This file portion of www.watertownhistory.org website
Watertown’s Octagon House
John Richards
John
Richards, born in Hinsdale, Mass., in 1806, son of Revolutionary War forebears,
graduated from Williams College and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. He
taught in a well known school “Egremont” near where he lived, and later joined
the trek across Midwestern states for adventure and homesteading in Wisconsin.
The whole Northwest Territory was wide open for government land grants in the
1840's and 1850's and many young men from New England joined in the “go west,
young man” [1]
movement. Richards, while in college, had been influenced by a new concept in
building that swept across America a few years later - the octagon shaped
house.
Arrival in
Area
Richards
and two companions came to Wisconsin in 1837, partly as the result of the
financial panic of 1837 in the east. Watertown's first white man, Timothy
Johnson, arrived shortly before that time. Richards walked and studied the
areas in this part of the state and found exactly what he wanted in the
navigable Rock River in Watertown. Good land was plentiful, there were hills
and forests, but much work needed to clear trees and stumps. He bought farm
land on the east side of the river and built a small log house. Some years
later, in 1846, he completed the purchase of 140 acres of wooded land west of
the river [2],
including the high bluff which he had visualized as the site for the home he
had in mind. This home would give him a commanding
view of the Rock River valley.
Eliza
Richards
In
1840 Richards returned east to marry Miss Eliza Forbes of Great Barrington. Her
father, Moses Forbes, was the owner of the
There
were friendly Indians around when Richards lived in Watertown - and timber
wolves. In the Octagon House today is a rug made from the skins of four timber
wolves and baskets and other artifacts given later to Mrs. Richards in exchange
for loaves of her fresh bread.
Richards
and his bride began planning the fine home in the octagon shape. During this time Richards built a dam across
the river and established a grist mill on the east bank. This flour mill burned in 1886. It was not rebuilt. Today the electric company power plant stands
on the site of the former mill. This was a time of prosperity for Watertown;
its population grew from 1,500 in 1850 to 8,500 in 1855, making it the second
sized city in Wisconsin. Richards milling operations made Richards increasingly
wealthy and he decided it was time to build the large home for his family and
build it of a size that would also take care of housing and feeding some of the
mill hands or lumbermen he employed.
The
original Richards cabin was in an almost primeval forest but land was cleared
and some rented out to others. The Octagon House on the west side of the river
was some years in the planning and three years under construction. In 1854 this
beautiful home was completed and the family moved in. The original sketches and
diagrams for the house made by John Richards are on display in the Octagon
House today.
Richards
ran the mill, supervised the farm and did some law work. This pioneer lawyer
did not actively set up a law office in Watertown, but did certain amounts of
legal work when asked, He was the first district attorney in Jefferson County,
helped set up a county system, was a member of the Watertown school board, was
elected mayor in 1869-70, was also a one-time member of the Wisconsin
legislature.
The House
He also engineered the construction of
his dream home.
The
Octagon House, the beautiful home built on Richards Hill in 1854, was owned and
lived in by Mr. and Mrs. John
Richards and their descendants until 1938 when the family presented this
generous gift to the Watertown Historical Society. For the past 38 years the
society has owned and maintained the home open to the public from May 1 to Nov.
1 each year. This Watertown landmark has lured thousands of visitors to what is
probably the largest pre-Civil War single family dwelling in Wisconsin, a home
with a unique place in Watertown history.
"The
Octagon House, a Home for All" by Orson S. Fowler,
was published in 1848, although he had written individual articles on the
subject earlier. Fowler, a phrenologist and publisher, had long been a writer
on fresh attitudes toward living. “Nature's forms are mostly spherical,"
Fowler wrote, "Then why not apply this form to houses?" After
publication of his Octagon House book many barns, houses, churches and schools
in octagon shape sprang up, mostly in eastern United States.
