Tousley-Church House
Encyclopedia
The Tousley-Church House is located on North Main Street (New York State Route 98
) in Albion, New York
, United States. It is a brick house in the Greek Revival
architectural style
built in two different stages in the mid-19th century.
It shows the strong influence of Minard Lafever
, a prominent contemporary practitioner of the style, although its own architect is not known. For many years it was owned by descendants of Sanford E. Church
, a local politician who was prominent statewide. Since 1930 it has been the headquarters of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR). In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
(now part of the New York State Barge Canal), in the Town of Gaines
. The terrain is level. The surrounding neighborhood is residential, wth most houses dating to the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
Mature trees on the front lawn provide shade. A narrow sandstone
walk leads from the sidewalk on North Main to the house's main entrance. A unpaved parking area in the rear is accessed through a curb cut on Linwood.
foundation
with an ashlar
limestone
water table
. The brick above is laid in common bond. It rises to a wide wooden frieze
below the hipped roof
surfaced in bitumen, pierced by four brick chimneys near the corners.
In the southerly two of the three bays
on the west (front) facade
, the windows are set off by plain stone sills and lintels with black wooden louver
ed shutters
. The wide frieze is topped with a dentil molding
topped by bead and reel
molding. Above the windows are grille
s in the shape of Greek key
s with hinged windows behind them.
The north bay has a small projecting portico
sheltering the main entrance. The steps leading up to it and its deck are made of large gray limestone blocks. Wide cheek walls on either side of the stairs have a quarter-round profile following the steps' fall line to identical square stone pedestals topped with cap blocks, currently holding large flower pots, identical to the plinth
blocks underneath the two wooden fluted
Ionic
columns supporting the portico's hipped roof. It has an elaborate entablature
with cornice
, frieze
, dentilled taenia
and architrave
. The gutter is surrounded on three sides by a gutter
with acroteria
topped with an anthemion. Two engaged pilaster
s with Tuscan
capitals support the roof at the rear.
The south wing is only one story in height, but has similar treatments to the main block, with less decoration. A full porch spans the west facade, where a secondary entrance is located in the middle of its three bays. It is also floored in gray limestone with similar steps, but is supported by Doric columns
, backed at the wall by similarly treated pilasters, with a plain frieze. A three-sided bay projects from the south wall.
On the east, the one-and-a-half-story frame wing's foundation has been partially replaced by stone-faced concrete block and stucco
ed over. The stairs to its entrances on the south and east are also concrete. A small gabled canopy is over the east door. Its windows are smaller than those on the rest of the house. The roofline has a boxed cornice with raking fasciae
.
with a pattern of repeating semicircles set in a rectangular border, holds a stained
and varnish
ed door with recessed panels decorated in a leaf-and-dart pattern. It opens into an entrance hall with a switchback stair, its open stringers decorated with a scroll relief
. The newel
at the base consists of a square bottom with a round turned post carved in an acanthus
leaf relief pattern. It is capped in a carved acanthus scroll. Narrow turned baluster
s support the handrail, and four Doric columns support the landing and upper run.
The windows in the entrance hall have wide casings with backband trim, shouldered architraves and thick cap moldings. A large plaster ceiling medallion, with a floral rosette
including two strings of striated petals inside a ring of alternating acanthus and small rosettes, holds an acorn-globe light fixture on a chain. At the rear of the entrance hall is a former bedroom. Its fireplace has a black marble Italianate mantel
and cast iron
firebox
.
South of the entrance hall is a large room with 11-foot-9-inch (11.75 feet (3.6 m)) ceiling occupying the rest of the main block. It is elaborately decorated as well, starting with a one-foot (30 cm) three-member molded baseboard
running around the room's entire perimeter. The door and window surrounds are more detailed than the ones in the entrance hall. Their architraves have a regularly spaced row of rosettes, and their cap moldings have a scroll relief surrounded by freestanding anthemia. The architraves' rosette motif is repeated on the black marble mantel, with a cast iron surround inside it done in
reed-and-tie molding. Three more acorn-globe light fixtures hang from the ceiling by chains. The second floor has three large rooms with sloped plaster ceilings, following that of the roof above.
