O.W. Norcross, Richardson's "Master Builder":

A Preliminary Repor t*

JAMES F. O'GORMAN Bay View, Massachusetts

For David M. Robb on September Nineteenth

CITY HALL IN WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, is a Renaissance Revival building designed by Peabody and Steams and erected between 1896 and 1898. At the top of the stairway that occupies the center of the building, next to the mayor's office, is a commemorative bronze plaque set against slabs of Milford granite (Fig. 1). Designed by Andrew O'Connor and dedicated to the builder of the Hall on the eighty-first anniversary of his birth, it bears his portrait in profile and an inscription that begins and ends

ORLANDO WHITNEY NORCROSS... MASTER BUILDER.''1

Most students of American architecture will have some recollection of the name, Norcross, in connection with H. H. Richardson, most probably with Richardson's Trinity Church, but the number must be small who can define the exact contribution of "O. W." to Richardson's work, or vice versa. We are all guilty of writing architectural history largely from the point of view of the architectural designer as if, like the painter, he executed his own drawings. It should be obvious that such an art-historical approach is inadequate to architectural history, however, because a fin- ished building represents the abilities of more than one individual. It is the result of a relationship-whether con- genial or uneasy-between architect, client, and builder. The discussion of patronage is a recognized aspect of archi- tectural history,2 but with the exception of studies such as those by Carl Condit,3 the builder has been largely ne- glected.4 Unjustly so; for the good building is a tribute to both its architect and its builder, and a brilliant design and an architect's prestige can be ruined by poor workmanship. In this brief, preliminary report I would like to introduce the man to whom Richardson entrusted his reputation: O. W. Norcross of Norcross Brothers, Contractors and Builders of Worcester.

* Much remains to be done, but the SAH tour of Richardson's con- temporaries seemed a good occasion for a first sifting of data. This report is based upon what the sources in hand suggest, and that may differ from what the documents to be uncovered might prove. It is offered as stimulus to continued study.

I am already indebted to a great many people. In no particular order they are: Robert Rettig for urging me to get the folder out of the file; Carl Condit for correspondence concerning Norcross's work in concrete; Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott for docu- mentary material from their files; John Herron, Director of the Worcester Historical Society, for material in the Society's collection; Wheaton Holden for directing my attention to the Schweinfurth and Andrews articles; Cynthia Zaitzevsky for material from the Ernest Bowditch papers; Alma W. Scalise, Jeanne Goodlatte, and Alan S. Lincoln, all of the East Longmeadow Historical Commis- sion, for material on the Norcross quarries there; Michael F. Walsh, City Messenger of Worcester, for permission to photograph the Norcross memorial; Marc Friedlaender, Editor of the Adams Pa- pers, for excerpts from correspondence related to the Hay-Adams and Anderson houses; William A. Koelsch, Clark University Ar- chivist, for notes on Norcross material there; and Ralph U. Cross of E. J. Cross Company of Worcester, for information on Norcross material in his files. I am particularly indebted to John S. Bilzerian of Worcester, an architect formerly with Norcross Brothers Com- pany, who shared his recollections of "O. W." with me.

1. The dedication ceremonies were reported in the Worcester Eve- ning Gazette, 25 October 1920, p. 1. Andrew O'Connor, Jr. (1874- 1941) was a Worcester-born sculptor who frequently worked for McKim, Mead and White. The crudely Sullivanesque ornamental motifs (they can hardly be called pilaster capitals) flanking Norcross's profile perhaps recall the sculptor's stay in the Chicago studio of W. O. Partridge.

2. A recent example is L. K. Eaton, Frank Lloyd Wright and How- ard Van Doren Shaw. Two Chicago Architects and Their Clients (Cam- bridge, Mass., 1969).

3. C. W. Condit, American Building (Chicago, 1968), for example. Even Professor Condit rarely connects builders and architects.

4. Unless he has written his own history, as did the Starrett broth- ers: Paul Starrett, Changing the Sky-Line (New York, 1938), and William A. Starrett, Skyscrapers and the Men Who Build Them (New York, 1928). There were five Starrett brothers who belonged to the generation after Norcross. Paul (1866-1958) became president of George A. Fuller Company in 1905. Fuller (1851-1900), of Worces- ter (but not Norcross Brothers; he began as a draftsman with Pea- body and Stearns), and his company were intimately associated with the "rise of the skyscraper" (to borrow the title of another of Profes- sor Condit's works). Norcross reportedly was no friend of the sky- scraper, although he did build Custom House tower, Boston's first skyscraper.

