Defining Our Terms

In my last post, I lament "ignorance [among Americans] about what the word 'historic' truly means." What does the word "historic" truly mean? As of 2000, the United States contained 17,380,053 pre-1939 residences. Which of these are historic? Which aren't? Does age alone render a building historic? Or is "historic" fitting for only those structures in which significant events — say, the birth or death of a president — transpired? One can continue with such questions ad infinitum.

Those who use inclusion on the National Register as a litmus test for determining "historicness" are correct in one sense — they recognize implicitly the shapelessness of the word. Perhaps historic buildings defy definition; perhaps one simply "knows," as a matter of instinct, which structures demand to be labeled as such.

But even professional historians and preservationists, it seems, disagree about what constitutes "historicness." In recent years, "mid-century modern" buildings and suburban "ranch" homes — most erected in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s — have received attention from such professionals. (In 2009, for example, AmeriCorps volunteers scoured Dayton and its suburbs for noteworthy modern buildings; the Ohio Historical Society labeled this project "Ohio Modern: Preserving Our Recent Past.") I wouldn't bother with such a survey, especially when scores of older, odder buildings remain unrecognized. I wouldn't call such structures "historic." Then again, my definition (1) is not their definition. This is the nub of the problem.

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Historic preservation is a discipline cursed with linguistic imprecision. During one scene in the film Log Cabins and Castles: Virginia Settlers in Ohio, Hubert Wilhelm (a now-retired professor of geography at Ohio University) describes a group of homes built in Ohio by Virginians. To them, he applies the familiar term "I-house":

[The two-story porch] was a standard addition to the basic 'I-house' — one room deep; two rooms up, and two down.

Elsewhere in the documentary, Wilhelm visits Albemarle County, Virginia, where he speaks with K. Edward Lay, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Lay remarks:

[This building is] different from the 'I-house,' for instance, in the sense that it looks like an 'I-house' — it's two stories, with those end chimneys and all — but it's only three bays wide, and there's a door in the middle [that] actually goes into a hall, and it's called a 'hall [and] parlor.'

Wilhelm's and Lay's definitions are muddled and mutually exclusive. If both are to be believed, the "I-house" is, in fact, a dwelling one room in depth, two rooms (and at least four bays) in width, and more than two rooms in width, (2) with chimneys placed at the gable ends. Nonsense, I say. Both Wilhelm and Lay define "I-house" much too narrowly (though I doubt whether any definition would suffice). Like "historic," "I-house," and similar classifications, are largely subjective. Yet professionals speak of them with certainty. Yes, the homes Virginians built tend to resemble one another in plan and proportions, but none of the carpenters who constructed these homes called their creations "I-houses." Nor, more than likely, did they perceive the similarities we notice. The term "I-house" is a modern invention, imposed with scientific confidence on a subject that may, in fact, defy classification. We can accept it as useful, but we cannot permit it to ossify our minds.

Perhaps this is why I admire the scholars of old; those architects and annalists who concerned themselves not with form, but with style. They didn't pretend to practice social science. They didn't hide behind a veil of empiricism. They acknowledged architectural history for what it is — a study of human creations, of art.

1) And what, exactly, is my definition? I must confess, I have none. When I visit a city to photograph its buildings, I don't "test" those buildings against a list of objective criteria, and document only those structures which pass my "test"; rather, I snap photos of whatever strikes me as interesting. Because I've spent (wasted?) so much time glancing at buildings, I believe my instinct is, for the most part, trustworthy. As Aristotle says, "[E]ach man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge."

"Historicness," as I understand it, is some combination of architectural beauty and rarity. Certain features, though, can be rare for many reasons. In some cases, those elements once most common — enclosed corner staircases, for instance — now seem scarce simply because their banality renders them less obviously worthy of preservation. We tend to praise the opulent, and overlook the humble.

2) In other words, Wilhelm regards some two-room-wide residences as "I-houses," while Lay does not.

Reflections on the Demolition of "Mudhouse Mansion"

This is a disheartening article.

Perhaps more depressing than the house's destruction — which I've long anticipated — are David Mast's apathy-exuding comments:

David Mast, the son of Jeane Mast, who owns Mudhouse Mansion along Mud House Road in Pleasant Township, sees the home as 'just a farmhouse,' and one he was never particularly fond of.

Mast told the uneventful stories of his experience in the home while it was being torn down Monday by Kull Excavating. 