A paneled double door connects to another large room in the south wing. It has a lower ceiling and more restrained decoration — the window and surrounds are a flat casing with molded backband A Colonial Revival
fireplace with exposed brick mantel is in the center wall of the projecting bay.
The east wing contains the kitchen and a woodshed. It has seven-foot (7 feet (2.1 m)) plaster ceilings with walls finished in rough plaster. On the east wall is an early 19th-century cooking fireplace and baking oven with wooden Federal style mantel. The oven is behind two wooden doors. The doors have narrow casings with beaded Federal style backbands. There is a small pantry in the northeast corner. The woodshed, on the east, has an earthen floor below the kitchen's floor level.
who came north for the business opportunities presented by the canal, built what is today the south and rear wings around 1840. The kitchen fireplace and oven, woodshed, and the door and window casings reflecting the transition between the Federal and Greek Revival styles are the most prominent remnants of this house. In 1848 he and his wife sold the house, then on a 20 acres (8.1 ha) lot, to Orson Tousley.
A son of one of the county's earliest settlers, Tousley had run a tavern in Clarendon
until 1837, when he began speculating
in real estate and pursuing various other business ventures, including the contract for widening the canal through the county and some of the early railroad construction in the area. He served in several public offices in Clarendon, including town supervisor
around the time he bought the house.
In the next decade he enlarged and renovated the house, adding the new main block. The previous main block, now the south wing, was converted to a hipped roof to harmonize with the larger portion. Like most of those made affluent by the canal and its business in the area, he embraced the newly popular Greek Revival style. In particular Tousley's alterations and new construction, with its intricate and elaborate decoration both inside and out, show the influence of Minard Lafever
and his pattern books of the time.
Tousley died in 1863, leaving the house to his young daughter Florence. Three years later she married George Church, son of Sanford E. Church
, former lieutenant governor
and chief of New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals. George himself would serve as deputy superintendent of insurance and deputy state treasurer. The Churches only major change to the house was the addition of the projecting bay on the south wing's south wall, around 1870.
Florence Church lived into her eighties, becoming one of the 25 founding members of the local Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR) chapter when it was established in 1925, serving as its regent. She died shortly thereafter, and bequeathed the house to her son Sanford T. Church, who had gone into the law and served as a judge locally for many years. He and his wife, also named Florence, sold the house to Emma Reed Webster in 1929 for $2,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) more than the small mortgage
remaining on it. They stipulated that the extra money would be donated to the Orleans DAR, and the county historical society, to start an endowment in the Church family name..
Two months later Webster, who was not a member of the chapter and later moved to Utica
, donated the house to the DAR. To adapt
it for use as an organizational building, she paid for the installation of central heating and carpeting to conceal the concrete floors she had poured, the removal of an exterior woodshed and other outbuildings once shown on the map, the addition of the fireplace and chimney in the south wing bay, and the combination of the five rooms in the main block and south wing into two large meeting spaces. She also gave the chapter furniture including a hundred chairs, and an electric range in the kitchen. When she died she also left the chapter an endowment. There have been no other alterations to the house since, and it has remained the local DAR chapter's building.
New York State Route 98
New York State Route 98 is a state highway in the western part of New York in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with U.S. Route 219 in the town of Great Valley in Cattaraugus County...
) in Albion, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States. It is a brick house in the 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...
architectural 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...
built in two different stages in the mid-19th century.
It shows the strong influence of Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever was an influential American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century.-Life and career:...
, a prominent contemporary practitioner of the style, although its own architect is not known. For many years it was owned by descendants of Sanford E. Church
Sanford E. Church
Sanford Elias Church was an American lawyer and Democratic politician...
, a local politician who was prominent statewide. Since 1930 it has been the headquarters of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....
(DAR). In 2002 it 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...
.
