The Winchester Academy

In March of 2017 I was contacted by representative the Winchester Academy, a lifelong learning society, now based in Waupaca, Wisconsin.  The group was founded in Winchester by retired faculty from UW-O and was based on the Scandinavian folk academies.  I was asked if I would give a presentation on William Waters and I accepted the offer.  The date of the presentation was set for July 31, 2017 which meant I had to get busy.  I started by making up outlines and doing more research, but the bulk of the information would come from my blog.  I tried my hand at a power point presentation and found I was inept at it, so I asked my wife for help and she came up with a beauty.

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0shJ_XFqpQ
The day of the show arrived, and my wife and I set off for Waupaca so as to be there at four PM.  We checked at the library and met our contact, got the equipment set up and ran a test of the power point, all was ready.  We then went to dinner at a fine restaurant down the street.  Some of the board members were there as well as other interested folks.  One fellow introduced himself to me as Joe Jones and I looked closely at his face.  He was an old college friend with whom I’d done a few shows with but hadn’t seen in years.  The meal was great with lively conversation and opportunity to make new acquaintances.  Afterword we all adjourned to the library for the evening’s program.  The room filled quickly to near capacity, Joe Jones gave a warm introduction, the lights dimmed, and the show was on.  I launched into it with confidence and managed to go on for the better part of an hour, at the end the audience asked questions and some spirted discussion ensued. After the show I met other people, some of whom I had contact with through my research and one fellow I went to grade school with.  I later found out that the presentation was their best attended program of the year.               

Another Suspect

There once was a building near the corner of High Avenue and Division Street in Oshkosh.  It was on the north side of the street and was for many years the home of Muza Sheet Metal but was demolished to make way for a parking lot.  The building was erected sometime between 1886 and 1889 and was numbered as 80 and 82 High Street.  The first occupant was C. E. Angell and Company, a dealer of grass and garden seeds and may have he who had the building put up. The second floor was the residence of William Mainland, the secretary and superintendent of the Oshkosh Gas Light Co.  The seed company was at that address in 1900 but by 1903 the Oshkosh Spice Co. was there and by 1910, E. B. Morley a provider of crockery and glassware occupied the space.

I had always suspected the structure to be the work of William Waters and here’s why; The building is of a template often used by architect Waters, that is, two store fronts on either side of a stairway to the second floor.  The upper floor had a single arched window on center and sets of triplet windows with elegant arched tops on each side.   Although I only knew the building as painted brick I speculate it was of a cream-colored brick and not a red pressed brick.  Bands of limestone trim completed the façade for a stylish appearance.       

       

Mr. Waters' Barns

William Waters was asked occasionally by clients  to design a barn/stable or carriage house.  This was not a great body of work as it was only the wealthy who could afford to have and maintain horses and a building to house them, few if any of these structures survive to this day.   One of the last to be demolished was the barn built for Mr. Charles Clark of Neenah.  Waters had supplied plans for Mr. Clark's house built in the mid 1870's and a stable for the horses.

The structure fronted on Doty Street just south of Wisconsin Avenue and was a large building which housed horses, vehicles and ancillary equipment.  I found a sketch of a barn among the drawings collected by Willie Waters Jr. and recognized as the Clark stable. 

Over the years alteration were made to the building as it's purpose changed; the doors were enlarged, some replaced with widows and the copula removed.  The building was razed late in the twentieth century. 

Architect Waters designed other barns as well as shown by two drawings from the assemblage of young master Waters.  The barns pictured in the sketches were to be built of brick and intended for an urban setting.  A barn resembling the first drawing was built for Ossian Cook for his house on Church Street.

   

A Case for Waters as Architect

I’d often wondered about the William Ellsworth house, who was Mr. Ellsworth and did William Waters design the place.  My research did not reveal any concrete proof of Mr. Waters involvement with the house, so lacking any written confirmation I compared the building to others I knew to have come from architect Waters’ drawing board. 

