My Own Old House (part 1)

The house that captured my heart when we moved to Wyoming dates from about 1874/1875. Its footprint appears on a map published in 1875 by the Wyoming Land and Building Company (WLBCo) in a flyer advertising the lots for sale in their subdivision, the former Archibald Burns farm. At that time, the street was named Wiley Ave., after Burns’ grandson. This home and one across the street were built while the lots were owned by the WLBCo, and were sold to men who were partners in that enterprise, but who lived elsewhere in the community.

1875 Map--house is on lot 4, at the bottom, on what was then called Wiley Ave.

The house’s brick construction is unusual for the period in Wyoming. Most other Wyoming homes built in the late nineteenth century were wooden—many of the early real estate investors and developers in Wyoming were members of the Stearns Family, which owned the Lockland Lumber Company. The stickwork in the house's gables is quite elaborate, and is very similar to that found on several homes of the same general style and floor plan (but built of wood) in blocks to the south, in what was the Village of Hartwell (now part of the city of Cincinnati). Were these homes all the work of the same carpenter/builder?

I have many unanswered questions about the early history of my house. Why did the WLBCo build it? It is not likely that it was a “model home” as we see in subdivisions today. In the 19th century, it was not the subdividers, but lot buyers who contracted for home construction. Was it built to earn money for the WLBCo through rents? A place for lot purchasers to live while their own nearby home was constructed? An example of the kind of construction WLBCo owners hoped to see on adjacent lots?

In 1878, four years after the house was built, Joseph F. Jewett (1835-1922) and Cecilia E. Jewett (1842-1914) purchased it. He was one of the partners in the WLBCo. They lived on Springfield Pike, and Joseph Jewett was also partner in a Cincinnati company that manufactured paper and cloth bags, primarily intended to hold flour and grain.  He was characteristic of many of the early residents of Wyoming—prosperous men who had lived in Cincinnati and continued to run businesses there, but who decided to move their family to one of the quickly growing suburban enclaves outside the city.

It is difficult to discover who lived in the home through the 1870s and 1880s. House numbers had not yet been assigned in Wyoming, so I can only make educated guesses (by process of elimination) about who likely lived in the house, when looking at U.S. Census records and City/County directories. In upcoming posts I will have more information on the first family I can document living in the house, and then several of those who followed.