There
are a number of octagon shaped barns in this area in Ozaukee (WI) County. By
1857 at least 1,000 such houses had been built throughout the country. Fowler
believed the octagon shape, which approximates a circle, provided the greatest
utilization of space. John Richards, a typical down east Yankee and a man of
many talents, was also a visionary and agreed with this principle of a home in
octagon shape.
The
house was the talk of the town when it was built, and Richards took great pride
in the house and the many innovative features he had installed. The perfect octagon measures 50x50 feet in
any direction and sets on a 17- inch foundation entirely beneath the ground.
Octagons put edge in houses:
Renewed interest in style based upon utopian ideals
New York Times News Service, 03 11 2005
While
most housing designs are based on rectangular shapes, there are some homes with
an unusual eight-sided floor plan. These octagonal houses have been turning
heads for more than 150 years.
The
concept of the octagonal house was idealized by Orson Squire Fowler in his 1853
book "A Home for All: Or a New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of
Building."
Fowler,
a phrenologist who deciphered the contours and bumps on the human skull,
advocated octagonal-shaped buildings because the walls of an octagon enclose
more area than a square or rectangle with equal wall space. Fowler reasoned
octagon houses were cheaper to build, eliminated dark corners, were easier to
heat and remained cooler in summer.
About
3,000 octagon structures were built in the mid-1800s, most of them in New York
and Massachusetts. Octagon structures built as a result of Fowler's book and
other octagon-construction books of the day included houses, churches, schools,
barns, carriage houses and outbuildings.
[And Watertown’s Octagon House]
Watertown Brick
Three
courses or rounds of brick form the 13-inch walls; the inner two rounds are
Watertown brick from the local and newly established brick yards which began
work in Watertown in 1847. The outside brick layer was Cream City brick hauled
from Milwaukee by ox and horse teams over the new
plank road. Most of the lumber, basswood, cherry and oak came from the
Richards woods. Some pine was used. This had been floated down the river and
was prepared in the Richards mill.
Many Rooms
The
large three-story home, plus basement and windowed cupola, has 57 rooms counting
halls and closets. The main rooms are square, the corner rooms used for
children's or sewing rooms. The original house had narrow verandas which
encircled the house on the first and second levels. When they became unsafe
they were removed. A good sized replica of the Octagon House, with the porches,
is on the grounds to show visitors the original design.
The
first floor rooms, a music room, living room, dining room, butlery and
conservatory are 10 feet, 10 inches in height. A dumb waiter functions between
the dining room and kitchen in the basement level, and a large chest of drawers
was built into the south wall of the dining room for linens and storage. Large
family bedrooms with accompanying small corner rooms for the small children are
on the second floor. The ceilings at this level are 9 feet, 9 inches. The third
floor had been added to Richards' original design in order to accommodate the
young men who worked in his mill.
Above
the third floor is the sizeable cupola with chimneys extending from the
corners. The third floor ceiling slopes toward the center to follow the pitch
of the roof line. This slope is necessary to take care of one of one of the
most unusual features of the house - a system for running water.
An
over 12x6 foot size wooden water tank made of basswood and lined with zinc is
suspended above the floor. The tank held
rain water which flowed in from the funnel-shaped roof. This water was then diverted to faucets on
both the second and third floor stair landings, to the kitchen, to a basement
cistern and the run-off drained to the bottom of the hill toward the river.
Light
which comes through the cupola windows falls on the spiral cantilevered hanging
staircase, with its hand molded cherry rail, the work of skilled artisans of well
over a century ago. The stair, known to be one of the few of its kind in the
country, is unsupported on one side but securely anchored into the brick walls
in the stairwell so that there is not a creak after the many years since its
construction.
Air Conditioning
Richards
built a form of air conditioning into his home with louvers that opened at
night to trap the cool air, circulated it throughout the walls, and the louvers
closed during the heat of the day. Much of the work and time of the household
centered in the basement level, where there was the kitchen, a cider room,
vegetable room, cistern, pantry, wood storage and furnace room. A large Dutch
oven in which 24 loaves of bread were baked at a time helped feed both the
family and the mill hands. A furnace capable of heating all these stories in
the house burned as much as a cord of wood a day. Exit from the basement level
is on the ground level in back; the lower hall is paved with bricks.