The Ellsworth house is indeed a Victorian House, but it doesn’t fit into a category, such as Italianate or Queen Anne.  I looked at houses drafted by Waters in the mid 1870’s and the many displayed features found on the Ellsworth residence.  The James G. Clark house which once stood on Washing Avenue exhibited some of the same details as the Ellsworth dwelling, i.e.; vertical siding in the gables, peeked top windows, steeply pitched roof and ornate gable and fascia brackets.  These similarities reinforced my belief that Mr. Waters was the architect of William T. Ellsworth’s magnificent house.

In my research I learned something about Mr. Ellsworth.  He was born in 1836 at Morristown, New York which is situated on the St. Lawrence river.  He grew up there and attended two years at Ogdensburg College when at age nineteen he made his way by boat to Chicago, then on to Milwaukee and finally to Sheboygan.  From Sheboygan he walked to Fond Du Lac and from there on foot to Oshkosh, arriving in the city in 1845.  Mr. Ellsworth had several jobs, such as surveying for a railroad and working in the woods for Ripley and Mead.  By age 21 he took a job working for Philetus Sawyer and in 1868 married Miss Verna Sturtevant the sister of Mr. Sawyer’s wife.  The 1870 city directory listed the Ellsworth’s as residing at number 23 Main Street in Algoma.  A change of address occurred by 1879 with a listing in the directory of the corner of Congress and Algoma.

  When Philetus Sawyer became a senator, Ellsworth went to Washington as well and served as the senator’s secretary.  After his service to the Senator, Mr. Ellsworth returned to Oshkosh where he died in 1920, he is buried in Riverside Cemetery next to the Sawyer family mausoleum.        

Of Things That Might Have Been

In the pages of the collection of drawings gathered by William Waters Jr. there were several sketches that seem to be for the same house, a large Stick Style mansion with an imposing central belvedere and ornate woodwork details. The Stick Styles' popularity was from 1860 to 1890 and was more prevalent in the east than in the mid-west, still there are some examples in Wisconsin.  Mr. Waters didn't work extensively in this style but these sketches represent conformation of his mastery of the form. 

It would seem this house was never built but perhaps they were preliminary drawings meant to encourage ideas.  I gave some thought to what houses this sketches may have been for and could think of only one, the residence of William Ellsworth.  The Ellsworth place stood on the corner of Algoma and Congress Streets, just across the street from Edgar Sawyer.  Indeed Mr. Ellsworth worked for the Sawyer Manufacturing Company.  Alas the Ellsworth home was demolished many years ago.

A comparison the the two buildings show some great similarities, enough so that I wondered if Mr. Waters had designed the Ellsworth residence.   

   

  

   

R. J. Weisbrod’s Home

Rudolph J. Weisbrod was a prominent citizen in the early days of the city of Oshkosh.  He was born at Summers, Prussia in August of 1839 and moved to Oshkosh with his parents in 1853, at age fourteen.  After his service in the Civil War he returned to Oshkosh and opened shop as furniture builder and undertaker.  In 1873 he had a three-story building erected in the first block of Main Street on the west side of the street.  Business must have been good because in 1876 Mr. Weisbrod was able to build a stylish house on Washington Street just beyond Bowen Street.  Rudolph also became interested in politics, serving first as alderman when as Chief Fire Engineer and from 1885 until his death in 1901, Chief of Police. 

His house was said to have been the work of William Waters, a claim I didn’t fully embrace at first but soon I recognized the Waters’ “stamp”.  The building was typical of many of his houses from the mid to late 1870’s with low pitched roofs and small but ornate front porches.  One feature that was of great interest was trim around the first-floor windows and the small roof over the double window second floor.   

