Belchertown Center Historic District

Belchertown Center is a T-shaped village core made up of the long Town Common, part of South Main Street and a section of Maple Street. Its 66 buildings are mostly 19th-century and range from Federal and Greek Revival houses to Gothic Revival, Queen Anne and mansard-roofed Victorian homes. Notable buildings include the Congregational Church of 1789-1792, later remodeled, the brownstone Clapp Memorial Library designed by Henry Kilburn, the 1827 Stone House, now a museum, and the 1923 Lawrence Memorial Hall. The district grew along the Bay Road, later the Northampton-Boston Stage Road, and the arrival of the railroad in 1853 shaped Maple Street. It has served since the late 18th century as the town's social, religious, commercial and political center. The Common is lined with mostly white wooden buildings, and a bandstand and Civil War monument stand on it. Its architecture and its role as the town's civic heart led to its listing under criteria A and C.