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Pratt Memorial Library

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1900–1904, E. Hayden Hawley; 1969–1970 Abigail Adams deSombre annex, Joseph R. Young. 247 Main St.
  • (© George E. Thomas)
  • (William E. Fischer, Jr.)
  • (William E. Fischer, Jr.)

Except for the one-story rear addition, this small, dressed Indiana limestone ashlar library has not changed since it opened in 1904. Architect Hawley of Philadelphia was a native son; his father was a local teacher and state senator. Hawley finished his drawings for the library in the summer of 1900 while visiting his mother at nearby Heart Lake. The Beaux-Arts design with an Ionic distyle in antis portico was standard for libraries at the time. Yet the striking similarity of Hawley's library and Brown University's larger John Carter Brown Library (1898–1904, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge) appears more than coincidental. The differences are size and Hawley's omission of the cornice cresting and his addition of a copper clock cupola. Charles C. Pratt, a prominent citizen and later congressman, built the library in memory of his parents, Ezra and Mary Pratt, who founded the library in their home in 1892. St. Mark's Episcopal Church (1827) at 115 Main Street is a mixture of Greek and Gothic Revival detail.

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Data

What's Nearby

Tyler-Jones House
U.S. Post Office
Starrucca House, Susquehanna Depot
Post-Torrey House
William H. Cooper House

Citation

George E. Thomas, "Pratt Memorial Library", [New Milford, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-SQ14.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 543-543.

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