Jeremiah Morehouse House
Encyclopedia
The Jeremiah Morehouse House is located on Hathorn Road in Warwick, New York, United States, just off NY 94
. It is a wooden house that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 2006.
It is on a 9 acres (3.6 ha) lot adjacent to the General John Hathorn Stone House
, also listed on the Register. The house was originally built in 1767 by Abijah Morehouse, an early settler of the Warwick region who had arrived from Connecticut
, and parts of it reflect English building traditions
more common there. His descendants, particularly his son Jeremiah, extensively renovated it in the early 19th century, adding elements of that era's dominant Greek Revival
style
.
. It is on the northern of two parcels on the total property bisected by the road. There are several outbuildings, most of them considered contributing resources
to the historic character of the property.
It is five bays
wide and two stories tall, on a fieldstone
and mortar
foundation
. The gable
d roof has a medium pitch
. Siding is wood shake
with some original corner boards remaining. The roof is shingled
in asphalt
, with two brick chimney
s rising from the center. There is a small shed-roofed bump-out on the northern side. The windows are all flanked by pilaster
s and crowned with fully decorated entablature
s.
The interior is built on a center-hall plan and has a fully excavated basement
. Most of the finishes and some of the wood trim dates to the mid-19th century. Some furnishings, such as the five-paneled wooden door that leads from the center to one of the older sections, date to the house's earliest years.
There are a few other buildings and objects on the property that are of sufficient age to add to its historic character. A small wood frame
shed
with gabled metal-seam roof in the rear dates to the late 19th century. In front of the house are an iron hitching post and a millstone
used as a carriage step; these too are contributing. A detached frame garage is of unknown date but is probably recent; it is the only non-contributing resource on the property.
Across the road, the stone wall
is included in the listing, as is the large wooden dairy barn
with a collapsed roof. Next to it is a smaller, L-shaped building probably used as a chicken coop
and granary
. Another smaller barn with cupola
in a late Victorian
style was probably used for keeping horses.
around 1764, drawn like many others from New England
by reports of unsettled land and fertile fields. He bought the land in 1767 and married Sarah Brower the next year. The house as originally built was probably close to the English models seen in Connecticut at the time; however it was likely only one and a half stories in height rather than the two more typical of English vernacular homes
. This is more typical of homes in the Hudson Valley
, where homebuilding was as influenced by Dutch
and German
traditions as English.
Census
and property tax
records for the remainder of the 18th century do not list Jeremiah or his mother as the owner. This is probably because they left the house at that time to go live with her second husband in the nearby hamlet of Bellvale. By 1800 he is listed as the head of the house, and so it remained through the 1830 census.
In the 1840s the family expanded the house, adding to the west and giving it its current footprint. They also extensively remodeled the interior, and the trim from this era shows the influence of the then-popular Greek Revival
. Most notable in this regard is the chinoiserie
-inspired staircase. The structural framing was also revised to include some lighter, milled woods to supplement the heavy-hewn beams the house had originally been built with.
Twenty years later George Morehouse expanded the house again. This time they raised it to two full stories and added a boxed cornice
with hidden "Yankee" gutter
. Both small rear porches were added at this time, suggesting the influence of the Picturesque
as visualized by Andrew Jackson Downing
.
The house was sold in 1871 to local dairy farmer
Pierson Ezra Sanford, who combined both it and the Hathorn property next door into one lot. The barn across the street, and many of the other outbuildings, were likely built around this time to support the farming operations.
In the 20th century, the house and property passed to other owners. One of them removed the box cornice and replaced Yankee gutters with standard gutters; the seam-metal roof was also shingled. The current owner put the shakes over the original clapboard
.
New York State Route 94
New York State Route 94 is a state highway entirely within Orange County in southern New York. The western terminus is at the New York-New Jersey state line, where it continues as NJ 94 for another to Columbia, New Jersey. Its eastern terminus is located at U.S. Route 9W in New Windsor....
. It is a wooden house that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 2006.
It is on a 9 acres (3.6 ha) lot adjacent to the General John Hathorn Stone House
General John Hathorn Stone House
The General John Hathorn Stone House is located on Hathorn Road in the town of Warwick, New York, United States, just off NY 94 a mile south of the village of Warwick. It was built by Hathorn in 1773 but expanded considerably in the mid-19th century....
, also listed on the Register. The house was originally built in 1767 by Abijah Morehouse, an early settler of the Warwick region who had arrived from Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, and parts of it reflect English building traditions
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...
more common there. His descendants, particularly his son Jeremiah, extensively renovated it in the early 19th century, adding elements of that era's dominant Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
.
House and property
The house sits amid trees and shrubbery facing Hathorn Road, the former alignment of Route 94 and a largely unaltered section of the former Kings' Highway, 94's predecessor from the colonial eraColonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
. It is on the northern of two parcels on the total property bisected by the road. There are several outbuildings, most of them considered contributing resources
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to the historic character of the property.