104

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Fig. i. Andrew O'Connor, O. W. Norcross Memorial, 192o, in the City Hall, Worcester (photo: Jean Baer O'Gorman).

Norcross Brothers had two principals: James Atkinson Norcross (1831-1903), the older brother who was office manager,5 and Orlando Whitney Norcross (1839-1920), the field manager who is of primary interest.6 0. W. Nor-

cross was born in Clinton, Maine, but grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. After discharge from the Union army in 1864 he joined his brother in a building firm first located in

Swampscott and by 1868 relocated in Worcester. There- after the history of the company is written in the successive volumes of the Worcester Directory.7 By 1872 the firm was in a position to buy a full-page advertisement in the Directory, an advertisement that depicts the just-finished Worcester

High School, Norcross's first work with Richardson (Fig. 2). The same page in the 1889 volume is ornamented with views of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Al-

legheny County Buildings, two of the firm's last contracts for Richardson (Fig. 3). Although Norcross's business at first grew with that of the architect, it continued to expand after his death (Fig. 4). The 19o09 advertisement contains a

"partial" listing of executed buildings that occupies the entire page and contains over too works. After Richardson's death Norcross worked for Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, McKim, Mead and White, Bruce Price, Van Brunt and Howe, Peabody and Steams, Hartwell and Richardson, Henry Ives Cobb, John Russell Pope, and many other lead-

ing architects in the East and Midwest. Among Norcross's credits, besides Richardson's works, are the New York Public Library; the Rhode Island State House; South Sta- tion and the Custom House tower in Boston; Low, Scher- merhorn, and other buildings at Columbia University; the Corcoran Gallery and the Scottish RiteTemple inWashing- ton; the remodelling of the White House under Theodore Roosevelt; and the Battle Monument at West Point. At various times the firm had branch offices in Boston, Provi- dence, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and else- where. Without question it was among the most important construction companies in the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

James Atkinson Norcross retired from the partnership in

1897, and in 1902 the firm was incorporated as the Norcross Brothers Company. The reasons the company did not long survive O. W.'s death are at the moment not altogether

5. For James A. Norcross see, in addition to the literature on his brother (fn. 6) and the firm (fn. 7), Massachusetts of Today. A Me- morial of the State ... Issued for the World's Columbian Exposition (Boston, 1892), pp. 318-319; Franklin P. Rice, ed., The Worcester of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Eight (Worcester, 1899), pp. 695-696; The Worcester Magazine, vi (Oct. 1903), 113ff.; Ellery B. Crane, ed., Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County Massachusetts (New York-Chicago, 1907), in, 222- 223; and Charles Nutt, History of Worcester and Its People (New York, 1919), pp. 633-634.

6. For Orlando see, in addition to the works cited in other notes, Massachusetts of Today, pp. 318-319; Rice, Worcester of 1898, pp. 700-

703; Crane, Genealogical and Personal Memoirs, p. 223; Nutt, History of Worcester, pp. 635-636; Worcester Evening Gazette, 27 February 1920, pp. 1-2; Worcester Daily Telegram, 28 February 1920, p. 20; Edward F. Miner, "Memoir of Orlando Whitney Norcross," Trans- actions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, LXXXIV (1921), 896- 898; Dictionary of American Biography (1934 ed.); and the National

Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1936 ed.). 7. References to the company not cited in other notes include

Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Naming of Worces- ter (Worcester, 1885), p. 152; Worcester: Its Past and Present (Worces- ter, 1888), pp. 213-215; D. Hamilton Hurd, ed., History of Worcester

County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia, 1889), n, 1720-1722; A Tribute to the Columbian Year by the City of Worcester (Worcester, 1893), pp. 140-141, and The Worcester Magazine, m (1902), 141-142; and

xnI (1909), 139-140.

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o te r

Norcross Brothers, Builders.

NOROROSS BROTHERS,

CONTRACTORS AND BUILDERS. Estimates made and Contracts taken for

BuldinE Churchs, School-Houses, adt oler Pholic Bnilius,

STORES, DWELLINGS, &c., &c.