'That house is not my cup of tea,' Mast said, adding that it would cost millions to make the house safe and livable. 

Mast said he’s never understood people’s draw to the home[.]

I dispute Mr. Mast's judgment. Surely, during his drives through the Ohio countryside, he has observed many farmhouses; that none quite resemble his farmhouse should indicate something about its significance.

But, alas, Mast's view predominates in contemporary America. Truly significant buildings are "just farmhouses." The great works of philosophy and literature are "just old books," and the thinkers who penned them are "just dead guys." Our culture has become terribly, terribly ahistorical, willing to fling away anything perceived as irrelevant. Americans ought to read about Chesterton's fence.

This passage, from another article about the demolition, also bothers me:

The Lancaster Historical Society said Monday that the structure was not a historical landmark. Even they were surprised by the outcry from the public.

Simply because a building is excluded from the National Register of Historic Places does not mean it lacks significance. The National Register is not an exhaustive listing of "historical landmarks," nor is every listed structure, frankly, noteworthy. The reasoning, "Building X isn't listed on the National Register (or a local register); therefore, building X isn't historic" — common among even self-proclaimed lovers of history — reveals an ignorance about the Register itself, and about what the word "historic" truly means.

I've encountered some individuals who decry the National Register as a violation of property rights. They ought to visit the program's website:

• National Register listing places no obligations on private property owners. There are no restrictions on the use, treatment, transfer, or disposition of private property. 

• National Register listing does not lead to public acquisition or require public access. 

• A property will not be listed if, for individual properties, the owner objects, or for districts, a majority of property owners object.

The National Register of Historic Places no more undermines property rights than does a library's local history section.

A Most Delightful Description

With the rise of the social sciences, architectural historians (and, for that matter, professionals in other fields) substituted accuracy and objectivity for creative or poetic description. New works of history, though hardly condescending, lack the vigor of their predecessors. I.T. Frary's Early Homes of Ohio is an excellent example of the "old" way of writing about architecture. In Chapter 6, for example, Frary observes:

A most curious illustration of the naïve manner in which the builder blithely rang the changes on staid classic details is to be found on a doorway near Medina (Plate 128). The crude pilasters on either side are built with entasis, but, apparently feeling the need for more tapering lines to satisfy the eye, the builder deliberately ran flutings which converge from the base, toward the capital, thus solving, for his mind at least, the problem of giving entasis and lightness of proportion to the shaft. 

But this genius did not stop there. He also introduced turned columns, with acorns at the top, on each side of the door and, surmounting each with one volute of an Ionic capital, he stretched that capital, in a triumphant flourish, completely across the doorway, making one capital to grow where two had always grown before.

The home in question stands near Seville, in Medina County, Ohio.

Plate 128, from Early Homes of Ohio. Scanned by Christopher Busta-Peck.

Chalets in Ohio

By 1880, Ohio contained eight distinct Swiss communities, covering portions of Allen, Belmont, Columbiana, Fairfield, Fulton, Hardin, Holmes, Monroe, Putnam, Stark, Tuscarawas, and Wayne counties. Of these, the Holmes County–Tuscarawas County settlement (in today's "Amish Country") was by far the largest, and perhaps the "purest."

Swiss settlements in Ohio. Data sourced from the 1850, 1860, and 1880 censuses, transcribed by FamilySearch.

Most of the Swiss newcomers built log and braced-frame homes of a type common in German-settled regions. The Swiss settlement near Bluffton, Ohio (in Allen and Putnam counties), for example, contains many such dwellings. Traditional chalets were much rarer.

A truly "Swiss" house, sketched by Henry Howe in 1846 for his Historical Collections of Ohio. The building, which stood in Knox Township, Columbiana County, had disappeared by the 1880s. Apparently, other dwellings in the vicinity were of similar design.

I know of only three chalet-like houses constructed in Ohio, all of which, alas, have been destroyed. Henry Howe drew one (illustrated above) for the Columbiana County chapter of Historical Collections of Ohio. He wrote:

[S]o much attached is [the German immigrant] to his fatherland that years often elapse ere there is any perceptible change. The annexed engraving illustrates these remarks. It shows the mud cottage of a German Swiss emigrant, now standing in the neighborhood of others of like character, in the northwestern part of this county. The frame-work is of wood, with the interstices filled with light-colored clay, and the whole surmounted by a ponderous shingled roof a picturesque form. Beside the tenement hop vines are clustering around their slender supporters, while hard by stands the abandoned log-dwelling of the emigrant — deserted for one more congenial with his early predilections.

