| Additional Information: | 1974: RETURNED EAVES,PILASTERS ADDITIONS*
2010: The house rises from a fieldstone foundation and is comprised of a one-story, hipped-roof, clapboard-sheathed wing with corner pilasters located to either side of a central, one-and-one-half-story, aluminum- sheathed wing. This central wing is fronted by a circa-1950s, one-story, shed-roofed addition on a brick foundation; an entrance is located along the south wall, while a tripartite picture window along its primary, east elevation. Windows throughout the house are largely one-over-one-light, double-hung sashes. An early photograph of the home indicates that the central gabled section of the house was oriented to the south and was, thus, originally side-gabled in form (and without the hipped-roof wings) rather than the front-gabled appearance (with wings to either side) it offers today.
The subject property is believed to have been owned by Mills Church by no later than 1837 and, based on the appearance of the original, central block of the home, it is likely that the house was built in the 1840s. Mills Church was born circa 1818 in Connecticut. He and his brother Cyrus (See discussion for N1307 USH 14) are among the early settlers of Walworth County. Mills married Mary Daniels in 1844 and, as of the 1860 census, he is identified as a farmer. In 1868, the property was purchased by Benjamin S. Merwin, who also hailed from Connecticut. He and his wife Lucy, as well as a few of his grown children occupied the farm from 1868 to 1877, after which it was owned by their son George Herman Merwin. Although George moved into the village in 1895, he retained ownership of the farm through at least 1912. By 1921, the farm had transferred ownership to William Redpath. The property has been owned by the Peterson family since 1952.
2024: House was the property's primary historical asset and was demolished sometime between 2013 and 2015. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Map of Walworth Wisconsin (Elkhorn, WI: Redding & Watson, 1857)
Combined Atlas map of Walworth, Wisconsin (Chicago: Everts, Baskin & Stewart, 1873)
Plat Book of Walworth County, WI (Minneapolis: North West Publishing Co., 1891)
Standard Atlas of Walworth Co., WI (Delavan, WI: Hennessey & co., 1921)
Beckwith, The History of Walworth County Wisconsin (1912) vol. 2: 438; 869-70.
U.S. Federal Census, 1860, 1870
"The Historical Society of Walworth & Big Foot Prairie, Inc. Drive-by Farm and Barn Tour, 23 July 2008," 1-2.
“Architecture/History Survey: Reconstruct USH 14: Illinois State Line To I-43.” WHS project number 11-0524/WL. July 2010, rechecked February 2011. Heritage Research, Ltd. |
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