OF STONE, BRICK OR WOOD.

124 SOUTHBRIDGE STREET,

WORCESTER.

Fig. 2. Norcross Brothers advertisement with H. H. Richardson's Worcester High School (Worcester Directory, 1872).

clear, but there are suggestions that the loss of the book-

keeping brother was fatal. 0. W. prospered for a while in this century, but he was a builder, not a financier. "Granite, timber, bricks, marble, iron and cement were real things [to him]," said T. Hovey Gage, "credit was fictitious."8 The company was in an apparent economic decline when

O. W. died-on his way to work at eighty-and is last listed in the Worcester Directory for 1923.9

J. A. NORCROSS. O. W. NORCROSS.

NORCROSS BROTHERS,

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CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, Cincinnati, Ohio.

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??;;?;;- ALLEGHENY COUNTY BUILDINGSI

Pittsburgh, Pa.

6ONTRA6TO3S ANU BUILDERS OF LARGE AND PRIVATE BUILDINGS.

Also, dealers in Brown Sand Stone, from our own quarries at East Long- meadow, Mass., and Granite of a Superior Quality from our

Braggville and Stony Creek Quarries.

Specimens of our Stone can be seen in some of the buildings we have erected, viz.:

Trinity Church, F. L. Ames' building, .corner Kingston and Bedford Streets, and J. N. Fiske, 87 State Street, Boston, Mass.; All Saints' Church, and Burnside Build- ing, Worcester, Mass.; Union League Club House, corner 5th Avenue and 39th St., Union Theological Buildings, corner 4th Avenue and 69th St., and Holy Trinity Church, 122d St., New York City.

The new Stations for the Boston & Albany Railroad Co. at South Framingham, Auburndale, Ashland, Brighton, and Wellesley Hills.

Marshall Field's building, Chicago, covering the entire square bounded by Frank- lin, Adams and Monroe Sts., and 5th Avenue, and J. J. Glessner's house, Prairie Avenue, Chicago.

Allegheny County buildings, Pittsburgh, Pa., and new Chamber of Commerce, Cincinnati, Ohio; J. R. Lionberger block, St. Louis, Mo.; also the depots in process of erection at Springfield, Mass., and Hartford, Conn.

MAIN OFFICE:

Io East Worcester St., - Worcester, Mass., Just East of the Union Depot.

Branch Offloe, Huntington Avenue, Boston, Mass,

Fig. 3. Norcross Brothers advertisement with H. H. Richardson's Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Allegheny County Build- ings (Worcester Directory, 1889).

Orlando Norcross is worthy of our attention because he was more than just another prime contractor shuffling the

men and materials of his subcontractors. He certainly meant more than that to Richardson. As O. W.'s daughter re-

called after his death, they "became strong personal friends

as well as great business associates."t' If that is true it was an

8. This and the quotation in the final paragraph are from Mr. Gage's brief address at the dedication of the memorial plaque in Worcester's City Hall, as reported in the Worcester Evening Gazette, 25 October 1920.

9. Some business and records descended to the E. J. Cross Com- pany of Worcester. Mr. Cross was president of Norcross Brothers

Company at the time of O. W.'s death (Norcross was then Chair- man of the Board). Norcross papers now in possession of E. J. Cross

Company are reported to postdate the Richardson years, and have not been examined for this preliminary report.

lo. Edith Norcross Morgan, "Memorial of Orlando Whitney Norcross," in the typescript "Proceedings of the Worcester Histori- cal Society" compiled by William Woodward, 27 (1931), 197-203 (Worcester Historical Society).

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Fig. 4. Buildings Erected by Norcross Brothers (Tribute to the Columbian Year by the City of Worcester, 1893).

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attraction of opposites. A small figure with big nose and walrus moustache (Fig. 5), Norcross was a strict temperence man, while Richardson's gargantuan frame was matched by his thirst for champagne, as Augustus Saint-Gaudens so

colorfully describes.11 At the construction site they met on common ground, however, and the meetings were fre-

quent. In a "throwaway" footnote Mrs. Van Rensselaer informs us that Norcross was "the builder... to whom the execution of most of... [Richardson's] work was in- trusted."12 The available facts sustain that statement. If we take the list of Richardson's executed works in Van Rens-

selaer's monograph, subtract those few that Norcross was

unlikely to have built (such as the Herkomer house outside

London), we are left with sixty-seven buildings and monu- ments from the Worcester High School on that Norcross

might have built. It can be said with certainty now that he erected thirty-three of them,13 and with equal certainty that he did not erect a mere four,14 which leaves thirty in

ii. A. Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences (New York, 1913), I, 328-331.