Howe's remark about German resistance to change is interesting, though hyberbolic, of course. Germans tended to assimilate less quickly than, say, the Scotch-Irish, but assimilate they did.

A second Swiss house stood in York Township, Tuscarawas County. Like the Columbiana County residence, it featured a hybrid hip-gable ("jerkin") roof, central chimney, and cantilevered side porch. The wall beneath this porch was plastered.

Photo from the Donald Hutslar collection; used courtesy of Jean Hutslar. Date unknown. Depicted are members of the Zurcher and Trachsel families. The house overlooked Stone Creek.

A few miles northwest, in Wayne Township, Tuscarawas County, existed another blatantly Swiss home, which, astoundingly, lasted into the 1970s. It, too, had a central chimney and "ponderous" hip-gable roof supported by curved brackets. Michael Miller photographed the building in 1972 for his article "Half-Timber Construction: A Relic Building Method in Ohio" (co-published with Hubert Wilhelm in a 1974 issue of Pioneer America), but, in the piece, he completely overlooks its "chalet-ness."

Photo, 1971, used courtesy of Vintage Aerial. Unfortunately, the dwelling was razed about 1978.

Photo by Michael Miller, July 1972, from "Half-Timber Construction: A Relic Building Method in Ohio," published in Pioneer America.

In "Half-Timber Construction," Wilhelm and Miller describe another "Bernese" half-timbered dwelling, apparently situated in eastern Tuscarawas County. It's not clear, though, whether this home (abandoned in 1972, and certainly demolished) was a proper chalet. If other chalet-like houses remain in Ohio, I've yet to locate them.

Overhanging Plates, Again

I've penned a few posts about the mysterious overhanging plate, which, though common in the Upper South and Midwest, remains largely unstudied. Last month, while idling in my college's library, I discovered an early (1952) mention of the overhanging plate in Hugh Morrison's Early American Architecture. On page 168, Morrison writes:

The topmost logs at the ends of the cabin were projected to carry the wall plate forward, thus offering a modicum of protection from rain to the lower wall.

This "cabin" (truly a log house of "saddlebag" plan) stood in Caldwell County, North Carolina, near Blowing Rock. In 1938, Frances Benjamin Johnston photographed the home, then inhabited by one Mrs. Mary Gregg, for her Carnegie Survey of Architecture of the South.

Photo, 1938, by Frances B. Johnston, from the Carnegie Survey of Architecture of the South. Scanned by the Library of Congress.

In Early American Architecture, Morrison suggests the overhanging plate exists to shelter walls from rain, a theory equally plausible as mine (that the overhanging plate evolved from the butting pole). Of course, neither conjecture is provable.

The Gregg residence's logs were unusually well-handled; if I knew no better, I'd describe them as "circular-sawed."

Note the steeple notching, closely-fitted logs, and overhanging plate. The chamfered side log is standard.

An Unnamed House-Type

Contemporary architectural historians tend to classify buildings by type, much as a biologist groups plant leaves by size and shape. Thus, we see, in books and survey reports, such colorful terms as "I-house," "Foursquare," "gable-front," and "shotgun." Though useful, these terms are often ill-defined, and, in my opinion, little better than the stylistic labels they supplanted. (Most early historians of American architecture, like I.T. Frary and Rexford Newcomb, saw buildings as works of art, and described them accordingly.) For the sake of this post, though, I'll abandon my skepticism and invent a house-type of my own.

Scattered throughout Ohio are homes of strikingly similar design (as similar as, say, the state's many "I-houses" or "upright-and-wings"), but which, so far as I'm aware, remain unmentioned in architectural literature. Buildings of this type are invariably one-and-a-half stories in height (the upper half-story being wholly tucked beneath the roof) and quite "deep," with long side walls. In form, they vaguely resemble the braced frame "Cape Cod" residences of coastal New England. Where they stand, they predominate. These buildings have long intrigued me, but, until recently, I knew little about their origin.

Before continuing, I should give a few examples:

House, Miami Township, Greene County, Ohio. Owned by William R. Corry (1826–1885) in 1874; Corry was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Photo, 2012, from the Greene County Auditor's website.

House, Bethel Township, Clermont County, Ohio. Inhabited by Joshua Smart, a native of Pennsylvania, in 1870. Image, undated, from the Clermont County Auditor's website.

