North Hatfield Historic District

North Hatfield is a small farming village in Hatfield, Massachusetts, laid out around the crossing of West Street and Depot Road and divided by railroad tracks. Most of its one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half-story wood-frame buildings date from 1820 to 1940, and they include houses, barns, outbuildings and former commercial and railroad structures. The area was once mostly pine plain, and farms spread through it in the 1840s and 1850s. When the Connecticut River Rail Road built its line two miles from Hatfield center, the tracks passed through North Hatfield and gave the village its focus. Architecture here is modest and practical. Raised cape houses, a Gothic Revival "lightning splitter" dated 1840, a former railroad depot converted to a house, and a post office converted from a dwelling show how buildings were moved, altered and reused. The district is significant for its agricultural and transportation history and for this plain village architecture, with a period of significance of 1820 to 1946.