Authentic
furnishings and artifacts of the Richards' era are in the Octagon House. Much
of the furniture was family furniture presented to the Historical Society with
the home. The first piano brought to Wisconsin, a Gilbert square, was purchased
by Richards for the music room. The dining room furniture belonged to the
Richards family and some fine pieces were donated by the John W. Cole family.
Certain rugs, curtains and other pieces had to be replaced throughout the years
but were carefully selected from the same period. The dining room windows have
always had wide white window shades trimmed by hand. Original kerosene
chandeliers hang in the downstairs room and in the Richards bedroom on the
second floor. Second floor rooms were
bedrooms and contained a replica of the Lincoln bed, the same as used in
Lincoln's home in Springfield, IL, and in the Richards' bedroom one can view
the cannonball bed, so called because of its interesting construction. There is
also the child's cradle made by Richards.
Bunks
like those used by the millhands are along the wall of a third floor bedroom.
Also in the room is an old fashioned zinc lined bathtub and articles used by
the millhands for entertainment in their off hours. These men, in addition to
working in the mill, frequently floated logs down the Rock River. Kitchen
cupboards hold many cooking utensils used by Mrs. Richards. The old fashioned
wood range is located near the Dutch oven. In short, the home shows authentic
articles of daily living used or typical of being used during the over 80 years
the family occupied the home.
Hospitable People
Both
John Richards and Mrs. Richards were hospitable people. Many old letters in the
film attest to this hospitality. Richards was big hearted and generous and
never denied his family anything. His bookkeeping system, however, left
something to be desired. He kept no accounts, marked sales and money due him on
a handy shingle or forgot the transaction entirely. Mrs. Richards found this
difficult after he died when she took over management of the farm and found no
record of back debts listed for her to collect, though she knew there were
many.
The
couple had eight children, five of whom lived to adulthood in the Octagon Home;
Anna Richards Thomas, Alice Richards Green, Moses Richards, Willie Richards and Charles Richards.
John
Richards died in 1874. Mrs. Richards in 1902. Their daughter, Mrs. Thomas,
lived in the big home until 1936 when she died at the age of 94. Her son,
Willie, died the next year. He was the last family occupant of the Octagon
House.
In
1938 Estelle Bennett Richards, widow of Charles Richards, the youngest Richards
son, signed the deed which turned over ownership of the home to the Watertown Historical
Society with the condition that in the future the house be open to the public
at stated times.
There
had been desire on the part of Mrs. John Richards that the family do something
for Watertown with the house, and this plan was followed through by her family.
Harvey Richards, a son of Estelle Bennett Richards and Charles Richards, and
grandson of the original builder, John Richards, worked with G. H. Lehrkind,
Historical Society president in 1938, and Attorney Wallace Thauer to transfer
title of the property. Hans Gaebler, a real historian and most interested in
the preservation of historic sites, was in many ways responsible for
organization of the Watertown Historical Society.
The
Articles of Incorporation for the Watertown Historical Society were signed in
1933 by John D. Clifford and Jane Lord, two of the charter members. Other
charter members were Mrs. G. C. Lewis, Tom Lewis, William Thomas, Claire
Herrman and Gladys Mollart. Persons who
greatly helped put the new society on its feet and helped with much of the
original planning were, in addition to the above, Mrs. Lydia Wiggenhorn, Mrs.
Dan Thauer, Mrs. Eli Fischer, Sidney Northrop, Prof. E. C. Kiessling, Dr. A. C.
Hahn, James Anderson, Marcella Killian and Miss Ella Wilder.
As of
1976 five men had served as president of the Historical Society: Hans Gaebler, G. H. Lehrkind, Dr. Oscar
Meyer, Byron Wackett, Lee Block and Fred Kehl.
