HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-01-2007 HPC docsProperty Address: 935 E. Market Street
Historic/Common Name: _ Wetherby Cottage
Property Owner: Michael T and Kelley A McLaughlin
Address: PO Box. 2837
Iowa City, IA 52241
Phone: H ( )
W( )
Date of Construction: mid-1850's
(Attach documentation or list source)
I OWA CITY
HISTORIC LANDMARK
NOMINATION FORM
Date of Preparation: October 21, 2007
Prepared by: _ Marybeth Slonneger
Address: 1109 E Davenport
Iowa City, IA 52245
Phone: (319) 354-8700
Original use of building/object/site: Single -Family Residential
Current use of building/object/site: Single -Family Residence
Legal description of property: 1331 5 Iowa City Outlots E 92' of N 150' of Outlot 5 and also W 13.1' of Lot 2 Block
3 J W
BUILDING INFORMATION: If the proposed landmark is a building or structure, please answer the
following:
Building Height: 1 and 1/2 stories
Materials: Foundation brick/concrete block Walls Wood Frame/Clapboard/Asb Roof Asphalt shin
Builder (if known):
Architect (if known):
Significant alterations or additions (explanation & date):
(over)
Required attachments:
1) A narrative providing information indicating the proposed landmark meets one or more of the following
criteria:
A. The landmark is significant to American history, architecture, archaeology and culture or Iowa City
history, architecture, archaeology and culture; or
B. The landmark possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workership; or
C. The landmark is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad
patterns of our history; or
D. The landmark is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
E. The landmark embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, method of construction;
represents the work of a master; possesses high artistic values; represents a significant and
distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
F. The landmark has yielded or may be likely to yield information important in prehistory or history.
2) Photographs showing all elevations of the building/object/site, and of any ornamental or structural details
of historical importance.
3) Plat map indicating the location of the proposed landmark.
4) Any additional information that may help to justify the historic importance of the nominated property.
Please submit this completed form and all required attachments to the IOWA CITY HISTORIC PRESERVATION
COMMISSION, CIVIC CENTER, 410 E. WASHINGTON STREET, IOWA CITY, IA 52240.
Wetherby Cottage, 935 E. Market Street, Iowa City, Iowa
Description
The Isaac A. Wetherby Cottage at 935 E. Market Street in Iowa City is slated for demolition as of
October 16, 2007. It is located in an unprotected area of the city on a busy main artery between the
Goosetown and Woodlawn neighborhoods. It is similar in size and age to the early Goosetown cottages, two
streets to the north, that began to be built in the 1850's. Wetherby seems to have lived in Goosetown for
periods of his life from his arrival here in 1854; his friends and associates, including the Irish family, the
Greeley's and Dr. George Kimball, also lived in Goosetown.
The 900 block of Market Street may have been a small enclave of Irish immigrant homes at that time
of purchase: the Mortimer Ryan family lived on Market and the Murphy Brothers worked on the nearby
one -room schoolhouse on Reno Street. The Irish immigrant teamster, Patrick Doyle and his wife Ann, sold
935 E. Market to James Scanlon, sheriff, on May 26, 1858 for $1,000. (Book 16, p. 402). Presumably it was
built several years before the sale. Wetherby acquired the home on July 12, 1860, He recorded in his account
book (available on microfilm in SHSI/IC) that after paying the back taxes (two years of taxes) on the
property "I bought of Patrick Doyle ... I got the deed... from James Scanlon." "I traded my 80 acres of land
on Clear Creek, Oxford Twp. [to Doyle] for a house with three lots on Market Street. 120' off E. side of out
lot 5."
The 22' by 28' cottage is an example of vernacular architecture. A central chimney extends from the
main room through the upstairs remodeled attic space. The staircase between the two floors was probably
built by Wetherby, as he is known to have been a fine woodworker. An example of his work is the fabricated
a wood box for his glass -plate negatives that is now in the SHSI/IC Special Collections; a secretary that he
built for his studio is known from a photograph. He also made boxes and picture frames and probably
learned house -building skills from his father-in-law, William Thayer, a Boston "housewright " or builder.
Wetherby was to use those building skills when he decided to add a kitchen addition to the "south end of the
house" the following year. He secured the necessary lumber from the Iowa City lumber merchant, Peter
Musser, in exchange for a set of four Musser family portraits to be done in oils that June for $35 (one of the
portraits has been located by the curator of the Muscatine Art Center.) On July 30, 1861, Wetherby stated
that "Mr. Hazlehorse" [August Hasselhorst was a local carpenter who lived on the north side of
Bloomington between Governor and the east limit according to the 1868 City Directory) commenced work
for me to put on addition to my house." On February 1, 1862, Wetherby recorded that he paid "Hazeehorse
[sic] for cord of wood $3 and [what was] owed him $12.50 for work on house last summer." Five months
later Wetherby opened his permanent art and photography studio on W. Clinton Street over a tobacco shop.
