Second House of Curtis Gilbert

Description:	Drawing of the second house of Curtis Gilbert by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Architect and Artist. Curtis Gilbert Home on Ohio Street, Drawing by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Architect and Artist.The second home of Curtis Gilbert was located at 618 Ohio Street where Roots furniture store now stands. It was set well back from the street with a broad lawn in front. To the east, where the Congregational church now stands, was the garden and to the west, at the corner, there was a small cemetery in early days.I have not been able to establish the exact time that this house was built, but family tradition has it in the early thirties. Mr. Gilbert married Mary C. King, his second wife, in 1834 and it seems reasonable to suppose that the house was built at this time. Family records indicate that he left this house and moved to the farm in 1843. The house on the farm was located in what is now Steeg Park and was treated in an earlier article in this series.Mr. Gilberts daughter Harriet and her husband, John S. Beach, went to housekeeping in the house on Ohio Street in 1856, and lived here for some years.The photograph from which this picture was made was taken about seventy-five years ago when the Beaches lived here, shortly before a second story was added to the house.The Edward Gilbert family lived here after the Beaches. Following their occupancy the house was rented to the Harry Townley family and several others who lived here for only short periods each.In the course of time the property came into the possession of John S. Beachs daughter, Susan, and her husband, Spencer Ball. About 1906 the Balls had the old house taken down and erected a business building called the Ball building. Several different business concerns have occupied the building. Perhaps the Root furniture store, which is on the ground floor, has been there longest, having first taken the space about 1915.This house is particularly interesting to me because of its design. It is quite different from the usual types I have encountered in this region, though quite in character with the architecture existing elsewhere in this period. The H or U shaped plan with a long porch enclosed between projecting wings all facing the street side was not the common type here. I know of one or two others with this plan, but they are all two-story houses. In appearance this house has much in common with a certain type of one-story house which is being built today.With Ohio Street the busy thoroughfare it is now it is hard to visualize it when it was in the quiet outskirts of the early village, and had only a few houses such as the one above situated along its way.
Origin:	01/01/2005
Contributor(s):	Peddle, Juliet, 1899-1979
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rose/id/863
Collection:	Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/
Copyright:	Copyright Undetermined
Subjects:	Architectural drawings Architecture Houses Gilbert, Curtis, 1795-1877 Architecture Domestic Life

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