Medberry and Bemis

Algoma Boulevard was always a major through fair, lined with businesses, schools, churches and homes. In the early 1890’s, commercial building and churches occupied each side of the street from Main Street to Light Street, there were very few houses.  There was one however at number 58 Algoma, the residence of Samuel Sutton, and machinist.  By 1898 the Sutton residence was gone, replaced by beautiful brick and stone business block for Medberry and Bemis, wholesalers of paper and wooden ware.  The building may have been the work of William Waters for it bore many details used by architect Waters. 

The structure was three stories high with an intricate brick work cornice and pediment.  Six windows ran the width of second and third floors and there were two storefronts on the ground floor.  The windows of the upper floors featured indented corners of the openings, giving the apertures a wider appearance.  Limestone bands and lintels added color and surface texture variety.  The building proved inadequate to the company’s purpose and it was replaced in 1927 with a larger structure.                

A Tenth Avenue Challenge

Early in my study of William Waters I tried to locate as many of his buildings as I could.  Most of his residential work was confined to the north side of Oshkosh with but a few south of the river.  One house on west Tenth Avenue however bore some features which made me think it was the work of architect Waters.  It was a large dwelling with a front gable which held a set of triplet windows.  Below that, on the second floor was a large set of double windows to the left and to the right of those were two small windows.   The first-floor front was covered by an enclosed porch which ran the width of the house and round the left end of the house.  

   

The house was built in 1885 for Hans J. Christenson, an employee of the Central Wisconsin Railroad.  The front porch which dominated the front of the house was not original to the building as shown in a fire insurance map from 1903.  What was there seems to have been a porch at the right front corner of the house and another smaller porch on the east side of the building.   Obscured by the enclosed front, I was unable to discern the fenestration beyond but based on other residences by Mr. Waters I could imagen the unaltered front elevation.    

A Change of Plans

The end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century was a golden age of progress and wealth.  The city of Oshkosh and the whole of Fox River valley, from Green Bay, Appleton to Neenah, Menasha were enjoying unheard of prosperity. 

In the early years of the twentieth century Oshkosh in particular was eager to cast off the vestiges of the old and project a new and modern city.  The First Congregational Church had out grown it’s 1873 edifice and engaged architect William Waters to design a new house of worship.  As early as 1908 plans were reviled for the project which left the old church in tact but added a new structure to the west.  Time pasted and the plans evolved and by 1910 the vision was to remodel the old church, remove the spire and link two the new building with cloisters, front and back.  There was also to be a parsonage on the corner of Algoma and Light Streets

The project as committed to paper was not realized, there was no remake of the old church and the parsonage never came to fruition.  The parsonage as seen in the architect’s rendering was in the same style as Edgar Sawyer’s residence and the house would likely been constructed of the same limestone and brick as the church and would have made an impressive addition to the intersection.

Please see other posts: Churches of Oshkosh, Part 1,3/16/2012 and Oshkosh Churches, Part 3 6/1/2012, for information on the First Congregational churches.  Also for information on the Sawyer Residence see Oshkosh Residences, Part 5, 11/25/2011. 

Otter Avenue Mystery

Months ago, I was prepared to write an article about the house at 524 Otter Avenue.  I had always suspected it to be the work of William Waters but an old Oshkosh building survey recognized Joseph Weber as the architect, so I abandoned my planed missive.  A few weeks past David Groth, an architectural historical and fellow Waters aficionado asked me about the house.  He said he and others believed it was indeed a “Waters’ job”.  I told him I agreed with him and would consider the matter further.  

I researched city directories and my notes and found that the house was built in 1886 for W. H. Crawford, a plumber, steam and gas fitter.  The directories of 1886 and 1889 list Joseph Weber as being a carpenter but not an architect.  Those same volumes list only A. E. Bell and Wm. Waters as architects.  The house displays many features favored by architect Waters and would have been a fine example of his Queen Anne Style of the time.  I then recalled other instances of erroneous architectural attribution in the Oshkosh building survey.  It’s likely the researchers for the building survey found Mr. Weber’s name as the builder and concluded that he was also the architect.  Perhaps David Groth, the others and I are correct and the house is truly from William Waters’ drawing board.      

