James J. Eldred House
Statement of Significance.
The James J Eldred House is a significant example of a Greene County adaptation of Greek Revival architecture, but the site upon which it sits had been occupied many times prior to American settlement in the region after A.D 1821. Archaeological excavations conducted at the site in the 1990’s suggest at least three periods of site occupations by indigenous populations. The Center for American Archaeology discovered prehistoric deposits at the base of the bluff that resemble those at the nearby Koster site, the subject of excavations over several decades. Prior discovery of stratified Middle/Late Archaic (ca. 2000B.C.), Middle Woodland (ca. 50 B.C. - A.D. 250), and Late Woodland (ca. A.D. 900-1100) evidence has been supplemented by recent work. This indicates investigations of late Middle Woodland deposits approximately 85 cm below the surface of the ground in the front yard of the house. Archaeological teams have uncovered “mixed late Middle Woodland/Late Woodland/Jersey Bluff” ceramics on the site.
The history of the Eldred property is tied to the expansion of the United States into the Old Northwest territories following the American Revolution and the gradual settlement of Illinois by easterners early in the nineteenth century. Born in 1796 in Connecticut Ward Eldred had his eye on Illinois while it was still a territory. He and his cousin Swift traveled by foot from their home in New York’s Mohawk valley to Illinois in 1818 in the months just before statehood, surveying land in northern Madison County (presently Greene County ) before returning to New York. Although the Eldreds were not closely associated with the Russells, Robleys, and Spencers, important early settlers of Greene County who hailed from the Bennington area of Vermont, they held those New Englander’s antislavery views. The Eldreds had waited for assurances that Illinois would not enter the union as a slave state before committing themselves to moving west. A letter from Madison County resident George Churchill to Swift Eldred, dated 1818, addresses this concern. Churchill had made the acquaintance to Swift during the Eldred visit, and informed Swift that the state constitutional convention has “decided against slavery in general,” though the presence of previously owned slaves was as yet undecided. Churchill is optimistic about the prospects for Yankee settlement; he hopes for “Yankee Fashion” ballot- based elections and for ridding the new state of the “little remnant of slavery.”
Ward married his first of four wives in January, 1819 and promptly returned to west central Illinois with his brother Elon and a herd of sheep the two had driven from Ohio. In March 1820, his father, Jehosophat, and a clan of twelve other family members journeyed from New York to Illinois, settling west of Carrolton and awaiting the creation of a new county with newly surveyed land. Early in 1821, the Illinois legislature created seven new counties, dividing Madison County in the process to create Greene County. Josophat Eldred and his sons William and Ward purchased Greene County land in January. Ward purchased five 80 acre (one eight section) tracts in Sections 17 , 20, and 21 of township 10. His family probably made their initial homestead in section 21. His second son, James John Eldred, was born in 1828.
The land, on which the future J.J. Eldred House was built, at township 10, Range 13, Section 16, is in a section with significance in history of the Old Northwest. The Land Ordinance of 1785 had established a plan of land surveys for territories in the Northwest. Each township was to be divided into 36 square- mile sections. Income from land sales of section 16 were to be set aside for the support of public schools. In fact, territorial education tended to be private and paid for by subscription or nonexistent, and these conditions continued into Illinois statehood despite the legislative efforts to direct funds from section 16 land sales toward education. Rather than using an independent school house built for the purpose, Greene County students could be found in the cabins or houses of local families such as the Russells, transplanted New Englanders who valued learning.
The Center for American Archaeology suggests habitation of the future J.J. Eldred House property during the 1820’s, primarily due to the discovery of domestic debris from that decade during 1990’s excavations. Deed records indicate, however, that the school board commissioner did not sell the property until 1833, and it is likely that the 1830’s occupants owned ceramics and pearl ware dating to the mid-to-late 1820’s. Any 1820’s homesteaders would have been a squatter without title to the land, and such evidence as has been discovered is from excavations made within the walls of a later structure.