Building
The Tousley-Church House is located in an 0.8 acre (0.3237488 ha) lot on the northeast corner of North Main and Linwood Avenue, in the section of the village of Albion north of the Erie CanalErie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
(now part of the New York State Barge Canal), in the Town of Gaines
Gaines, New York
Gaines is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 3,740 at the 2000 census. The town is named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who defended the area during the War of 1812....
. The terrain is level. The surrounding neighborhood is residential, wth most houses dating to the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
Mature trees on the front lawn provide shade. A narrow sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
walk leads from the sidewalk on North Main to the house's main entrance. A unpaved parking area in the rear is accessed through a curb cut on Linwood.
Exterior
The house, the only building on the property, consists of three sections, a main block and south wing, both brick, and a frame rear wing to the east. The main block is a one-and-a-half-story structure on a fieldstoneFieldstone
Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...
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:...
with an ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
water table
Water table
The water table is the level at which the submarine pressure is far from atmospheric pressure. It may be conveniently visualized as the 'surface' of the subsurface materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. However, saturated conditions may extend above the water table as...
. The brick above is laid in common bond. It rises to a wide wooden frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
below the hipped roof
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
surfaced in bitumen, pierced by four brick chimneys near the corners.
In the southerly two of the three 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:...
on the west (front) facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
, the windows are set off by plain stone sills and lintels with black wooden louver
Louver
A louver or louvre , from the French l'ouvert; "the open one") is a window, blind or shutter with horizontal slats that are angled to admit light and air, but to keep out rain, direct sunshine, and noise...
ed shutters
Window shutter
A window shutter is a solid and stable window covering usually consisting of a frame of vertical stiles and horizontal rails...
. The wide frieze is topped with a dentil molding
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...
topped by bead and reel
Bead and reel
"Bead and reel" is an architectural motif, usually found in sculptures, moldings and numismatics. It consists in a thin line where beadlike elements alternate with cylindrical ones....
molding. Above the windows are grille
Grille
A grille or grill is an opening of several slits side by side in a wall or metal sheet or other barrier, usually to let air or water enter and/or leave but keep larger objects including people and animals in or out.-Spelling:In the United States, "grille" is used to differentiate the automotive...
s in the shape of Greek key
Greek key
Greek key may refer to:*An artistic meander pattern*Beta sheet#Greek key motif: A motif in proteins based on the meander pattern...
s with hinged windows behind them.
The north bay has a small projecting portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
sheltering the main entrance. The steps leading up to it and its deck are made of large gray limestone blocks. Wide cheek walls on either side of the stairs have a quarter-round profile following the steps' fall line to identical square stone pedestals topped with cap blocks, currently holding large flower pots, identical to the plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
blocks underneath the two wooden fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
columns supporting the portico's hipped roof. It has an elaborate 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 ,...
with 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...
, frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
, dentilled taenia
Taenia (architecture)
Derived from the Ancient Greek tainia : "band" or "ribbon", taenia is the Latin word for a small "fillet" molding near the top of the architrave in a Doric column.In classical architecture, the entire structure above the columns is called the entablature...
and architrave
Architrave
An architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture.-Classical architecture:...
. The gutter is surrounded on three sides by a gutter
Gutter
panels of a comic strip or comic book page*Gutter , the space between panes of postage stamps that creates configurations of "gutter pairs" or "gutter blocks"*Gutter, in interface design, the blank spaces that separate rows and columns in screen...
with acroteria
Acroterion
An acroterion or acroterium is an architectural ornament placed on a flat base called the acroter or plinth, and mounted at the apex of the pediment of a building in the Classical style. It may also be placed at the outer angles of the pediment; such acroteria are referred to as acroteria angularia...
topped with an anthemion. Two engaged 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 with Tuscan
Tuscan order
Among canon of classical orders of classical architecture, the Tuscan order's place is due to the influence of the Italian Sebastiano Serlio, who meticulously described the five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of Regole generalii di...
capitals support the roof at the rear.
