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<\/a>Whether there was an elaborate rail station in the early years, or just a simple shed, has not been determined.\u00a0 The present building apparently dates from 1871.\u00a0 In its original state it contained a large waiting room, baggage room, and office for the station master.<\/p>\n
The depot appears frequently in Williston Seminary lore: teams and spectators would board “the cars” for travel to away games as far away as Worcester.\u00a0 The train provided quick access to the entertainment delights of Springfield.\u00a0 Individual anecdotes describe torchlight processions of departing student “heroes”\u00a0 down Union Street from the campus.2<\/sup>\u00a0 Even freight service found its way into legend: witness the tale of William Peck’s double bass, retold in “Williston’s First Orchestra.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n More importantly, the rise of the railroad transformed Easthampton from an isolated farm village to an industrial center.\u00a0 While most of the mills on Pleasant Street and in the Nashawannuck complex had their own freight sidings and platforms, regular passenger service provided access for businessmen, efficient mail service, and cultural links with urban centers.\u00a0 Williston Seminary’s student demographics changed, as the school became more accessible to a national clientele.<\/p>\n With the rise of the automobile, the interstate highway system, and competing forms of public transportation, passenger rail service declined following the Second World War.\u00a0 Regular passenger service to Easthampton ended in the late 1950s. Williston Academy purchased the depot and used it as a maintenance building.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Williston’s Fine Arts program was growing and in need of space.\u00a0 In 1969 Fine Arts Teacher Barry Moser installed a letterpress\u2014eventually two\u2014at the north end of the station.\u00a0 Students learned to set type and printed broadsides and even books.\u00a0 The Castalia Press was the first, and for a long time, only fine printing press operated by a private school.\u00a0 Moser’s own imprint, the Gahenna Press, also had a home at the station.<\/p>\n Over the next few years art studios displaced the Physical Plant department.\u00a0 The station was home to Brenda Minisci’s ceramics and sculpture classes, and provided arc welding facilities in the courtyard.<\/p>\n In 1973 Headmaster Bob Ward arranged for a donor to provide a caboose, that would serve as a small art gallery.\u00a0 While the caboose became a campus feature unique to Williston, the gallery idea never quite caught on, although student creativity inspired other uses for the structure.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, freight rail traffic through Easthampton was also declining.\u00a0 Many town factories had moved south or closed outright.\u00a0 The Pioneer Valley Railroad, the successor to the Hampshire and Hampden line, ceased Easthampton operations in 1992.\u00a0 The tracks were taken up not long afterwards.<\/p>\n The year 2003 saw the opening of the first leg of the Manhan Rail Trail, a paved bicycle and pedestrian path and greenway which, 10 years later, extends from Southampton through Northampton and north to Leeds.\u00a0 In Northampton, cyclists may connect with the Norwottuck Trail and ride to Amherst and Belchertown.\u00a0 There are ambitious plans to create a network of connecting former rail beds that will extend as far as Boston and New Haven and, indeed, up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard from Maine to Florida.3<\/sup><\/p>\n With the opening of the Reed Campus Center in 1996, Williston Northampton’s Fine Arts facilities were able to move from improvised space in the Depot, Scott Hall, the library basement and even a Middle School kitchen, to the spacious and use-appropriate facilities they occupy today.<\/p>\n The rail station’s future was uncertain until longtime painting teacher Marcia Reed realized it was the perfect structure to provide her with a huge studio and a place to live.\u00a0 She leased the building from the school.\u00a0 Nine Railroad Street was among the first repurposed buildings in an Easthampton renaissance that has seen dozens of former industrial buildings and empty storefronts transformed into studios, galleries, and creatively funky residences.<\/p>\n Ms. Reed left the faculty in 2012, after 33 years of distinguished teaching.\u00a0 But the depot did not stay empty for long.\u00a0 On March 29, 2013, the Tandem Bagel Co.<\/a><\/strong> opened for business.\u00a0 It is owned and operated by two Williston Northampton families, Shannon ’83 and Brian Greenwood, and Chris ’87 and Andrea Zawacki.\u00a0 Each couple has three children currently enrolled at Williston.\u00a0 The restaurant offers not only bagels, but soups, sandwiches, salads and bakery treats.\u00a0 Brian, Andrea, and Chris went off to bagel boot camp in Portland, Oregon to learn the art.\u00a0 This writer can attest to the quality of the results, as can the more than 2,000 customers who crowded the restaurant in its first two days.<\/p>\n Notes:<\/strong> We welcome your comments and questions!\u00a0 Please use the reply form below.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1854 Samuel Williston established the Hampshire and Hampden Railroad Company.\u00a0 He and his longtime business partner, Joel Hayden of Williamsburg, Mass., initially hoped to extend the line as far as Troy, New York, but their realistic concern was to connect Easthampton and Williamsburg, both former villages that were now evolving into factory towns, with … Continue reading The Depot<\/span> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
\n1<\/sup>Frank P. Conant, God’s Stewards: Samuel & Emily Williston<\/em> (Easthampton: The Williston Northampton School, 1991), 86.
\n2<\/sup>We’re mincing words: there was a tradition of parading expelled students to the station for a rousing sendoff. Principal James Whiton (1876-1878) tried to suppress the custom, with disastrous results. But that’s a story for a future post.
\n3<\/sup>http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Manhan_Rail_Trail<\/a>;\u00a0http:\/\/cyclingnewengland.blogspot.com\/<\/a>; http:\/\/www.greenway.org\/index.shtml<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n