The newly enlarged cottage allowed him to move his wife and children to Iowa City from his in-laws home in
Wisconsin. His Thayer in-laws also moved to Iowa City before the 1880's ; William Thayer built a home on
the south side of the Wetherby property facing Jefferson Street. Also of note is the small barn on the lot west
of 935 E. Market. The lot belonged to Wetherby's 1860 purchase. Wetherby is known to have painted
Lincoln banners in his barn, perhaps in this building. The Wetherby cottage was not built on a grand scale,
nor was it elaborately decorated, but its continued existence helps to interpret the life of a middle-class
artisan, one of America's earliest photographers.
National Sienificance:
Isaac Augustus Wetherby (1819-1904) developed his skill in painting from the age of 15 when he recorded
that he began seeking painting clients and setting up his first studio space in Boston. His nearly 1,000 known
portraits include Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, f udge William Miller, a Meskwaki Indian chief, and many others.
His work has been collected in the New York Historical Society (NYC), Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA),
Beverly (MA) Historical Society, Putnam Museum in Davenport, the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa
City, the State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines, and in private collections. One of his paintings hangs
in the Johnson County Courthouse.
As a self -trained artist and early photographer (hc purchased his first camera within two years of the
discovery of photography), Wetherby defined himself as a painter first and photographer second. He worked
in the Northeast states, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, before the permanent move to Iowa to paint and farm.
Later, he opened an art school and photography studio in Rock Valley, in northeast Iowa, and wrote of
painting portraits in the Des Moines area in the early 1880s, when he was being urged to set up an art school
there.
However, it is the summer of 1854 that is important to this story, the year that Wetherby drove into
town in a covered wagon, to the then capitol of the state, Iowa City. After registering his land deed,
Wetherby set up as a photographer and a painter of oil portraits in a rental space on the corner of Clinton
and Washington Streets. From the window of this "Daguerreian Room" he took the earliest photographs of
Old Capitol on October 23, 1854. His skill in the new field of photography and the account book that he
kept make him an important figure in photographic history. There are 1,450 glass -plate negatives that have
survived and several early daguerreotypes, including one 1854 Old Capitol and a downtown Iowa City
streetscape from the same period. A rare cotton banner that hung over the Daguerreian studio has also
survived as has his door plate, trade card collection, sketches and correspondence. Some of his nearly 1,000
oil portraits are in national museums, as well as in the Putnam in Davenport and the State Historical Society
of Iowa in Iowa City and in Des Moines. The three locations of his studios have disappeared with the
development of the city, but his home at 935 E. Market still stands. It is the last building connected to this
artist, who is important at the local, state and national level. Many citizens were photographed by Wetherby
in his Clinton Street studio, including Governor Samuel Kirkwood, Chief Justice William Miller, Civil War
officers, bankers, trades people, and many others. The SHSl collection includes 1,450 glass plate negatives.
On October 11, 2007, Wetherby's great, great granddaughter, Jane Beattie, traveled from California
to Iowa City to present SHSI with the only known Wetherby print of the Lincoln memorial ceremony that
was taking place on the steps of Old Capitol in 1865 while Governor Kirkwood spoke. Rresearch shows that
Wetherby was out in his garden planting apple trees on the day that he learned that Lincoln had been
assassinated. Ms. Beattie also allowed a wonderful image of his house in the family collection to be scanned.
It is dated 1869 by Wetherby and shows the cottage surrounded by a picket fence and landscaped with trees
and evergreens. The family owned the cottage into the 1940s, when Wetherby's daughter, Carrie, moved to
the Mary Caldron Home. Residents of Iowa City have thought enough of Wetherby to name a park after
him.
Bibliography
Wetherby's life and career will be highlighted in an upcoming issue of the Iowa Heritage Magazine. An article
written by Marybeth Slonneger will be published in the Winter issue of the Photographic Historical Society of New
England Journal. The book, Wetherby's Gallery, was published in February 2007 and contains a more complete
bibliography. A recent article, "The Business of an American Folk Partrait Painter: Isaac Augustus Wetherby"
by Michael R. Payne and Suzanne Rudnick Payne, appeared in the Winter 2007 issue of Folk Art magazine.