The land on which the Eldred House would be built was owned by one of the early settlers of Bluffdale, Richard Robley, but not until several years had elapsed since his migration with an idealistic group of New Englanders. In the late 1820’s several Vermont families, including the Robleys, Spencers, Brushes, and Russells, moved to Greene County and named their new settlement Bluffdale. Richard Robley first purchased 80 acres of land in Section 9, just north of the future Eldred House, in 1823. He later purchased 80 acres in Section 15 to the east. Thestate legislature designated Section 16 land for schools in 1829, but amended the law to allow the sale of such lands in 1831. In 1833 Robley purchased 310 acres of the south half of Section 16 from the Illinois School Commissioner, Samuel Smith, but apparently deferred payment. In 1836, Robley sold the land to Hiram R. Brown, who paid $752 for it and who may have built a dwelling on the site or occupied a Robley-built structure with his wife Hanna. During the Brown ownership, Ward Eldred’s family lived across the road in Section 21. In 1838, the families likely contributed to the construction of distinctive limestone fencing that ran for seven miles along the Bluffdale road. Road widening and paving in the 1930’s destroyed a majority of the fencing.
When Ward Eldred purchased the Section 16 property from Brown in April 1840, he paid $4000 for the 310 acres in Section 16 and 160 acres in Section 17, adding as it did to his extensive holdings in the area. The increased value of the land is probably due in part to the presence of a residential structure and possibly other support structures on the property. This coincides with archaeological evidence pointing to a structure on the site occupied during the 1830’s.
Eldred’s new purchase must have seemed promising indeed, adding as it did to his current holdings. Nestled under a bluff overlooking the Illinois River bottoms, the new property commanded rich farmland. A traveler on the Illinois River that year, Eliza R. Steele, recorded her impressions of the fertile prairie land to the east of the bottom. According to Steele, Greene County contained “excellent land, well settled by eastern families, many from Vermont. .” Her description of this landscape attests to the farming possibilities. Greene was one of the richest portions of land in the state, traversed by fine water courses and bounded by two large rivers,--containing beautiful prairies, and excellent farming. Further south, she noted that the Mississippi cliffs provided not only soft bituminous coal but “sandstone and limestone strata” with “crystal springs” flowing down to the river. Limestone deposits provided characteristic raw material for signature dwellings in the region, including the well-known writer and editor James Russell’s 1828 home and the 1861 Eldred House.
Ward Eldred’s first two wives had died before he purchased the section 16 property in 1840. He would marry twice more in the coming decade while raising cattle and growing crops on his lands. All four wives died in childbirth. The 1850 Census reveals Ward, at age 54, as the head of household, which also included his son James (21) along with four younger brothers and a seven year old sister, Evaline. The widower lost his own life in 1851 after contracting erysipelas (acute skin disease) while working cattle during a flood in the Illinois bottoms. After his father’s death, James John Eldred purchased his older brother Ward’s interest in the section 16 Property. James had married Emeline Smead, the sister of his father’s fouth wife, in February 1851, and the couple probably lived in the old Eldred Home. During 1851 the Eldred’s completed a new four story limestone barn west of the house.
Ward had had need of such a structure, and had been gathering stone, flooring, and shingles for the purpose. At the time of his death he had had 194 head of cattle, 70 cows, 58 calves, 30 horses, and five oxen and goats. He
sold cheese to the major market in nearby St Louis and grew wheat and corn. James J. Eldred inherited the cheese making equipment and raised a variety of live stock and crops. The farm flourished and the Eldred’s had four children by 1860. In addition to the immediate family the Eldred’s also supported two domestics, and his 17 year old sister Evaline.
Three farm laborers assisted the Eldred in growing crops, including wheat and corn. As the nation headed to civil war, Eldred’s personal prosperity had lead to plan and construct a new farm house. The JJ Eldred house completed in 1861 was probably the most elegant residential structure in the region and is an important surviving example of Greek Revival architecture transplanted to the Illinois bluff. Combining the stylistic values of neoclassicism with traditional local materials, Eldred created a county estate home that became a center piece of regional social life during the 1860’s and 1870’s
An 1873 Greene County Atlas contains a visual representation of James J. Eldred’s “Bluff Dale Farm” in its heyday. The unidentified artist’s sketch presents a slightly idealized portrait of a bucolic country estate, complete with sheep grazing on the bluffs above the house, but also contains the nest extant representation of the farm’s layout and buildings. The Bluffdale Township road runs just to the south of the Eldred House, lined by Eldred’s limestone fencing. A Barn and corral complex, dominated by 1851 four-story barn, sits adjacent to the elaborate formal gardens located between the stables and a private lane running north from the road and bisecting the property. The Eldred House itself sits away from the road, imposing in its two story grandeur and flanked by an arbor on its west side, with an orchard planted between the rear of the house and the hilly terrain beyond. The James J. Eldred house reflects a Greene County variation of a a popular architectural style that dominated mid 19th century America, the Greek Revival.