12. M. G. Van Rensselaer, Henry Hobson Richardson and His Work (Boston, 1888), p. 29.

13. The list is compiled from Norcross advertising in the main, and checked against other sources (such as the Richardson drawings in the Houghton Library at Harvard) wherever possible: Worcester High School, Hampden County Courthouse, Trinity Church and Parish House, Sherman House, Cheney Building, Woburn Library, North Easton Library, Sever Hall, North Easton Town Hall, Trinity Rectory, Ames Monument, Quincy Library, Albany City Hall, Auburndale Railroad Station, Austin Hall, Sard House, Ames Store (Kingston St.), Ames Store (Washington St.), Billings Library, Chestnut Hall Station, Malden Library, South Framingham Station, Allegheny County Buildings, Brighton Station, Newton Baptist Church, Stations at Waban, Woodland, and Eliot, Warder House, Bagley Fountain, Field Store, Glessner House, Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. See also fn. 31.

14. His name is not among the six signatures of contractors on the drawings for Brattle Square Church now in the Houghton Library. He did not erect the Anderson or the Hay-Adams houses (counted as two here) in Washington, for these went to a builder named Charles Edmonston (N. L. Anderson, Letters and Journals, ed. I. Anderson [New York, 1942], p. 204; signed drawings in Houghton). But this does not remove the Hay-Adams houses from our interest. Far from it. It is indicative of Richardson's dependency upon Nor- cross, and of Norcross's generous contribution to finished Richardson designs, that O. W. shared his knowledge of stonework with his competitor. The tale is told in the correspondence in the Dwight and Adams papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society. "Edmonston must bid very close for Norcross is anxious to do the work and will bid low I think" (Richardson to Adams, 2 April 1884; Dwight). "Hope that my plans and specifications are so clear that Edmonston will understand everything. Norcross is anxious to bid and is waiting for plans. If Edmonston would come on I will gladly pay his travel- ling expenses" (Richardson to Adams, 9 June 1884; Dwight). "We did much business ... at Brookline.... Norcross was there and gave Edmonston new light, especially about stone" (Adams to Hay, 3 July 1884; Adams). "Richardson now at Washington arranging the

contracts with Edmonston" (Adams to Hay, 9 Aug. 1884; Adams). For a general account of the Hay-Adams houses see M. Friedlaender, "Henry Hobson Richardson, Henry Adams, and John Hay,"JSAH, xxIx (1970), 231ff.

15. Many of these will no doubt eventually prove to be Norcross works since the number includes Boston and Albany Stations (such as Palmer) that are now unassigned although we know that Norcross was the B & A's builder. Unassigned works for the Ames and Lion- berger families should also be considered by Norcross unless there is proof to the contrary since Norcross built many buildings for these patrons.

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Fig. 5. O. W. Norcross (Worcester: Its Past and Present, 1888).

limbo.15 The thirty-three include almost all of Richardson's

important commissions: Trinity, the libraries and railroad stations, the works at Harvard, most of the Ames buildings, the Glessner house, the Field Store, and the Allegheny County Buildings. The executant or more than fifty per- cent of all the architect's designs, and nearly one hundred

percent of the major ones can only be described as Richard- son's collaborator.

No relevant Norcross business papers from the Richard- son years, and no Richardson-Norcross correspondence have yet come to light, so we must rely upon secondary sources for a glimpse at that collaboration. Fortunately we have at least one professional eyewitness account of Nor-

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o109 cross at work on a Richardson building. After a brief tenure at M.I.T. Glenn Brown (1854-1932), later the influential

Secretary-Treasurer of the A.I.A., felt the need for some

practical building experience and approached O. W. Nor- cross, then working at Trinity Church, for a job. Norcross hired Brown first as a carpenter, then as clerk of the works, at Richardson's Cheney Building in Hartford, a contract awarded to Norcross Brothers in 1875.16 Brown's recollec- tions of that experience are significant additions to our

understanding of Richardson's work. Brown emphasized that Norcross's services were uniquely

complete.