House, Brush Creek Township, Highland County, Ohio. Occupied by S.C. Seaman in 1880. Photo, October 2008, from Google Maps.

House, Nottingham Township, Harrison County, Ohio. Owned by one S. Ramsey in 1875. The Ramsey family emigrated from Ireland to York County, Pennsylvania, in the 18th century. Photo, June 2012, from Google Maps.

Homes of the form I've described, it seems, are unique to regions of Scotch-Irish settlement. In The Architecture of Migration, Donald Hutslar briefly describes the group's history:

These people were the Scotch-Irish — Protestant Lowland Scots who had largely resided in stone cottages in northern Ireland a few generations before emigrating to the [American] colonies in several waves[,] beginning early in the eighteenth century.

Between 1800 and 1830, many families of Scotch-Irish descent moved from Pennsylvania to eastern Ohio, settling, primarily, in the Seven Ranges and U.S. Military District. The counties of Guernsey, Harrison, and Jefferson, especially, contained concentrated Scotch-Irish populations. Scotch-Irish, from both Pennsylvania and the Upper South, also settled in the Virginia Military District, and elsewhere in Ohio (though in lesser numbers).

Interestingly, the house-type I've described seems confined to the Midwest. Most extant Scotch-Irish dwellings in southwestern Pennsylvania bear little resemblance to the Ohio house-type; neither do buildings in Virginia and the Carolinas. Precisely where, and when, the "Scotch-Irish box" (inelegant, yes, but so is "upright-and-wing") arose is unclear. Its origin may lie in Pennsylvania, or in Ireland or Scotland.

Dublin's Log Houses

Dublin, platted by John Sells and John Shields about 1810, is one of Franklin County's oldest settlements. According to legend, Shields, an Irishman, named the community for his nation's most prominent city. About 1812, when the Ohio legislature chose to move the state capitol from Chillicothe to a more centrally located city, Dublin was briefly a contender. Despite recent suburban growth, Dublin retains quite a few of its early buildings, two or three of which are log.

Sands House

A standard single pen log building, now vacant. The gable-end entrance is certainly an alteration, as is the shed-roofed dormer. This home retains no original interior features, though, according to a 1976 Ohio Historic Inventory form, its "log construction [is] visible in [the] attic." In 1872, the heirs of one J. Sands owned this lot. Precisely who erected the home, and when, will likely remain a mystery.

The sill is half-dovetailed. Note the faux "foundation," visible to the left; this house, like most log structures, rests atop stone blocks placed at the corners.

Black Horse Tavern

Though several books label this a log building, the Ohio Historic Inventory describes it as, simply, "frame." Eliud Sells, son of Dublin's founder, built (or enlarged) the structure about 1842; the log section, if it indeed exists, may predate the 1840s. The name "Black Horse Tavern" has been applied to multiple Dublin buildings (one being Sells' house, an 1824 stone structure), the earliest of which was no doubt constructed of logs.

The exposed firebox enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Federal era (in Ohio, roughly 1800–1835).

Board House

This home, though early, receives scant mention in city histories; indeed, Dublin's first Ohio Historic Inventory survey, completed in 1975 and 1976, overlooked it entirely, and one later survey misidentified its construction date as "circa 1910." Whether it is truly a log house — or simply a frame building with unusually deep thresholds — I can't say with certainty.

The small, off-center window, barely visible to the left of the conifer, is a feature standard to early 19th century homes.

Binegar (?) Log House

Perry Township, Fayette County, Ohio

In south-central Fayette County, Ohio, near the unincorporated community of Buena Vista, lie the ruins of a small log home; the structure remained standing, albeit precariously, until at least 2012.

Its history is somewhat mysterious; the 1875 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Fayette County, Ohio, omits the home. Perhaps it was moved from another locality.

George W. Binegar (1827–1886); a native of Virginia, like most of the county's early residents; owned the 30-acre property in 1875. By 1913, ownership had passed to one R. Jones (either Randolph or Robert), who farmed a mere ten acres.

Though diminutive, the building was well-built. Note the steeple notching, intact daubing, firebox opening, and clay pipe (for an interior stove, which replaced the fireplace). The firebox itself, barely visible, is of stone construction; the chimney was brick. A partition wall divided the plastered interior into two rooms of equal size.

