Houses of the Pioneers

There were few genuine log houses in the early settlement. The first buildings erected by the fur traders were of logs, either round or hewed on two sides. In the fall of 1833 Luther Lincoln, built a log hut north of Pearl street, along the Arcade. Later, a frame addition was made to it, the the residence was a boarding house at which many an immigrant found temporary shelter. In the spring of 1835 James Clark purchased an acre of ground at what was then the head of Fountain street, just east of Ransom, and erected on it a log dwelling. In the summer of 1834 Josiah Burton cleared a small piece of land on the east side of Division avenue, and there, alongside a spring and a brook, built a log house. He also had a little garden in which he raised corn. There was a log house east of Madison avenue and south of Cherry street, and a few south of the Eagle tavern. John Almy built the first stone house here in 1839. It stood on the north side of Crescent street, next the Kent alley. The first stone structures on the west side of the river were the dwellings of E. H. Turner, on Front avenue, completed in 1846, and the residence of George W. Daniels, and soon thereafter the dwellings of Boardman Noble and Ebenezer Anderson. These buildings are there today, but the Noble home has been covered with plaster. Other old time stone residences on the west side that have survived to the present are the Judge Holcomb at Tenth and Front, the Jonathan Chubb at Leonard and Front, and another at Fourth and Front. The stone house on the northwest corner of Lyon street and Ransom avenue was built in the early days and before Lyon street was graded. Its high elevation above the intersecting streets shows how deep was the cut in the hill before the grading was completed.

 

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Transcriber: Ronnie Aungst
Created: 16 January 2000