The south wing is only one story in height, but has similar treatments to the main block, with less decoration. A full porch spans the west facade, where a secondary entrance is located in the middle of its three bays. It is also floored in gray limestone with similar steps, but is supported by Doric columns
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
, backed at the wall by similarly treated pilasters, with a plain frieze. A three-sided bay projects from the south wall.
On the east, the one-and-a-half-story frame wing's foundation has been partially replaced by stone-faced concrete block and stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
ed over. The stairs to its entrances on the south and east are also concrete. A small gabled canopy is over the east door. Its windows are smaller than those on the rest of the house. The roofline has a boxed cornice with raking fasciae
Fascia (architecture)
Fascia is a term used in architecture to refer to a frieze or band running horizontally and situated vertically under the roof edge or which forms the outer surface of a cornice and is visible to an outside observer...
.
Interior
The main entrance, framed by square pilasters, sidelights and a transomTransom (architectural)
In architecture, a transom is the term given to a transverse beam or bar in a frame, or to the crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it. Transom is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece...
with a pattern of repeating semicircles set in a rectangular border, holds a stained
Wood stain
A wood stain consists of a colorant suspended or dissolved in a 'vehicle' or solvent. The suspension agent can be water, alcohol, petroleum distillate, or the actual finishing agent...
and varnish
Varnish
Varnish is a transparent, hard, protective finish or film primarily used in wood finishing but also for other materials. Varnish is traditionally a combination of a drying oil, a resin, and a thinner or solvent. Varnish finishes are usually glossy but may be designed to produce satin or semi-gloss...
ed door with recessed panels decorated in a leaf-and-dart pattern. It opens into an entrance hall with a switchback stair, its open stringers decorated with a scroll relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
. The newel
Newel
A newel, also called a central pole, is an upright post that supports the handrail of a stair banister. In stairs having straight flights it is the principal post at the foot of the staircase, but it can also be used for the intermediate posts on landings and at the top of a staircase...
at the base consists of a square bottom with a round turned post carved in an acanthus
Acanthus (ornament)
The acanthus is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration.-Architecture:In architecture, an ornament is carved into stone or wood to resemble leaves from the Mediterranean species of the Acanthus genus of plants, which have deeply cut leaves with some similarity to...
leaf relief pattern. It is capped in a carved acanthus scroll. Narrow turned baluster
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...
s support the handrail, and four Doric columns support the landing and upper run.
The windows in the entrance hall have wide casings with backband trim, shouldered architraves and thick cap moldings. A large plaster ceiling medallion, with a floral rosette
Rosette (design)
A rosette is a round, stylized flower design, used extensively in sculptural objects from antiquity. Appearing in Mesopotamia and used to decorate the funeral stele in Ancient Greece...
including two strings of striated petals inside a ring of alternating acanthus and small rosettes, holds an acorn-globe light fixture on a chain. At the rear of the entrance hall is a former bedroom. Its fireplace has a black marble Italianate mantel
Fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...
and cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
firebox
Firebox
In a steam engine, the firebox is the area where the fuel is burned, producing heat to boil the water in the boiler. Most are somewhat box-shaped, hence the name.-Railway locomotive firebox :...
.
South of the entrance hall is a large room with 11-foot-9-inch (11.75 feet (3.6 m)) ceiling occupying the rest of the main block. It is elaborately decorated as well, starting with a one-foot (30 cm) three-member molded baseboard
Baseboard
In architecture, a baseboard is a board covering the lowest part of an interior wall...
running around the room's entire perimeter. The door and window surrounds are more detailed than the ones in the entrance hall. Their architraves have a regularly spaced row of rosettes, and their cap moldings have a scroll relief surrounded by freestanding anthemia. The architraves' rosette motif is repeated on the black marble mantel, with a cast iron surround inside it done in
reed-and-tie molding. Three more acorn-globe light fixtures hang from the ceiling by chains. The second floor has three large rooms with sloped plaster ceilings, following that of the roof above.
A paneled double door connects to another large room in the south wing. It has a lower ceiling and more restrained decoration — the window and surrounds are a flat casing with molded backband A Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
fireplace with exposed brick mantel is in the center wall of the projecting bay.