Vacant, little-modified log buildings, many abandoned during and shortly after the Great Depression, weren't an uncommon sight in post-World War II Ohio. Most of these homes, alas, have disappeared; the majority of Ohio's extant log structures remain occupied, with substantial alterations.

A Stick Chimney?

In most locales, the earliest and crudest buildings (excepting bark huts, which, if ventilated at all, featured simple roof openings) used exterior chimneys constructed of timber. These "stick-and-clay" or "cat-and-clay" chimneys were, for obvious reasons, quite dangerous, and settlers typically replaced them with masonry chimneys when finances permitted. Andrew Young's History of Wayne County, Indiana (1872) provides a good description of the stick chimney:

A wide chimney place was cut out of one end of the building, and split timbers laid up for jambs, flat sides inward, extending out from the building. This little structure supported the chimney which stood entirely outside of the house, and was built of the rived sticks before mentioned, laid up cob-house* fashion, gradually narrowed in at the top. The spaces between the sticks were filled with clay of the consistency of common mortar. Hence the name of "stick and clay" chimney. The inside of these wooden jambs was covered several feet high with a thick coat of clay or dirt to protect them against fire. The hearth was also dirt.

A standard stick chimney. This building, presumably occupied by freedmen, stood in North Carolina. Image from the Keystone-Mast Collection, held by the University of California. Date and photographer unknown.

In The Architecture of Migration, Donald Hutslar mentions "a carte de visit photograph, of about 1865, showing a catted chimney protected by an enormous gable overhang; the cabin was apparently located in a southern state." The Thornhill Plantation slave quarters (razed), in Greene County, Alabama, were similarly designed:

Photo from the Historic American Buildings Survey collection; date and photographer unknown. By 1935, masonry flues had replaced the stick chimneys.

Just north of the village of Chesapeake, in Union Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, stood a small log house with a similar overhanging gable.

Photo by C. Tim Jones, 1986, from the Ohio Historic Inventory.

The home — quite crudely built, like many dwellings in impoverished Lawrence County — likely postdated 1887 (a property ownership atlas published that year omits the structure). Some Southerners immigrated to the Hanging Rock Iron Region in the 19th century; one may have erected this residence. Given the gable overhang, it's conceivable that the house featured a stick chimney when constructed.

* A "cob-house" is a stack of corn cobs, used as a toy. Nineteenth century authors frequently compare log buildings to "cob pens" or "cob houses"; evidently, the practice was well-known. In early America, isolation produced inventive and frugal children, it seems!

A Most Curious Log House

Salt Creek Township, Pickaway County, Ohio

This house, despite its small size, features both a "crosswall" and a medial post. If the square notching and narrow logs are any indication, it was likely sided soon after construction, and may date from the mid- or late 19th century. Perhaps, the township had become denuded of large timber by this time, forcing the home's builder to employ the odd medial post-crosswall combination. The medial post appears almost exclusively in areas of German settlement; it is unsurprising, then, that most of Salt Creek Township's early residents were Pennsylvanians of German descent.

The building, owned by J. Markel or J. Butterbach in 1871, sits within the cluster of houses comprising the defunct settlement of Stringtown.

("Stringtown," incidentally, is a name shared by many Ohio communities. All Stringtowns are diminutive; the moniker, I suspect, describes the settlements' appearance — houses "strung out" along a road.)

Salt Creek Township lies at the western edge of the Allegheny Plateau. The region, being both hilly and agriculturally wealthy, is quite scenic.

The intersection of South Perry Road and Tarlton-Adelphi Road, looking east. The township's namesake stream, Salt Creek, occupies this valley. Pumpkin Ridge rises in the background.

The Art of Architecture in Hillsdale County: Part 2

The Italianate style, indirectly inspired by the villas of rural Italy, predominated in the decades following the Civil War, which roughly marks the turn from neoclassical to picturesque (or, in common usage, “Victorian”) architecture. (1) After the war, Greek Revival buildings were seldom built. Some academics schooled in the classical tradition scorned the exuberance of late 19th century structures; as the designer I.T. Frary quipped in 1936, early builders “had never gotten the knack of making ugly things, an art in which their descendants excelled." (2)

Though hardly matching the classical elegance of, say, a marble colonnade in an Alma-Tadema painting, the buildings erected in Hillsdale between 1865 and 1900 reveal an optimism unique to the post-war period. Two buildings on the Hillsdale College campus illustrate the Italianate style particularly well. The Lorenzo Dow House, now a dormitory, is a textbook example of the type, with its asymmetry, tall tower (emulating the Italian campanile, or bell tower), generous roof overhang, and bracketed eaves. 