Richardson relied without ever regretting it upon him for con- struction and practical details. His method of carrying the work on the Cheney Building I have never known carried out by an- other contractor. He employed the workmen in the various crafts, carpenters, stone cutters, stone masons, bricklayers, plasterers, and painters, having a capable foreman for each branch. Stone and slate came from his own quarries, and millwork was fabricated in the Worcester shop.

Brown's job was to translate Richardson's architectural

drawings into construction drawings at the site. "While

enlarging the scale details to full size, making the shop drawings and patterns, I became very familiar with the

drawings from Richardson's office-was much impressed with their artistic qualities and wondered at his ability in

ignoring practical considerations when attaining artistic ef- fects." Since Brown prepared the full-scale patterns for the stone- and millworkers, the "office [of the clerk of the

works] was in reality a working branch of the architect's office." The degree of cooperation between the architect and builder that this suggests is revealing, especially reveal- ing since it comes from an architect who, when he wrote, had no need to pad his reputation. Finally, Brown summed up his experience by saying that "Richardson placed great confidence in . . . [Norcross's] integrity and good, clean craftsmanship and as clerk of the works I could see that he was justified in this confidence."'7

According to Glenn Brown, then, Richardson relied up- on Norcross because of his practical skills and his complete service. Let us gloss each of these.

Orlando Norcross was trained as a carpenter but seems to have developed early into an imaginative practical engi- neer. The first edition of Frank E. Kidder's long-standard Architects' and Builders' Handbook, issued in 1884 while Nor- cross was still building for Richardson, was dedicated to O. W. Norcross "whose superior practical knowledge of all that pertains to building has given me a more intelligent and practical view of the science of construction than I should otherwise have obtained." But even more impres- sive evidence of Norcross's creative ability in the field of construction can be found in the pages of the Official Ga- zette of the United States Patent Office where, between 1889 and 1917, no less than seventeen patents are assigned to his name. Fourteen of these relate to building construction, and range from fastenings and snow guards for roof slates to fireproof partitions, floors, and doors. Three patents is- sued in 19o2 in the field of reinforced concrete give Nor- cross a serious claim to be the inventor of beamless flat-slab construction, although this is a problem in need of further investigation.18 This list of patents reflects the mind of a man very much concerned with and gifted in solving the practical problems of building technology.

The structure of Richardson's buildings, as we all know, was generally conservative, and Henry-Russell Hitchcock has pointed out that Charles Rutan, who entered Richard- son's office as an untrained office boy in 1869, was "as much of an engineer as Richardson felt he ever needed."''19 If true,

16. G. Brown, Memories 186o--193o (Washington, D.C., 1931), pp. 23ff. This privately printed work is a rare item that contains a wealth of information about architectural personalities and politics in the years it covers. It should be much better known.

17. One reason for Richardson's confidence on this and other jobs was the presence as superintendent of Theodore Minot Clark (1845- 1909), Richardson protege, professor at M.I.T., author of books on the legal and practical aspects of building, and long-time editor of the American Architect. Richardson's genius shows best in the men he gathered around him.

18. Professor Condit in correspondence expressed confidence in Norcross's priority, although "[Claude A. P.] Turner's system be- came the accepted standard following his patent of 19o8, probably because it offered more secure reinforcing against shear around the column capital": Condit to O'Gorman, 4 August 1972; see also Condit, American Building, p. 243. Professor Condit cautions that more research is needed.

Norcross was issued three patents in 1902, two for slabs and one for columns: 698,542 (filed 22 Nov. 19o0; issued 29 April 1902), slab with a metallic network so arranged as to be greatest at point of tensile and shearing strains; 698,543 (filed 23 Dec. 19io; issued 29 April 1902), "flooring consisting of a panel of concrete having metal- lic network inclosed therein, comprising strips of wire network extending directly from wall to wall and diagonal strips of wire- netting extending from wall to wall"; 701,377 (filed 22 Nov. 19o0; issued 3 June 1902), reinforced concrete column. Gazette, 99, 912, 2143.