Another Jackson Street Possibility

The house at 1018 Jackson Street in Oshkosh was possibly the work of William Waters.  Although over the years many alterations were made there were still some remaining elements which marked it as Mr. Waters’ design.  The long narrow triplet windows in the front gable were certainly a feature used by Waters as well as the front porch set within the footprint of the structure. 

The house was built circa 1894, because the city directories of 1891 and 1893 list nothing at the address, whereas the 1895 directory lists an address and two occupants: Mr. Frank Larish, a railroad postal clerk and L. T. Larson a telegraph operator.  By 1898 the house was the residence of insurance agent, John Bylman and his family, who lived there for many years.  It likely became a multifamily dwelling with the on set of the great depression, when many large houses became too costly to maintain as single family homes.    

A Great Remodel

In my youth I would occasionally walk home from school, a stroll that took me nearly the entire length of Washington Avenue.  The best part of the walk was from Bowen Street to my house. It was pleasant because the street was lined with large graceful trees and elegant well-maintained homes.  One of my favorites was the house at 1022 Washington Avenue, a larger white house  on the north side of the street, of a simple design, a porch which stretched across its front and sat on manicured grounds.  When I became aware of William Waters I thought it was perhaps one of his works.

I was never able to link Mr. Waters to the house but I did learn some interesting facts about the residence.  One of the first things learned was that it did not always look as it does now and it was much older than I thought.  The house was built 1865 by Colonel John Hancock, a lawyer who served in the Civil War.  The Hancock’s lived there until 1871, then moved closer to the lake on Merritt Avenue.  Attorney Hancock sold the place in 1871 to another lawyer, Charles Felker who’s family resided there until 1919.  In 1894 or so Mr. Felker had the house remodeled and expanded, a large portion was added to the west side of the house and gabled roofs topped off the structure.  There were two elements present which led me to conclude the addition was designed by architect Waters; the graceful brackets supporting the gable ends and the set of four window in the front gable with an arched light above the center two.

Parenthetically, Mr. Felker was an avid yachtsman and one-time commodore of the Oshkosh Yacht Club, in 1885 he instituted the race for the trophy which bore his name and has been contested each year since.              

Stylish Cottage

In the 1890’s the northern limit of Oshkosh was New York Avenue.  There was north of the avenue the Fair Grounds and Race Course on Jackson Street with a few houses along that thoroughfare.  The fairgrounds effectively blocked several streets from going much past New York Avenue and Wisconsin Street was one such roadway.  In 1895 Wisconsin Street went as far as the southern boundary of the fairgrounds and there were but a few houses along its course.  One on the west side of the street very near the terminus was the home of John Koehler, a body maker at the Clark Wagon Company. 

The dwelling was a fine and stylist structure suitable for a working man and his family.  It was one and half stories high with a small porch in the front corner.  There was on the front elevation a gable with a set of double windows and along the south side of the house was a large bay window.   

Bay Street Bungalow

The house at number 313 Bay Street in Oshkosh is not a real bungalow is the sense of the architectural vernacular but the alliteration made for a catchy title.  The diminutive dwelling was a Queen Anne Style cottage built circa 1885 and featured some details that marked it as the work of William Waters.  It was only one and a half stories but had a layout often used by architect Waters. A small porch at the left of the front elevation is covered by the roof of the front gable.  In that gable was a bay window just below the peak, an element seen in Mr. Waters' Queen Anne works.  Along the south side of the house, just past the porch was another larger bay window and above that a gable with a set of double windows.  Beyond the bay window was the back porch. 

                                       

   

Two More Suspects

There were two other houses in Oshkosh I suspected of being the work of William Waters and I was not alone in my suspicions.  Both were not far from each other and very near the university campus. The first one was on Elwood Avenue near Scott Street.  It’s original house number was 188 Elm Street and was first listed in the city directory of 1891-93 as the residence of Orin H. Wetlaufer the shipping clerk at the McMillen Company.  