Central Hall, which replaced the original Hillsdale College building after an 1874 fire, is also chiefly Italianate.

If the Italianate and Gothic Revival styles (the latter omitted from this essay because of its scarcity in Hillsdale County) brought about the architectural eclecticism of the late 19th century, the group of related styles collectively termed “Queen Anne” perfected it. Such architecture originated as an American response to the work of British designers Richard Norman Shaw and Charles Eastlake. Carpenters, using jigsaws, turning lathes, and other woodworking tools, (3) freely combined motifs from various styles, adorning their creations with rich ornamentation. So-called “Victorian” homes are undeniably showy (see, for example, the colorfully painted Jonesville residence illustrated in this article), and, for some, obnoxious. The men who built these houses at least deserve to be commended for their invention, though.

About the turn-of-the-century, classicism once again enjoyed a renaissance.  The earliest Classical Revival residences of this period melded late 19th century forms with Greco-Roman ornamentation; at least one guidebook categorizes such architecture as a subset of the Queen Anne style, (4) rather than a style in itself. The Classical Revival mode was particularly popular for institutional structures, and architects designed innumerable courthouses, libraries, post offices, and banks in the style. In Hillsdale, notable Classical Revival buildings include the 1911 City Hall, 1912 Post Office, and a number of residences.

Neoclassicism never disappeared entirely (indeed, certain classical motifs have become clichés in suburbia), but its relevance diminished in the postmodern era. Greco-Roman architecture, it seems, is yet again in vogue, if the rift between the Hillsdale College buildings erected in the 1950s and 1960s (Simpson, McIntyre, and Olds dorms, especially) and those constructed in the last decade is any indication. That “traditional” architecture persists in the West, despite intervening faddish periods, is a testament to its brilliance.

1) Though the Italianate style emerged before the Civil War, it did not supplant the earlier Greek Revival mode until the war’s end. Hillsdale County, a location relatively isolated in the 1860s, contains few pre-1860 Italianate buildings; most standing examples exist in urban centers and dot the wealthy East Coast.
2) Ithna Thayer Frary, Early Homes of Ohio (Richmond: Garrett & Massie, 1936), 232.
3) Ibid., 237.
4) Virginia and Lee McAlester’s A Field Guide to American Houses describes these transitional buildings as “free classic.”

The Art of Architecture in Hillsdale County: Part 1

This blog is titled "Historic Architecture of Ohio"; why post a piece about Hillsdale County, Michigan, then? Because architecture, as an art, is deeply influenced by national trends; though I've illustrated the essay with photos of Michigan buildings, I could have easily chosen Lebanon, Chillicothe, or any number of Ohio communities as my subject city. In architecture, regional variation abounds, but, as Frary noted, "[o]riginality was not allowed too much license, else we should not find such close adherence to classic forms and details."

My apologies for the sloppy formatting and inconsistent spacing between paragraphs. Blogger is hardly an appropriate medium for publishing footnote-filled essays.

I plan to submit the article to the Hillsdale Forum, a student-run publication of Hillsdale College.

Buildings are both the most abundant and least appreciated of artistic creations. Ask an educated man to envision art, and he will, more than likely, imagine merely da Vinci's Mona Lisa or the jarring cubism of Picasso. The lowly Greek Revival residence a few blocks from his home hardly merits notice. Paintings and sculptures, cloistered in museums and displayed proudly in parlors, draw praise, whereas the myriad dwellings constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries receive scant attention from lovers of art history, perhaps because they are commonplace. By nature, humans tend to overlook the ordinary. Yet buildings serve as the most tangible evidence of a society's history and its perception of beauty.

The city and county of Hillsdale, like many American communities, encapsulate the country’s changing tastes in architecture. Hillsdale County was formed from the Michigan Territory in 1829 and organized in 1835; Jonesville, platted in 1830, functioned as the first county seat, or center of government. (1) In 1843, this government chose to relocate to Hillsdale, a town slightly closer than Jonesville to the county’s center. In both locales, interesting buildings abound.