I have not yet determined the first use by Norcross of this system. As this goes to press a copy of George A. Hool and Nathan C. John- son, Concrete Engineers' Handbook, New York and London, 1918, has come to hand. Pp. 479-480 recount the court cases between Nor- cross and C. A. P. Turner, who lost them all: "the Norcross patent .. has been declared basic." In 1918 the Norcross system was con- trolled by the Flat Slab Patent Co. of Chicago.

19. H.-R. Hitchcock, The Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 96 (cf. p. 17). Rutan and Nor- cross probably frequently worked together at the site: "I will arrange to have Mr. Rutan & Mr. Norcross meet you & settle up the stair- case question [at the Allegheny County Buildings]" (Richardson to Shepley, 13 March 18 86 [Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott]).

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it was because Norcross was usually on hand to back him up. Norcross's engineering skills seem to have developed quickly on thejob at Trinity Church. He probably thought of Trinity as a challenge, one that if met successfully could establish his firm, like the architect's, on a national plane.20 Construction was difficult because of the soft fill of the Back Bay upon which the huge mass of masonry was to be placed, a problem that forced Richardson to modify the design of his tower.21 Norcross's daughter tells us that

Trinity church called for much skill in construction. ... Norcross had gained his knowledge through practical work and by reading ... but at that time this country had little to offer in ... completed work, and he felt the need of actual contact with well-tried con- struction.... At great expense to himself he went to Montreal to make observation of some of the old stone churches there.

Edith Norcross Morgan was born in 1878, the year after the dedication of Trinity, but her memoir is accurate in general, if not in every detail, and this sounds like a tale told and retold at home by a father proud of his achievement at Trinity. And it is reinforced by Julius A. Schweinfurth (1858-1931). As a draftsman for Peabody and Stearns in the 1870s, Schweinfurth picked up the story that when Nor- cross built Trinity "so little was known about real masonry that he had his wife translate and read to him Viollet le Duc's various works bearing on the subject."22 The skills in masonry, load-bearing construction developed by Norcross at Trinity carried over into the remainder of Richardson's work.

Norcross's engineering skillswerejust one aspect of Nor- cross Brothers' all-inclusive building service. Brown's won- der at the completeness of this service is repeated over and over again in the available accounts, and this suggests that the firm holds a significant position in the history of the

contracting industry in this country, a history which to my knowledge is still to be written. Brief, tantalizing hints, such as William Starrett's "Norcross ... laid the foundations for some of the finest traditions of the modern building in- dustry,"23 can be supplemented by more specific state- ments. The most explicit of these is found in the recollec- tions of the Boston architect Robert D. Andrews (1857- 1928). In the early 1870s it was usual for the construction of even a dwelling to require up to twenty different con- tracts, according to Andrews, until O. W. Norcross be- came "one of the earliest of our local builders to take gen- eral contracts."24 The increased complexity of post-Civil War building demanded a coherent system of construction. It was much to Richardson's advantage to have one man who was not only a skilled builder but who alone would assume responsibility for the construction of the entire building. And it was even more to Richardson's advantage that this same man supplied almost all of the raw and worked materials that went into that building.

I said earlier that fourteen of the seventeen patents issued to Norcross concerned building techniques. The remaining three related to the cutting and dressing of stone, and this brings up a second aspect of the full-service contract stressed by Brown. Norcross Brothers was more than a contracting company. In mid-career the firm supplied most of the ma- terials and labor that went into a building. Stone from Norcross-owned quarries at Stony Creek, Connecticut, Milford, Massachusetts, Tuckahoe, New York, Pickens County, Georgia, and so on,25 brick from Norcross's Worcester kilns, millwork and ironwork from Norcross's Worcester shops were all put in place by Norcross work- men. Edward F. Miner tells us that O. W. could rightfully boast that Norcross Brothers "were first-hand producers of more lines of work entering into building construction than any other organization doing a general building business."26

Since Richardson's mature style was predominantly a 2o. If what Robert Shaw reports in the Dictionary of American Biography (1934 ed.) is true, Norcross Brothers gained more than a fine reputation from their work at Trinity. He writes that "The financial panic of 1873 yielded them an unexpected dividend, for building prices dropped substantially shortly after they had signed a contract for the erection of Trinity Church." He could be right. The contract was signed on 10 October, Jay Cooke & Co. failed on 18 September, and prices did fall sharply for the next half-decade. It seems reasonable that having estimated the job at prepanic prices, Norcross would have profitted from falling costs. But the economic history of American building is yet to be written.