There had been two curators to that date: Mrs. G. C. Lewis, 1939 to 1945
and Gladys Mollart, who served since 1945.
Three Buildings Added
Three
buildings have been added on the Octagon House grounds since the Historical
Society was presented with the house.
The first American kindergarten, founded by Mrs. Carl Schurz in 1856,
was moved from its former location at 2nd & Jones streets.
A
pioneer barn was moved from the east side of Watertown, where it stood at one
end of the Plank Road as the toll house, to the Octagon grounds, and a new
building, the Gladys Mollart tour center, was completed in 1969 and dedicated
to Miss Mollart.
In
addition to the buildings much help has been received in landscaping the
grounds and many symbols of Watertown's past have been donated to the Society
for preservation of some of Watertown's early history. During many years the Octagon Garden club has
planted and tended an old fashioned herb garden just outside the kitchen door.
Watertown Firsts
To
name just a few of Watertown's firsts which are located on the grounds:
The
bronze bell from Watertown’s first city hall, dated 1869.
The
fountain statue Phillis, originally given to the city by Mrs. Carrie Mowder
Hill but presented to the Historical Society when the new city hall was built.
The
anvil used by the A. Kramp Company for 115 years for pounding out horse shoes
or steel tires or rims for the wagon wheels for the army quartermasters corps,
presented to the Society in 1972 by Leonard Kramp.
The
historic old green trunk marked for Margarethe Meyer Schurz “via Frankfurt, M.
Bremen Nach New York America" ended its travels in the room in which she
taught, presented by Mrs. Gerald Fahl, through her child's kindergarten class
in Oconomowoc, after she found it at a farm auction.
A
cobbler's bench from the first shoe factory Fridolin Ruesch
began in the 1850’s and operated by that family for several generations,
presented by Mrs. Dean Lawrence.
The
Indian which adorned Watertown's
A
large heavy "Buhrstone" mill wheel ordered from France in 1878 and
used by the Empire, later the Globe Milling Co., presented by the Floyd
Burnetts, last owners of the property on which the mill wheel had been mounted.
An
early beehive and slatted wooded crate manufactured by G. B. Lewis Co., the
bread box made to ship food to American troops in World War I, thousands of
miles from home base.
Painting
of Octagon House
Mathilde
Schley painting of the House is preserved in the museum.
1970 Harvey B. Richards Dies in Florida
Was
Last Grandson of the Builder of Octagon House
Watertown Daily Times, 1970
The last
grandson of John Richards, builder of the Octagon House, passed away during
last week.
Harvey
Bennett Richards, age 78, died June 10, in Ft. Myers, Fla., where he had lived
for the past 20 years.
He is
survived by his wife, Eliza Patch Richards, a son, William D. Richards, of
Winter Haven, Fla., and one daughter, Elizabeth, Mrs. George Beemer of Fort
Myers, and six grandchildren. A sister,
Eliza Richards Prahman, preceded him in death.
Harvey
Richards' father, Charles of Chicago, the youngest son of John Richards, was
the last owner of the Octagon House.
After his death his widow, Estelle Bennett Richards generously deeded
the house to the Watertown Historical Society at the instigation of her son,
Harvey, who had been an interested and beneficent sponsor since that time. His deep concern during the years since 1939
for the success of the society, had been a great boon to the preservation and
maintenance of Watertown's famous historic site.
His interest
and enthusiasm never failed. He was
planning to come to the opening of the new tour center dedication in August, a
project he heartily favored.
The
society has lost a devoted friend and benefactor.
2004
150th
Anniversary of Octagon House, 2004
Watertown
Daily Times article
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel article
2006
Octagon House
porches to be restored: With rotting
boards and posts, a recent anonymous donation to the Watertown Historical
Society, will allow for the refurbishing of the characteristic porches.
2010
05 20 Original
Watertown bricks that lined former front walk of Octagon House replaced by stamped concrete; bricks offered for sale
C1935
Octagon House, miniature model of,
Compiled by Ken Riedl