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1867 – 1960
(www.chem.umass.edu/people/adams/pubs/umasschemhistoryneact.pdf, Accessed 20 May 2009)

David L. Adams and Lynne E. Adams, Massachusetts Memories: UMass Amherst History (Amherst, Collective Copies, 2008)

Massachusetts Agricultural College, Charles Anthony Goessmann (Cambridge, Riverside Press, 1917)

Joseph S. Larson, Personal communication to VHB 16 April 2009 containing text on the life and accomplishments of Charles
Goessmann

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
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Figures

Detailed Map

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
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Goessmann Hall, view north, November 2008

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
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Goessmann Hall, view northeast showing addition at left, September 2008

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
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Goessmann Hall, 1931

Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [AMHERST] [686 North Pleasant Street]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
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Goessmann Hall, no date (circa 1930)

Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Community Property Address
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING UMASS AMHERST Building #81 – 686 N. Pleasant St.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Area(s) Form No.

National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form

Check all that apply:

Individually eligible Eligible only in a historic district

Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district

Criteria: A B C D

Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G

Statement of Significance by: Rita Walsh and Walter Maros, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.____
The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.

First established in 1863 under the provisions of the Federal Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, the University of
Massachusetts Amherst retains a significant collection of buildings dating from its first period of operation as the
Massachusetts Agricultural College (1863-1931). These include, but are not limited to: substantial brick and masonry
classroom, laboratory, research and administrative buildings dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
barns and stables related to its function as an agricultural college, pre-existing wood frame buildings (including two 18th
century buildings [117, 118]) incorporated into campus functions, the power plant [107], the Chancellor’s House [124],
and the Old Chapel [126] and Memorial Hall [112], historic centerpieces of the campus. The historic buildings from the
“Mass Aggie” period for the most part are concentrated in three areas: (1) an arc that extends west to east between the
Mullins Center and the Northeast Residential Area, including the Grinnell barn complex [109, 110, 111], Blaisdell [108],
the power plant [107], Flint [104], Stockbridge [105], Draper [103], Goessmann [106], and West [114] and East [113]
Experiment Stations; (2) a smaller grouping that includes, Wilder [115], the University Club buildings [117, 118], Clark
[116] and Fernald [119]; (3) and the group of South College [128], Old Chapel [126] and Memorial Hall [112] at the
center of the campus. Other individual buildings [including 120, 124, 125] also survive outside these areas. Although the
campus has expanded significantly in and around the Massachusetts Agricultural College core, both individual buildings
and groups of buildings that still convey their relationship to each other as part of the Agricultural College are campus
plan, are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places under criteria A and C at the state level.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst also retains a significant collection of buildings dating from 1931-1958, which
is a period characterized by the expansion of the school’s mission and physical plant that began in the 1930s with its name
change to Massachusetts State College. At this time, the Trustees made a concerted effort to modernize and increase
campus facilities, through the post-World War II mid-20th century period when there was unprecedented growth in the
size of the university student population and a concurrent growth in specialized academic research and degree work.
Significant buildings that were constructed to meet the University’s needs between 1931 and 1958, as well as significant
buildings predating 1931 which have no prior Form B on file with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, include
(listed in order of construction date): [UMass 58]; Hatch Laboratory, built 1891 [UMass 118]; Clark Hall Greenhouse,
built 1907 [UMass 84], French Hall Greenhouse, built 1908 [UMass 105]; French Hall, built 1909 [UMass 104]; Waiting
Station Shelter, built 1911 [UMass 63]; Apiary Laboratory, built 1911 [UMass 74]; Hicks Physical Education Building,
built 1931 [UMass121]; Hicks Physical Education Cage, built 1932 [UMass 122]; Thatcher House, built 1935 [UMass
30]; Research Administration Building, built 1939 [UMass 579]; Lewis House, built 1940 [UMass 28]; Butterfield House,
built 1940 [UMass 5]; Greenough House, built 1946 [UMass 24]; Chadbourne House, built 1947 [UMass 6]; Mills House
(New Africa House), built 1948 [UMass 29]; Skinner Hall, built 1948 [UMass 128]; Gunness Laboratory, built 1949
[UMass 91]; Brooks House, built 1949 [UMass 4]; Hamlin House, built 1949 [UMass 25]; Knowlton House, built 1949
[UMass 26]; Marston Hall, built 1950 [UMass 92]; Paige Laboratory, built 1947 [UMass 6]; Hasbrouck Laboratory, built
1950 [UMass 124]; Baker House, built 1952 [UMass 3]; Crabtree House, built 1953 [UMass 12]; Leach House, built 1953
[UMass 27]; Worcester Dining Hall, built 1953 [UMass 85]; Arnold House, built 1954 [UMass 2]; Durfee Range, built
1955 [UMass 96]; Van Meter House, built 1957 [UMass 32]; Machmer Hall, built 1957 [UMass 111]; Student Union,
built 1957 [UMass 131]; Wheeler House, built 1958 [UMass 33]; and Johnson House, built 1959 [UMass 36].

The recommended University of Massachusetts Amherst historic district meets Criterion A for its association with the
ongoing mission of this state university to meet the educational requirements of a rapidly changing world. From the
inception of the University in 1863 as the Massachusetts Agricultural College, through the current day, the Trustees have
sought to provide educational programming and facilities that would enable students to advance the practice of agriculture
and a steadily increasing host of other fields, meet the needs of a rapidly-industrializing world, and succeed in leading a
post-industrial information and technology-based economy.

The historic district also meets Criterion C for its stock of buildings and landscape features whose forms and functions
reflect the evolving and expanding mission of the University in the 95 years between its 1863 founding and 1959 (1959
being the 50 year cut-off for National Register consideration). A number of architects, landscape architects and planners
of local, regional and/or national prominence were involved in the design of the individual buildings and the overall plan
of the current University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. The aggregate efforts of these design professionals produced
a distinctive public university campus landscape, primarily of the mid-19th to mid-20th century, which is unique in
Massachusetts.

Despite the loss of certain buildings and landscape features up to the present time in 2009 and incremental physical
changes seen in new window, door and roofing replacements, as well as siding replacements in a small number of
buildings, the district retains integrity of location, setting, design, feeling, association, workmanship, and materials.