The house at 98 Lincoln Street dates to 1908, and the tour calls it the Azro Coburn house. Coburn owned the Coburn Trolley Company in Chicopee, which made many of the trolley tracks in Holyoke. Walk west to the top of the same street and the curb takes a wide, sweeping bend that's unusual for Holyoke. The Highlands Trolley Line ran along Lincoln Street and needed that curve. It stayed wide from the 1880s until 1917, when the city widened it again.
A man whose company made the city's trolley track lived at the bottom of a street the trolley shaped at its top. Lincoln Street is a cross-section of the people who made Holyoke run, and they built side by side. Mill owners lived across the street from paper makers. Canal engineers lived a few doors from a pharmacist and a grocer. On Saturday, Nov. 14, a free walking tour starting at Kennedy Park covers the street house by house.
A mill owner across from a mill owner, a paper maker next door
The details here come from the house-by-house Lincoln Street guide published by Canal Days, the volunteer history project that runs Saturday's walk. Start one block up from the park and look at who faced whom.
Hoit Farr, part of the ownership of the Farr Alpaca Mill, lived at 107 Lincoln Street in a house from 1896. Across the street at 104, in an 1895 house, lived James Ramage, who would come to own the Franklin Mill. Two mill owners faced each other on one short stretch.
A few doors farther on, the occupations change. William Wilson, a papermaker at the Wilson and Smith Paper Mill, lived at 126 in an 1894 house. Next door at 132 was Duncan McCorkindale, a worker at the Parsons Paper Mill, also in an 1894 house. His family lived there from 1902 into the 1930s.
| Address | Year | Name the tour gives the house | Line of work |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98 Lincoln | 1908 | Azro Coburn | Coburn Trolley Company, Chicopee |
| 104 Lincoln | 1895 | James Ramage | Later owned the Franklin Mill |
| 107 Lincoln | 1896 | Hoit Farr | Farr Alpaca Mill ownership |
| 111 Lincoln | 1896 | John Bishop | Goods dealer on High Street |
| 118 Lincoln | 1893 | John Williams | Carpenter and painter, Doane and Williams paint store |
| 126 Lincoln | 1894 | William Wilson | Papermaker, Wilson and Smith Paper Mill |
| 127 Lincoln | 1894 | William B. Whiting | Coal business |
| 132 Lincoln | 1894 | Duncan McCorkindale | Parsons Paper Mill |
| 136 Lincoln | 1895 | Robert Sanderson | Grocer |
| 147 Lincoln | 1895 | Charles Alderman | Superintendent, Hampden Glaze Paper Company |
| 170 Lincoln | 1892 | James Morrill | Pharmacy on High Street |
Even the paint on these houses connects back to the block. John Williams at 118 was a carpenter and painter who went into business with George Doane to start the Doane and Williams paint store. Doane lived at 123, almost directly across the street. William B. Whiting at 127 ran a coal business, and the guide notes his son owned a large paper mill.
Thirty years of filling in, one lot at a time
That mix makes more sense once you see how slowly the street filled. A short piece of lower Lincoln Street went in in 1876. The main 2,469-foot stretch from Taylor Street to Northampton Street was laid out starting in 1878, and it wasn't graded for the first time until July 26, 1889.
The houses span that whole period and then some. Arthur French's house at 110 and Dwight Kelton's at 151 both date to 1880, before the street was even graded. Most of the named houses went up in the 1890s: Jens Madsen's at 162 in 1892, James Morrill's Queen Anne at 170 the same year, and a run of houses from 1893 through 1896. Henry Chase, a machinist, has a house at 166 dating to 1900. The latest arrivals came around 1910: William Thorpe's house at 176, plus the paired addresses at 140/142 and 144/146, each listing two names.
You can follow that timeline in the architecture. The guide marks 111, 118, 141, 156, and 170 as Queen Anne. It calls 127, 136, 147, and 162 shingle style. Because owners built over three decades, neighboring lots show different decades and different tastes. A carpenter's 1893 Queen Anne sits a few doors from a coal dealer's 1894 shingle house.
Some households stayed put for a long time. Jens Madsen, who ran Anker Printing and had earlier been town clerk in South Hadley, lived at 162 from 1903 until well into the 1940s.
The canal and the trolley climbed the hill too
Holyoke's canals sit downhill, but the people who ran them lived up here. On the return side of the street, the guide lists Fred Cook at 171 as a civil engineer for the canals and Albert Sickman at 161 as a hydraulic engineer for the canals. Their neighbors included Peter Sinclair at 175, treasurer at a gas heat shop, and William Powers at 165, an ear, nose, and throat doctor. Rolla Kelton at 157 owned a provision firm. James Bugbee at 156 was a superintendent at the American Thread Company.
Coburn's 1908 house at the bottom of the street and the widened trolley curve at the top connect the whole thing. The trolley line is why the corner bends the way it does today. It's also part of why mill managers, engineers, and shopkeepers could all live up the hill from the jobs they held downtown.
Saturday's walk, stop by stop
The Lincoln Street and Kennedy Park tour runs Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026, from 1 to 2 p.m. Park and meet near the junction of Waldo and Lincoln streets at the Kennedy Park entrance. It's funded by the Holyoke Local Cultural Council, and Canal Days lists all of its 2026 events as free and open to everyone. Explore Holyoke's event listing has calendar links.
The published route follows a simple out-and-back:
- Kennedy Park and the former Highlands Methodist Episcopal Church at the park's southeast corner.
- West up Lincoln Street past the Coburn, Ramage, Williams, Wilson, and McCorkindale houses, crossing Williams Street, Howard Street, and Arlington Street.
- The upper blocks, with the Sanderson house at 136, the Kelton house at 151, Madsen at 162, and Morrill at 170.
- The trolley curve and the Johnson houses at the top of the street.
- Back east along the other side past Sinclair, Cook, Powers, Sickman, and Rolla Kelton.
The guide keeps telling walkers to turn around, and it repeats the same instruction at stop after stop:
"Now look across the street and sweep your eyes back to the park as we go along."
The Canal Days Kennedy Park page also points out Victorian houses at the corner of Waldo and Allyn streets, near where the tour meets.
Then-and-now, on your own time
If Saturday doesn't work, the street is easy to walk solo with old photographs on your phone. Photographer Milo Warner shot several of these houses, and the Holyoke Public Library's images are on Digital Commonwealth. His photo of George Doane's house at 123 Lincoln Street is dated ca. 1885–1895 and shows a three-story shingle house with a wraparound porch. The address in the photo was then 71–73 Lincoln Street. His image of 161 Lincoln Street, dated ca. 1885–1899, shows decorative shingles and a wraparound porch. The tour guide also links Warner's pictures of 118 Lincoln and 157 Lincoln.
Many of the same houses show up in the city's historic inventory index, which lists Lincoln Street entries at 76, 84, 98, 104, 107, 111, 118, 126, 127, 132, 136, 147, 151, 162, 170, and 176. The same index lists 87 Waldo Street as the William Allen House.
At the top of the street, Robert Johnson and his son Charles had houses side by side on Northampton Street. They ran an insurance company on High Street. Robert's house was first numbered 208 Northampton Street and is now 1425. Charles's is 1439. On Nov. 3, those houses were the subject of part five of the guide's library series, "A House in Holyoke through Time." The Johnson house page is still online for anyone who missed it.
If you live near Kennedy Park, your own house may have a story like these. Owner names, build years, and the way a block filled in all shape how an older Highlands home looks and how its next buyers see it. If you'd like to talk through what your house's history means for your plans, Shelly Hardy is glad to help. Schedule a free consultation.
