Ann Arbor Observed: Selections from Then and Now

Cobblestone Houses in Washtenaw County

Architecture Cobblestone Houses in Washtenaw County They’re a spinoff of the Erie Canal. Cobblestone Farm on Packard Road is one of at least seven cobblestone houses in Washtenaw County. Highly distinctive but incredibly laborious to build, they’re examples of a folk art that flourished between the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the Civil War. Cobblestone houses first appeared in western New York State immediately after the canal was completed. Their creation was due to a fortunate combination of circumstances: a labor force of skilled masons looking for work after the canal’s completion, an abundance of glacial stones, and a population eager to build new homes with profits from the canal. Most of the known examples (nine hundred in all) are in New York, but as New Yorkers moved west, they took the craft with them and built scattered cobblestone houses in southern Ontario, southern Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin—wherever they found the style’s namesake building materials, glacial stones, formed during the Ice Age, small enough to hold in one hand. Even the most informative book on cobblestone architecture, Cobblestone Landmarks of New York State, by Olaf William Shelgren Jr., Cary Lattin, and Robert W. Frasch, is unable to trace an inventor of the style. The authors assume that most masons did only three or four cobblestone houses and that “they learned the cobblestone technique from each other or by examining finished buildings.” Cobblestone houses’ exterior walls were constructed with the stones arranged in neat rows, usually either vertically or horizontally but sometimes in fancier designs, and held together with cement that formed ridges between the layers. The simple lines of the prevalent architectural styles of the period, such as Federal, Classic Revival, and Greek Revival, lent themselves perfectly to this type of construction. The masons experimented, and the homes became more involved and 227 elaborate as the years went by. But even the simplest style was very labor intensive, requiring hand placement of each stone. In the earliest homes, the stones were embedded right in the cement, forming an integral part of the outside wall. Later, the stones were more of a veneer, with just an occasional longer stone poked all the way into the cement. Toward the end of the era, the houses became very fancy, with tinier stones used merely for a veneer and arranged in elaborate patterns. The cobblestone houses in Washtenaw County fit in with what is known about the homes in general: all were built in the 1830s and 1840s; all are in places where western New Yorkers settled; and all are of simple design, either Classic Revival or Greek Revival. Where the building time is documented, it runs from two to seven years, showing how laborious the work was. While two of the homes may have been done by the same mason, the other five seem to have been done by different individuals. All are located either on the Huron River or near streams, where stones were easier to find. Cobblestone Farm, built in 1844 at 2781 Packard, is now a city-owned museum. Both the owner and the builder had New York origins. Heman Ticknor, who bought the farm for his brother, Dr. Benajah Ticknor, had farmed in Pittstown, New York, near Troy; the probable builder, Steven Mills, learned to be a mason in Phelps, in western New York. Ann Arbor’s other cobblestone house, at 2940 Fuller Road, across 228 Ann Arbor Observed The city-owned property known as Cobblestone Farm, built in 1844 for naval surgeon Benajah Ticknor, is today the site of many community activities. (Courtesy of Stan Shackman.) from Huron High, was built in 1836 for Orrin White, the first settler in Ann Arbor Township. White migrated to Ann Arbor from Palmyra, in Wayne County, New York, the county with the largest number of recorded cobblestone houses. Former owners Nan and Robert Hodges believe that the house was also built by Steven Mills because it is very similar to the Ticknor-Campbell house: both are Classic Revival, and they have identical herringbone patterns of angled stones and similar interior layouts. Lima Township’s cobblestone house, at 10725 Jerusalem Road, is similar to the Ann Arbor cobblestone houses in size and design. Original owner Lester Jewett, who hailed from Seneca, New York, was, like Benajah Ticknor, a medical doctor. According to stories that have been passed down, the house took...