Earlier articles appeared in The Goldfinch, Winter 1994; "The Account Books of Isaac Augustus Wetherby:
Portrait Painter/Photographer" in History of Photography, 1990; and "Isaac Augustus Wetherby (1819-1904)
and His Account Books" by H. Maxson Hollway in the New York Historical SodeoQuarterly Bulletin, 1941. His
name appears in A Directory of Massachusetts Photographers, 1839-1900, by Ronald Polito, editor, 1993, and in the
directory of stereographic photographers of Iowa. His images have been printed in Iowa City newspapers
from the 1930s.
Letter to Members of the City Council, Iowa City, October 16, 2007
Topic:
Stav of Demolition for the Isaac A. Wetherby I -louse (935 E. Market Street)
Purpose:
To facilitate moving the house to another location and to allow the Historic Preservation Commission to review the potential for
the house to be eligible to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion B (association with persons significant in our
past). The owner has verbally agreed to let the house be moved thus saving him not inconsiderable landfill fees; moving the house
would also save the building materials from filling up the landfill.
National Significance:
As a self -trained artist and early photographer (he purchased his first camera within two years of the discovery of photography),
Isaac Augustus Wetherby (1819fi1904) defined himself as a painter first and photographer second. He worked in the Northeast,
KY, IL and then moved to IA to paint and farm.
Wetherby's skill in painting was honed from the age of 15 when he began seeking painting clients. 1lis nearly 1,000 known por-
traits include :Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, a Meskwaki Indian chief, and many others. His work has been collected in the New
York Historical Society (NYC), Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA), Beverly (MA) Historical Society, Putnam Museum in Daven-
port, the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, the State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines, and in private collections.
One of his paintings hangs in the Johnson County Courthouse. Though he did not enjoy popularity during his lifetime, his paint-
ing legacy to Iowa City approaches the importance of Grant Wood.
Wetherbyis legacy includes being the first to record Iowa City in photographs when it was the state capital, including the earliest
photo taken of Old Capitol in 1854. Many citizens were photographed by Wetherby in his Clinton Street studio, including Gov.
Kirkwood, Chief Justice William Miller, Civil War officers, bankers, trades people, and many others. The collection, which is lo-
cated at historical society, includes 1,450 glass plate negatives. Just this week, Wetherbyis great, great granddaughter, Jane Beattie,
traveled from California to Iowa City to present SHSI with the only known Wetherby picture of the Lincoln Memorial that was
taking place on the steps of Old Capitol while Governor Kirkwood spoke.
The Wetherby Cottage:
My research shows that Wetherby was out in his garden planting apple trees on the day that he learned that Lincoln had been
shot. My hope is to restore the house and to plant apple trees around it. There is a wonderful image of his house showing those
apple trees and a picket fence in an 1869 print recently shown (and scanned) from the family collection.
Wetherbyis life and career will be highlighted in an upcoming issue of the Iowa .heritage Magazine. An article written by me will
be published in the Winter issue of the Photographic Historical Society of New England Journal. My book, Wetherby's Gallery,
was published last February, and Wetherby has also been discussed in The Goldfinch, Winter 1994 and he appears in listings of
stereographic photographers of Iowa.
His cottage was not built on a grand scale and it is not elaborately decorated. Still, its continued existence helps to interpret life
of a working, middle-class artisan life of one of America's earliest photographers. And, it was built with lumber purchased with
a portrait of local lumber merchant, Peter Musser. The additional room on the back of the cottage was built with the help of
a local carpenter, August I Iazelhorst. The Wetherby family owned the cottage into the 1940s. Previous residents of Iowa City
thought enough of Wetherby to name a park after him.
Plans for the Future:
I truly hope that you will support saving the Wetherby cottage. The people that I have talked to have all been enthusiastic about
saving the Wetherby cottage. One person offered to make a contribution without being asked! A Committee to I lelp Save the
Wetherby Cottage is underway. Even without National Register status the cottage is a local landmark and very worthy of preser-
vation because of the contribution that Isaac Wetherby made to our community. While lam currently looking for a lot for the
Wetherby cottage, the suggestion has also been made that the house might be an asset in one of the city parks, similar to the log
cabins in City Park. Wetherby Park has come to mind. another suggestion was to place it on the Butler I -louse property until
further plans can be made. There is also a possibility that these two houses could form the core of a small collection of historic
properties highlighting Iowa City history.
I am enclosing a few images of Wetherbyis work for your perusal.
Selection of fFetberby Paintings & Photographs
Isaac Augustus Wetherby
1819-1904, Self -Portrait in Oil
The Abolitionist, John Brown
Portrait in Oil
Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood
Earliest View of Old Capitol, 1 854
Abraham Lincoln
Political Banner for Lincoln's Second Term
in Office
W etherby s Gallery
West Clinton Street, 1862
Vetherby Cottage at 935 E. Market Street, 1 869