Description: |
Drawing of Ross house which stood on an Eminence at Fifteenth Street and Washington Avenue by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect. The Ross Home Which Stood on an Eminence at Fifteenth street and Washington avenue. Drawing by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect.The ROSS HOUSE stood north of Hulman Street between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets on a hill overlooking what was then the Wabash & Erie Canal but is now the railroad tracks.This house was built by John C. Ross, whose early home was in Searsport, Me., where he was a customhouse officer and a merchant. In 1839 he and his wife and two sons, Frederick and Clifford, moved to Oxford, Ohio, where they lived until they moved to Terre Haute in 1847. A daughter, Charlotte, was born while they were in Ohio.Mr. Ross opened a store in Terre Haute which the early directories indicate carried dry goods and groceries. In 1854 his son, Frederick, went into the business with him. It was this son who later was elected mayor of Terre Haute. In the same year he purchased a good sized plot of ground in the outskirts of the town on the bank of the canal where he planned to build a house. At that time it was an ideal spot for a home - near enough to town to get in regularly to conduct business but actually in the country, and the canal provided a constant source of interest as the passing boats could be seen from the house.I thought when I started looking up the material on this house that Mr. Ross had built soon after purchasing the land in 1854, but the directory of 1858 still gives his residence as down in town and not until 1864 do we find him given at the address of his new home. The house must have been built in 1862 or 1863 in order for him to have got settled in the house and listed in the directory by 1864.The above illustration was made from a photograph taken shortly before it was demolished and does not show it at its best as time had then laid its hand rather heavily on the house. I have not tried to restore it to its original state for lack of information which would enable me to do it accurately. One feature which had gone by the time this picture was taken was the cupola or Widow's Walk, which was in the center of the house. Mr. Ross came of a seafaring background and his great grandchildren, the Rosses of Butternut Hill, tell me that he added this feature because it recalled the houses he knew and loved in his early home. Besides with the house perched up on the hill the way it was and no houses intervening there must have been a fine view of the town and the surrounding countryside from this cupola.The house was well built and had especially fine woodwork and a most interesting stairway. For a number of years it must have been the attractive spot its builder intended it to be. There were trees then, and Mr. Ross planted shrubs and there was a border of yucca plants on each side of the drive leading down to Hulman street, several of which can be seen today. Many good times were had in the house. I have been told by Miss Rulia Mahan, who lived a short distance down the canal from there then, of seeing a crowd of young people come to a party at the Ross house by way of the canal, the young people singing as the boat approached. After a few years, however, the canal was filled and the railroad took the right of way and dirt and smoke and industry crept in in the wake of the trains.In 1871 Mr. Ross died and for some time his widow, Mrs. Mary H. Ross, lived in the house by herself. In 1894 Mr. William McKenzie bought the property and during the period preceding 1906 Mrs. McKenzie conducted an orphanage in the house. Just what the duration of this venture was I do not know, but in 1905 Mr. Leonard Mahan bought it.Since 1937 it has been owned by the Chauncey Rose School. Shortly after the property came into the hands of the school the house, which had then fallen into a bad state of repair, was taken down. There is nothing to mark the site today except the cellar hole and the yucca plants.We regret losing an interesting house like this one but when its environment changes as completely as this one has, it is perhaps better that they be entirely removed and keep the old house only in memory for in our imagination we can restore it to its original appearance and are not disturbed by the changes which have taken place. |
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Origin: | 01/01/2005 |
Contributor(s): |
Peddle, Juliet, 1899-1979 |
Source: |
http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rose/id/842 |
Collection: |
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library |
Rights: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/ |
Copyright: |
Copyright Undetermined |
Subjects: |
Architectural drawings Architecture Houses Orphanages Ross, John Clifford, 1809-1871 Architecture Domestic Life |
Further information on this record can be found at its source.