by Laurel | January 29th, 2014
29 January 2014
William S. Fowler House
118 Central Park Drive
Holyoke, Massachusetts
Above is a photo of the William Smith Fowler house, as described in the MACRIS database. The English revival house, according to the MACRIS description was built in 1926 in the Highland Park neighborhood. William Fowler may have been the first owner of the house.
Fowler was not, however, from Holyoke. William S. Fowler was born in Springfield MA on 18 July 1892 to parents Norman N. Fowler and Minnie Smith and lived most of his live in his father’s home located at 40 Ingersoll Grove in the then affluent McKnight section of Springfield.
Norman Fowler was born in Agawam in October 1857 to George Fowler and Mary (Hazen) Fowler and received a public school education in Springfield. George Fowler had an association with J.C. Parsons (of the Parsons Paper Company) and through this work relationship George Fowler was able to provide for his son Norman a good college education, first graduating from Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University followed by a law degree from Yale Law School and passed the bar soon after.However, Norman did not practice law but rather entered into business with his brothers Timothy and George and opened the Hampden Glazed Paper Company in Holyoke.
William Smith Fowler
Passport Photo, 1917
William S. Fowler graduated from Central High School in Springfield around 1910 and did attend college and post graduate school — Yale, post-grad at the University of Chicago and the McKinley-Roosevelt Institute in Chicago with a focus on anthropology. W.S. Fowler ultimately moved to Holyoke where he was definitely living in this house by 1929 and working in the family business.
By mid December 1943 William S. Fowler resigned from the Hampden Glazed Paper Company and by 1952 had left Holyoke to pursue his archaeological interests of prehistoric man’s habitation in New England. He had prior to ending his work career organized the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and by 1952 had become secretary of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and had moved to Rhode Island where he assumed the role as curator of the society’s Bronson Museum in Attleboro. W.S. Fowler wrote numerous articles and was highly respected in the fields of anthropology and archaeology. Search for his name and you will get a representative sampling of his many publications.
Mark T. Fowler, William S. Fowler’s son, an exceptional artist and printer, created prints with astounding vibrancy, color and detail from his hand carved wood blocks and wood engravings. His work is on display at the Museum of Printing — follow the link to see an example of or one of Mark’s pieces or to get more on the museum located in North Andover.
William S. Fowler died in July 1983 copy of his obituary has yet to be acquired.
William S. Fowler
Formerly of Holyoke and Springfield, and now secretary of the Mass. Archaeological Society and curator of the society’s Bronson Museum in Attleboro is shown above with a soft-stone, primitive pipe in which he successfully learned how to drill a two-inch deep hole by using the crude devices of prehistoric men which once inhabited New England. On the table are two stone vessels of the same period. September 1952.
Sources: The Springfield Republican, Ancestry.com, MACRIS database.