21. T. E. Stebbins, "Richardson and Trinity Church," JSAH, xxvia (1968), 281ff.

22. J. A. Schweinfurth, "Great Builders I Have Known," Ameri- can Architect, cxxxx (Nov. 1931), 48ff. This concerns Norcross and George A. Fuller. Schweinfurth also reports that Norcross's "favorite reading in travel (Worcester to Boston) was [John C.] Trautwine's Handbook," more precisely The Civil Engineer's Pocket-Book of Mensuration, Trigonometry, Surveying, Hydraulics, with twenty-one editions from 1871 on.

23. W. A. Starrett, Skyscrapers, p. 34. 24. R. D. Andrews, "Conditions of Architectural Practice Thirty

Years and More Ago," The Architectural Review [Boston], v (Nov. 1911).

25. Norcross Brothers were the proprietors of the Charles River Stone Company, "Dealers in Marble, Red and Grey Granite, ... Buff, Brown, and Red Sandstone, Blue and Buff Indiana Limestone, [and] New York State Bluestone" according to the advertisement in the Catalogue of the Architectural Exhibition, Boston Architectural Club and Boston Society of Architects, 1899, p. 192 (see p. 200 for Norcross Brothers, Contractors and Builders). The Charles River Stone Company was then managed by Freelon Morris, who signed for Norcross many of the drawings of Trinity Church now in Houghton Library. The precise history of Norcross quarrying opera- tions has still to be worked out. See fn. 30.

26. "Memoir," Transactions of the A.S.C.E., p. 897.

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Fig. 6. H. H. Richardson, Hamp- den County Court House, Spring- field, Mass., 1871-1873. Built by Norcross Brothers. Exterior be- fore alterations (photo: courtesy Springfield Public Library).

lithic one, Norcross's control ofhuge sources of stone arouses our curiosity. What was the connection between Richard- sonian ashlar and the Norcross quarries?

The years 1870-1872 are recognized as crucial ones in the development of Richardson's style.27 The vacillation be- tween French and English sources that marked the work of the late 186os began to shift in the direction of the identi- fiably Richardsonian works of the mid-'7os. The change is marked primarily--although to be sure not entirely-by a shift in materials resulting in a shift in scale. Worcester High School (Fig.2), a picturesque red-brick building com- missioned in November 1869 was one of the last of the juvenilia. At Brattle Square Church, commissioned inJuly 1870, and the Hampden County Court House (Fig. 6), commissioned in July 1871, Richardson began to use the large-scale stone detailing that marks the works of his ma- turity. Professor Hitchcock ticked off a number of good reasons for this dramatic change, but it seems to me that there was one more very important new factor in Richard- son's life in 1870. In that year Norcross won the contract for the construction of the High School, and for the rest of Richardson's life the architect and the builder rarely worked except together.

It is tempting to assign to Norcross the impetus for the shift in Richardson's work during these years, but the avail- able facts suggest a lesser but still very important r61le. It

might be argued that the drawings for the High School were

complete before Norcross bid on the job, and therefore he could not influence Richardson's choice of materials and forms during the design process, but that he could on later

jobs. This seems to have been the case only from Trinity on. Available evidence indicates that Norcross did not build Brattle Square Church,28 the first suggestion in stone of the direction of Richardson's work, and there is no evidence in hand that Norcross owned quarries in Milford (or any- where) at the time Richardson designed the Hampden County Court House, the first building after the High School Norcross did build for Richardson. Exactly when Norcross Brothers began to acquire their own supplies of stone has yet to be determined, but it would seem that this occurred in conjunction with the construction of Trinity.

Richardson himself tells us in his Description of Trinity Church that the contract with Norcross Brothers was made on o10 October 1873 for the masonry and carpentry work.29

27. Hitchcock, Richardson, pp. 89ff.; also H.-R. Hitchcock, Rich- ardson as a Victorian Architect (Baltimore, 1966).

28. See fn. 14. 29. The Description was written for the dedication of the church in

1877. It was republished in part by Mrs. Van Rensselaer (Richardson, p. 143), and more recently as a separate booklet.

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Fig. 7. H. H. Richardson, Allegheny County Jail, Pittsburgh, 1884-1886. Built by Norcross Bro- thers. Detail of exterior (photo: Jean Baer O'Gorman).