The house displayed several features often associated with the work of Mr. Waters, most notably the long narrow windows in the gables and a decorative apron beneath a small window near the front door.  There was a second-floor porch or balcony above the front porch and bay window along the south face.  The house was likely built in 1890 as Mr. Wetlaufer’s address in 1889 was number 44 Willow Street.

The other suspect was the home of Mr. Louis Rasmussen on Wisconsin Street near the intersection with Scott Street.  Louis was a mason and it was perhaps in 1894 that his house was erected as there was no listing in the directory of 1893 but the first list came in 1895.  This house also exhibited long narrow windows in the gables and a porch on the upper floor, elements common the both buildings.  At some point after 1903 the front porch of the Rasmussen house was enlarged, as the Sanborn Map from that year still showed the original footprint.  Both houses were resided which destroyed much of the authentic architectural detail.          

Mr. Repe’s House on Mt. Vernon

Years ago, I photographed many buildings I knew to be the work of William Waters, also those I suspected to be by him. One of the houses which attracted my attention was on the south-east corner of Mt. Vernon and Dale Street. in Oshkosh.  The house exhibited many of the signature elements that could mark it as the work of architect Waters; long narrow window in the gables and curved brackets.  To look at the house now, it is hard to imagine the beauty and grace that attended the dwelling when built in 1882. 

 The house was constructed for Charles Repe a stone cutter who’s name first appears in the city directory of 1876.  In those days, Mr. Repe lived at 64 Mt. Vernon Street and his stone cutting operation was on Marion Rd. by the river.  He advertised himself as a practical stone cutter suppling cut stone, flagging, curbing and coping work for cemetery work.  Business must have been good for by the early 1880’s Charles was able to move his wife and family to a large, stylish house further north on Mt. Vernon Street, he even became involved in local politics, representing the forth ward on the city council.   Queen Anne Style was all the rage then and the Repe house was a beauty; a porch across the front, long narrow windows in the gables and gracefully curved bracket supporting over-hanging roofs.  There was even an intriguing bay on the second-floor corner with several small windows and a cartouche-like medallion.

Charles Repe and his wife moved away in 1908 and sold the house to A. A. Steele.  The subsequent year were not kind to the house, the front porch was removed and the place was resided, taking with it much of the architectural detail.  Still one can see the grandeur that once was there.         

Two Diminutive Dwellings

Some time ago David Groth, a fellow William Waters enthusiast shared some pictures with me of houses he thought might be the work of Mr. Waters.  I was surprised by them for I was totally unaware of their existence.  I studied the images closely and was dubious at first, the arched porch entrance seemed too contemporary but then I recalled the Peter King house on Waugoo Avenue which exhibits the same arched entrance and side opening.   I had to agree with David, they were indeed from the drawing board of William Waters.  My research reviled that both homes were built circa 1895 with the house at 51 Pleasant Street being the home of William Krippene, a bookkeeper at the Commercial Bank.  The other house at 11 Bowen Street was listed as being vacant in 1895 but was occupied in 1898 by a laborer named Robert Simonson. 

Mr. Krippene’s house on Pleasant Street shows features that mark it as the work of William Waters.  Above the arch to front porch is a sham gable which is supported at either end by small brackets much like those seen on other jobs by architect Waters.  Over all the building has the look of a “Waters’ Job.”   Some artistic license was taken in the renderings presented here but that was done to show the architect’s intent and not as they appear now.

The house at number 11 Bowen Street was undoubtedly built as a rental property, as the first listing for it indicates it was vacant and subsequent listings have many different occupants.  Architecturally the house has arch openings to the porch and a curious small window high on a diagonal wall on the front porch, a feature seen on other Waters’ houses from the same time.  There is also on the side wall a small window shaded from the sun by an elongated eave.  Both dwellings are charming and diminutive but could house well a small family.