The northeasterners — natives of New York state, mostly — who flocked to Michigan’s Lower Peninsula in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, constructed primarily braced frame (2) residences in the Greek Revival style, in accordance with the architectural norms of their homeland. Unlike other Midwestern states, Michigan never witnessed the development of a rich tradition of log construction (3) (though log structures were, and remain, common in the forested counties of the Upper Peninsula, a region of Scandinavian settlement), and the state was populated too late to enjoy the formal architecture of the Federal period (approximately 1788–1835).

Thus, Hillsdale’s architectural legacy begins in the Greek Revival era. Grecian architecture rose to prominence in America by the 1840s, inspired by Jefferson’s Palladian experiments (4) and the temples of democratic Athens, and popularized by the pattern books of Minard Lafever and Asher Benjamin. Two of Hillsdale County’s finest extant examples of the style, the William Murphy House and Munro House, stand in Jonesville. The Munro House, slightly awkward in its proportions, is the earlier of the two (reportedly the oldest structure existing in the county), having been constructed in stages between 1834 and 1840. 

Murphy built his splendid house between 1845 and 1850, though its Ionic porch was apparently appended in 1911. 

A similarly detailed Doric porch, with entasis (bulging columns) and triglyphs (grooved tablets), adorns Hillsdale College’s own Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house.

1) History of Hillsdale County, Michigan (Philadelphia: Everts & Abbott, 1879), 124.

2) “Braced frame” is synonymous with “timber frame” and “post-and-beam”; this method of framing uses heavy timbers and mortise-and-tenon joints instead of the light studding of balloon framing, which had become standard by the late 19th century.

3) Crude log buildings, intended for temporary occupation, were erected in Hillsdale County during the settlement period (an image of one appears in the Hillsdale Community Library’s Mitchell Research Center), but the region’s early residents replaced their cabins with frame homes rather than well-finished log houses. The distinction between the terms “log cabin” and “log house” is beyond the scope of this essay.

4) Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), noted Italian architect, drew inspiration from Greco-Roman models. Thomas Jefferson was an early American adherent of the Palladian school.

Knoles Log House

Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio

William Knoles, born in Delaware in 1795, likely commissioned this house about 1820. Evidently, Knoles' dwelling was well-known; the 1917 Standard History of Ross County, Ohio mentions "a substantial hewed log house, which has been weatherboarded on the outside, and ceiled on the inside, and now forms a part of the house occupied by [Charles W. Knoles, William's grandson] and his family."

Originally, the house fronted Southern Avenue, just south of its intersection with East 11th Street (an industrial complex now occupies the site). In the 1970s or 1980s, it was moved to the foot of Adena hill. Another relocation occurred in 1992; currently, the home sits behind the Ross County Historical Society museum.

The structure at its second site. Photo by Brian Hackett (?), August 1990, from the Donald Hutslar collection; used courtesy of Jean Hutslar.

A revealing inscription; presumably, MakDonnal constructed this house for William Knoles. In the 19th century, as now, many better-finished homes were the work of skilled carpenters, rather than owner-builders.

Why Samuel spelled his name "MakDonnal," rather than "McDonnal" or "M'Donnal" (the latter variant was common during the 19th century), is unclear, as is his inversion of the U and L in "Samuel."

The former stairway's location is obvious. Photo by Brian Hackett (?), August 1990, from the Donald Hutslar collection; used courtesy of Jean Hutslar.

Quite a solidly constructed home, with its large logs and well-handled steeple notching. Evidently, the chimney always existed on the interior.

An unusual treatment; sills are typically squared on all sides.

William Scott House

Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio

Certainly Hillsboro's finest classically inspired residence, completed about 1835. The Ohio Historic Places Dictionary, Volume II describes its architecture:

The building displays, through its overall massing and details, Georgian style architectural features. It exhibits classically influenced detailing which includes doorways with elliptical fanlights, six-over-six multi-paned windows, molded fascia board along the roofline, entrance porticoes with fluted Doric columns and pilasters. The unique cupola and projecting bay on the west elevation may have been later additions, since their detailing suggests the romantic influence of the Italianate style of the mid-19th century.

The author's labeling of the home as "Georgian" is perhaps labored; though it shares certain features — its cubic form and classical ornamentation, most prominently — with the style, the Scott House postdates the Georgian era.

The east porch. Note the differences between the home's doorways; this entrance features double doors, while the main entrance is trabeated, with sidelights.

The rear elevation.

This structure, like the Blackstone and Renick smokehouses, features ventilation slits clustered in the shape of a diamond. Presumably, Scott was a Virginian.