During the winter of 1873-1874 piles were driven into the Back Bay muck and the foundations prepared for the mas- sive superstructure, the stone for which was only then under consideration. "Choice had been made of the Ded- ham granite for the ashlar," he writes, "and of Longmea- dow freestone for the trimmings and cut stone work, and the contractors hired land and opened quarries of their own, both at Dedham and Longmeadow." Since these quarries could not supply stones of sufficient size, a "search was made and a red granite found at Westerly, R.I., which ... was of admirable quality . . . the contractors, with praise- worthy enterprise, secured land here, and opened a third

quarry, from which was taken all the ashlar below and

including the water table." The earliest document I have seen that relates to Norcross quarrying operations is a pay- roll from East Longmeadow dated August 1874.30 This

suggests that Richardson's facts are substantially correct. If Norcross began to dig his own stone in 1874 he did so as a reaction to Richardson's stylistic decisions of 1870-1872.

But that does not mean that his contribution during these crucial years was negligible. Just at this critical moment in his career Richardson found in O. W. Norcross not only an

imaginative student of building technology, but a willing collaborator who would go to great lengths to turn his

maturing vision into reality. Richardson's path became clear at least in part because of the appearance of O. W. Norcross and his resourcefulness.

The fact that Norcross prepared cost estimates for the Buffalo Arch (1874) and Albany Cathedral (1882) projects suggests that he acted as Richardson's "cost consultant."31 It was economically wise and stylistically desirable for Rich- ardson to use the materials available through his builder. Such consultation about cost and materials during the de-

sign process enhances Norcross' position as "Richardson's collaborator."

30. "Dated East Longmeadow Mass / Norcross Brothers, / Con- tractors and Builders. / Stone Cutters Pay Roll for the month of August 1874 ... ," a copy of which was kindly sent to me by Alma W. Scalise of the East Longmeadow Historical Commission.

31. For the arch see T. E. Tallmadge, "Holographs of Famous Architects," American Architect, 143 (March 1933), 10-12: "Norcross wants to build the arch and is willing to go Buffalo [sic]-get prices & examine materials which would probably reduce his esti- mate which was based on Eastern materials & prices." Richardson to Olmsted, 9 December 1874 (the original is in the Burnham Library, Chicago). For the cathedral see Van Rensselaer, Richardson, p. 145.

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Fig. 8. H. H. Richardson, Converse Memorial, Malden, Mass., 1883-1885. Built by Norcross Brothers. Interior of library (photo: Jean Baer O'Gorman).

As practical engineer, consultant, estimator,32 and sup- plier of materials and craftsmen for a significant proportion of Richardson's buildings, 0. W. Norcross made possible the high quality of Richardson's distinguished and influen- tial achievement. When we admire the exterior stonework at the Allegheney County Buildings, the precision laying of the mammoth rocked-faced granite voussoirs and ashlar walls of the jail for example (Fig. 7), or the interior of the library at Malden, the carved ornament, variously turned balusters, and butternut panelling of the alcoves for ex- ample (Fig. 8), we are recognizing the practical genius of O. W. Norcross as much as the artistic genius of H. H. Richardson. As T. Hovey Gage put it at the dedication of the memorial in Worcester's City Hall, Norcross "never ceased singing the praises of Henry H. Richardson ... and it has been said that Richardson's reputation is attributed in large measure to the splendid cooperation of Mr. Nor- cross."33

32. Norcross had a reputation for the accuracy of his estimates. Richardson told J. J. Glessner "when I tell you the cost [of your house], that will be the whole of it." "And," added Glessner, "it was" (Hitchcock, Richardson, p. 329). The credit for such precision should undoubtedly go to O. W. Norcross who built the Glessner House in Chicago. Henry Adams lamented the excessive cost of his house, which Norcross did not build (Friedlaender, "Richardson, Adams, and Hay").

33. An aspect ofthis collaboration still in need ofinvestigation is the role of Evans and Tombs (later John Evans and Co.), modelers and carvers in wood and stone, an associate of Norcross, and executant of much of Richardson's ornament.

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