Daniel Voorhees House

Description:	Drawing of the Daniel Voorhees House by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect. THE DANIEL W. VOORHEES HOUSE. Drawn by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect.The Voorhees House stood at 212 North Eighth Street on one of the lots now occupied by the Masonic Temple.This property was part of a large tract of land in this part of town which was owned by Chauncey Rose in early years. Mr. Rose sold this lot to Julia and Jules Houriet in 1859 for $900. Mr. Houriet was a jeweler in the city at that time. I believe they erected a house right away because when they sold to James H. Turner in 1860, the value of the property had increased to $3,300 which would suggest the addition of a house in the interval between sales. Mr. Turner sold to Mathew Linn in 1863 and must have gone from here to the house on Ohio Street mentioned in an earlier article. Mr. Linn then sold to John Dickson in 1867. The same year Daniel and Anna Voorhees purchased the house.Daniel W. Voorhees was born in 1827 in Butler County, Ohio, where his mothers people had come from Maryland. His father, who was born in Kentucky, derived from New Jersey. Voorhees graduated from Asbury College and studied law with a Crawfordsville firm. He first established himself in Covington as a partner of E. A. Hannagan and located in Terre Haute in 1857.Daniel Voorhees had a gift for oratory and soon found a prominent place for himself in public life. In 1858 he was appointed U. S. district attorney for Indiana, and was elected to congress in 1860, 1862, 1868 and 1870. Upon the death of Senator Morton in 1869 he wag appointed to fill the unexpired term in the U. S. Senate, and in 1878 was elected by the legislature to that office, which he filled with ability for three terms until his death in 1897.Many interesting stories are told of Mr. Voorhees which cannot be recounted in so short a sketch as this, but he was a colorful figure and had many friends. His southern sympathies during the Civil War put some of his friendships to a severe test, but in the main they survived the crisis and he continued to be a popular figure.In 1878 the property came into the possession of Janet Tuller and was sold to William Paddock the following year. The Paddock family owned the house until 1904 when it was sold to Joseph Elder. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Paddock lived in this house during the latter part of this period and I am indebted to them for the picture upon which the above drawing is based.This is one of the difficult houses to name. The original builder had it so short a time that he is hardly identified with it, and the Paddocks would be the logical ones to name it for because of their long occupancy. However, there is another early house that might even more rightfully be called the Paddock house and Daniel Voorhees has no other with which he was identified for any length of time as the owner, hence the Daniel Voorhees house.Mr. Elder sold the house to Mr. W. W. Parsons in 1906 and he sold it to the Masonic Temple Association in 1912. They have owned the property ever since, the house being torn down before the temple was built.This house is interesting to me in that it has the simple lines of the houses which were usually built earlier than 1859 when it was constructed. The cornice and columns of the porch are more in character with what might be expected for this period, but harmonious with the rest of the house. It was located in a part of town, which like downtown Ohio Street, has changed so completely that most of the old homes which once stood there have completely disappeared.
Origin:	01/01/2005
Contributor(s):	Peddle, Juliet, 1899-1979
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rose/id/854
Collection:	Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/
Copyright:	Copyright Undetermined
Subjects:	Architectural drawings Architecture Houses Voorhees, Daniel W. (Daniel Wolsey), 1827-1897 Architecture Domestic Life

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