Description: |
Drawing of the the Preston House by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect. The Preston House. Drawing By Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect.The Preston House, which stands at Thirteenth and One-half and Poplar streets, is one of the oldest houses remaining to us of early Terre Haute, being built about 1833. The property was a farm at the time the house was built, so the house was not actually in the town, but the families who lived in these houses within a few miles of Terre Haute were part of the community and many of them had business interests in town as well as running their farms.The house was constructed by Major Dewees who came up from New Orleans some years earlier. Very little is definitely known about him but it is said that he was a Frenchman who left France for political reasons, settling first in New Orleans, where he is supposed to have been a slave trader, and later coming to Indiana. It would seem that he became attached to the style of architecture of the New Orleans houses during his sojourn there, and when he built his house It was in the Southern style rather than the style prevailing in this part of the country that he built. The high basement containing some of the living rooms of the house and the gallery across the front are the noticeable characteristics which identify it with the southern houses of this period. Of the circumstances of his life very little has come down to us, perhaps he had reason to be dour and taciturn, and have fierce dogs to keep the neighbors away. Tradition has it that his son was scalped by the Indians and that his wife disappeared. Certainly, his life was colorful if not peaceful.About 1840 the house was purchased by Nathaniel Preston, whose family has occupied it ever since. The old servants' quarters at the back have been removed and some alterations made at the rear of the house itself, but the main portion of the house is essentially unchanged.For all that this house had only four main rooms and two halls as originally constructed, it is probably the most finished house of this period in the Terre Haute area, with its nicely proportioned wood work and interesting doors, almost monumental in scale, and it is to be hoped that it may not have to be torn down to make way for modern needs of the community, but may stand and be preserved as a monument to days gone by. |
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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/853 |
Collection: |
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library |
Rights: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/ |
Copyright: |
Copyright Undetermined |
Subjects: |
Architectural drawings Architecture Houses Preston, Nathaniel Architecture Domestic Life |
Further information on this record can be found at its source.