The east wing contains the kitchen and a woodshed. It has seven-foot (7 feet (2.1 m)) plaster ceilings with walls finished in rough plaster. On the east wall is an early 19th-century cooking fireplace and baking oven with wooden Federal style mantel. The oven is behind two wooden doors. The doors have narrow casings with beaded Federal style backbands. There is a small pantry in the northeast corner. The woodshed, on the east, has an earthen floor below the kitchen's floor level.
History
John Lee, a resident of nearby BarreBarre, New York
Barre is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 2,124 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Barre, Massachusetts.The Town of Barre is on the south border of the county.- History :...
who came north for the business opportunities presented by the canal, built what is today the south and rear wings around 1840. The kitchen fireplace and oven, woodshed, and the door and window casings reflecting the transition between the Federal and Greek Revival styles are the most prominent remnants of this house. In 1848 he and his wife sold the house, then on a 20 acres (8.1 ha) lot, to Orson Tousley.
A son of one of the county's earliest settlers, Tousley had run a tavern in Clarendon
Clarendon, New York
Clarendon is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 3,392 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from Clarendon, Vermont.The Town of Clarendon is in the southeast part of the county...
until 1837, when he began speculating
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
in real estate and pursuing various other business ventures, including the contract for widening the canal through the county and some of the early railroad construction in the area. He served in several public offices in Clarendon, including town supervisor
Town supervisor
Town Supervisor is an elective legislative position in New York towns. Supervisors sit on the town board, where they preside over town board meetings and vote on all matters with no more legal weight than that of any other board member .Towns may adopt local laws that allow them to provide for an...
around the time he bought the house.
In the next decade he enlarged and renovated the house, adding the new main block. The previous main block, now the south wing, was converted to a hipped roof to harmonize with the larger portion. Like most of those made affluent by the canal and its business in the area, he embraced the newly popular Greek Revival style. In particular Tousley's alterations and new construction, with its intricate and elaborate decoration both inside and out, show the influence of Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever was an influential American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century.-Life and career:...
and his pattern books of the time.
Tousley died in 1863, leaving the house to his young daughter Florence. Three years later she married George Church, son of Sanford E. Church
Sanford E. Church
Sanford Elias Church was an American lawyer and Democratic politician...
, former lieutenant governor
Lieutenant Governor of New York
The Lieutenant Governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the government of New York State. It is the second highest ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket with the governor for a four year term...
and chief of New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals. George himself would serve as deputy superintendent of insurance and deputy state treasurer. The Churches only major change to the house was the addition of the projecting bay on the south wing's south wall, around 1870.
Florence Church lived into her eighties, becoming one of the 25 founding members of the local Daughters of the American Revolution
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....
(DAR) chapter when it was established in 1925, serving as its regent. She died shortly thereafter, and bequeathed the house to her son Sanford T. Church, who had gone into the law and served as a judge locally for many years. He and his wife, also named Florence, sold the house to Emma Reed Webster in 1929 for $2,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) more than the small mortgage
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...
remaining on it. They stipulated that the extra money would be donated to the Orleans DAR, and the county historical society, to start an endowment in the Church family name..
Two months later Webster, who was not a member of the chapter and later moved to Utica
Utica, New York
Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....
, donated the house to the DAR. To adapt
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
it for use as an organizational building, she paid for the installation of central heating and carpeting to conceal the concrete floors she had poured, the removal of an exterior woodshed and other outbuildings once shown on the map, the addition of the fireplace and chimney in the south wing bay, and the combination of the five rooms in the main block and south wing into two large meeting spaces. She also gave the chapter furniture including a hundred chairs, and an electric range in the kitchen. When she died she also left the chapter an endowment. There have been no other alterations to the house since, and it has remained the local DAR chapter's building.
External links
- D. A. R. House, North Main Street, Albion, Orleans County, NY: 7 photos, 3 data pages and 1 photo caption page, at Historic American Building Survey