It is five bays
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
wide and two stories tall, on a fieldstone
Fieldstone
Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...
and mortar
Mortar (masonry)
Mortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder...
foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
. The gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
d roof has a medium pitch
Roof pitch
In building construction, roof pitch is a numerical measure of the steepness of a roof, and a pitched roof is a roof that is steep.The roof's pitch is the measured vertical rise divided by the measured horizontal span, the same thing as what is called "slope" in geometry. Roof pitch is typically...
. Siding is wood shake
Shake (shingle)
A shake is a basic wooden shingle that is made from split logs. Shakes have traditionally been used for roofing and siding applications around the world. Higher grade shakes are typically used for roofing purposes, while the lower grades are used for siding purposes...
with some original corner boards remaining. The roof is shingled
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...
in asphalt
Asphalt
Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...
, with two brick chimney
Chimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
s rising from the center. There is a small shed-roofed bump-out on the northern side. The windows are all flanked by pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and crowned with fully decorated entablature
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
s.
The interior is built on a center-hall plan and has a fully excavated basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
. Most of the finishes and some of the wood trim dates to the mid-19th century. Some furnishings, such as the five-paneled wooden door that leads from the center to one of the older sections, date to the house's earliest years.
There are a few other buildings and objects on the property that are of sufficient age to add to its historic character. A small wood frame
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
shed
Shed
A shed is typically a simple, single-storey structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop....
with gabled metal-seam roof in the rear dates to the late 19th century. In front of the house are an iron hitching post and a millstone
Millstone
Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...
used as a carriage step; these too are contributing. A detached frame garage is of unknown date but is probably recent; it is the only non-contributing resource on the property.
Across the road, the stone wall
Stone wall
Stone walls are a kind of masonry construction which have been made for thousands of years. First they were constructed by farmers and primitive people by piling loose field stones in what is called a dry stone wall, then later with the use of mortar and plaster especially in the construction of...
is included in the listing, as is the large wooden dairy barn
Barn
A barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house livestock or to store farming vehicles and equipment...
with a collapsed roof. Next to it is a smaller, L-shaped building probably used as a chicken coop
Chicken coop
A chicken coop is a building where female chickens are kept. Inside there are often nest boxes for egg laying and perches on which the birds can sleep, although coops for meat birds seldom have either of these features....
and granary
Granary
A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals.-Early origins:From ancient times grain...
. Another smaller barn with cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
in a late Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
style was probably used for keeping horses.
History
Abijah Morehouse came to the Warwick area from Ridgefield, ConnecticutRidgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 24,638 at the 2010 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, is defined by the U.S...
around 1764, drawn like many others from New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
by reports of unsettled land and fertile fields. He bought the land in 1767 and married Sarah Brower the next year. The house as originally built was probably close to the English models seen in Connecticut at the time; however it was likely only one and a half stories in height rather than the two more typical of English vernacular homes
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...
. This is more typical of homes in the Hudson Valley
Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York State, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy.-History:...
, where homebuilding was as influenced by Dutch
Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...
and German
German colonization of the Americas
The German colonization of the Americas consisted of failed attempts to settle Venezuela , St. Thomas, the Crab Island and Tertholen in the 16th and 17th centuries.-Klein-Venedig:...
traditions as English.
Census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
and property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
records for the remainder of the 18th century do not list Jeremiah or his mother as the owner. This is probably because they left the house at that time to go live with her second husband in the nearby hamlet of Bellvale. By 1800 he is listed as the head of the house, and so it remained through the 1830 census.
In the 1840s the family expanded the house, adding to the west and giving it its current footprint. They also extensively remodeled the interior, and the trim from this era shows the influence of the then-popular Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
. Most notable in this regard is the chinoiserie
Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...
-inspired staircase. The structural framing was also revised to include some lighter, milled woods to supplement the heavy-hewn beams the house had originally been built with.
Twenty years later George Morehouse expanded the house again. This time they raised it to two full stories and added a boxed cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
with hidden "Yankee" gutter
Rain gutter
A rain gutter is a narrow channel, or trough, forming the component of a roof system which collects and diverts rainwater shed by the roof....
. Both small rear porches were added at this time, suggesting the influence of the Picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
as visualized by Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
.
The house was sold in 1871 to local dairy farmer
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
Pierson Ezra Sanford, who combined both it and the Hathorn property next door into one lot. The barn across the street, and many of the other outbuildings, were likely built around this time to support the farming operations.
In the 20th century, the house and property passed to other owners. One of them removed the box cornice and replaced Yankee gutters with standard gutters; the seam-metal roof was also shingled. The current owner put the shakes over the original clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
.