James and Emeline Eldred raised children, managed a farm, and regularly hosted social gatherings. The prime years of the Eldred House were not all gaiety and light for its owners, however. All three Eldred daughters died at home: Alma at age 4 in 1861, Alice at 17 of tuberculosis in 1870, and Eva at 17 from the same cause in 1876. The unpredictability of agricultural life left James Eldred’s finances strained at times; in 1870, for example, a private tutor of the Eldred children sued Eldred for non-payment. He faced another suit in 1900, owing money to John Synder of Carrolton in a case apparently involving a lease on Eldred property that was settled out of court. James, now 52, shared farming duties with his son Ward, 25, and also housed a 38 year-old cousin named Albon E. Wilson, a teacher at the old Columbiana School at the Illinios River ferry landing on the Greene County side of the river. Wilson was James Eldred’s cousin, and discussed purchasing land from James as early as 1880 to settle a debt. Not quite ready to sell, Eldred nevertheless felt the strain of maintaining his holdings. Wilson’s journal notes that in January 1880, “James was wounded yesterday with a pain in his back, was not able to be out all day to attend to his work. “In addition to teaching, Wilson helped on the farm and assisted in the sale and transport of Eldred’s crops.
Wilson started a grocery business in Carrolton later in 1880, and the Eldred’s began to sell land the following year, George Garretts bought 40 acres in Section 17 that year. In March 1883, floods sent many bottom dwellers away from the area and threatened crops. The Eldred’s still retained their reputation as social host, receiving notice in April for another successful party, but as with several other land owners in that area, 1883 represented a diminishment of their agricultural efforts at Bluffdale. James J. Eldred, Jesse Flatt, Roswell Flat, Ellen Hermans, and Anton Brichge all were: seized and possessed “of significant chunks of land”, presumably for debt. Albon E. Wilson is having given up the grocery trade and betrothed to the wealthy Cassie Robertson, purchased title to this farmland including the majority of Eldred’s in April, 1883. Wilson paid Eldred $8000 for the old Eldred property in Section 21, married Robertson the next day, and began managing the Bluffdale farm. While James and Emilline Eldred lived at the J.J. Eldred House until 1911, they sold their house and Section 16 property to Wilson for $12000, in 1901. By that time the Wilson’s were living in Carrolton and the farm was managed by Lawrence Wagener. Wagener who went to work on the farm in 1883 as a teen was assisted by his cousin Meek. Wagener moved into J.J. Eldred house in 1896. Wagener raised his family there as he managed Wilson’s agricultural affairs. Before Albon Wilson died in 1912 he signed over the property to his wife Cassie. The Wagener and Meek families continued to live on and manage the farm until her death in 1936.
Upon Cassie Wilson’s death, the property went up for sale. Robert H. Levis of Godfrey bought 1,517 acres for nearly $27,000. . Levis bought and sold several pieces of land in the area in the 1930’s and 1940’s, but the house and immediate property remained in his hands until 1995. Levis made the farm part of a budding absentee agri-business enterprise, eventually naming it Bluffdale Farms, Inc., with on-sight tenants as managers. Levis’ farm managers did not use the J.J. Eldred House as a residence but rather the more modern 1918, house across the road. The only upgrades that occurred to the house during the 20th century have been the additon of two 15 amp fuses. The only occupation of the house during the Levis ownership appears to have been a pair of families seeking refuge from a 1943 flood and archeologists during the nearby Koster excavations in the 1970’s.
Over the years the house became an informal repository for farm equipment. The great flood of 1993, advocated the creation of an information center and a senic biway in the area. A non profit organization, The Illinois Valley Cultural Hertitage Association (IVCHA), formed in 1992 and began working to implement the recommendations, negotiating with the Levis family for the transfer of the Eldred House.
After three years of negotiations, the Levis family donated the Eldred House to IVCHA in June, 1995. IVCHA hoped to restore the house and use it for a visitor’s center for the area. By the time Bluffdale Farms (Levis family) donated the property, the building was in disrepair but the structure itself was sound.
With the restoration and preservation the James J. Eldred House, visitors to the Illinois River Valley will share a place dedicated to remembering the many people who have called this place home. A private residence built in high style will be a public focal point for remembering an ancient past, comptiplating a historic settlement and farm, and considering the value of preserving an important part of the region’s architectural, archaeological, and cultural heritage.
.gif){kind=spacer}
© 1992-2007 Illinois Valley Cultural Heritage Association, All Rights Reserved.
