Building date: Roudabush - 1848, Palmer - 1843. Editor's Note: In the photograph "Osw-1 147 West 6th St 3.jpg" in the "Photographs" section below the date 1848 can be clearly seen in the formation of cobblestones above the center window of the second floor. Demolished in August, 2015
Original use:
Corner structures: Regular limestone quoins
Mortar application and content: Horizontal mortar is extended outward in ridges which vary from rounded to pointed. Vertical mortar is in pyramids, which begin depressed below the upper horizontal and are cut off above the lower horizontal.
Types and uses of stones: Small, various colors. The stones are smooth, rounded and of a variety of colors. In the front wall, they are laid two to five rows to the quoin, depending on the height of the quoin.
Types and choice of windows: Window lintels are made of wood and have ornately covered boards attached to the lintels.
Structures with similar masonry details:
Masons who worked on building:
Unique features:
Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 43°27'11.40"N 76°30'54.71"W.
Town of Oswego and Oswego County Maps
At 147 West 6th Street, Oswego, the two story cobblestone house has regular limestone quoins. The stones are smooth, rounded and of a variety of colors. In the front wall, they are laid two to five rows to the quoin, depending on the height of the quoin. Horizontal mortar is extended outward in ridges which vary from rounded to pointed. Vertical mortar is in pyramids, which begin depressed below the upper horizontal and are cut off above the lower horizontal. Window lintels are made of wood and have ornately covered boards attached to the lintels. In the space above the middle second floor window, the date 1848 has been worked into the stones. A front porch has been added after the house was constructed. Roudabush Survey page 98
An account written for Judy Wellman's history class by a SUNY College at Otsego student [by Liz Williams?] many years ago concerns this house on West Sixth St. on Qswego, demolished in 2015 so the hospital could expand its parking lot. Richard Palmer email 8/30/2017.
Page 1
At 147 West Sixth Street, between Oneida St. and Mohawk St., in Oswego, New York, there stands a house that is unique in the neighborhood that it is the only one built of cobblestone. The neighborhood itself is a typical nineteenth century, working-class residential area with houses close to the road and each other.
This gabled roof, cobblestone house built in 1843 stands on the northwest quarter of Lot 166 in Block 40. It is the older of the only two cobblestone houses in Oswego, having been dated by Dr. S. A. Callison of Rochester University. He based his calculations on the irregularity of the cobblestones, stating that in later buildings the stones are better sorted according to size. ¹ Other interesting features of this house include the cement ornaments above the windows and the puzzling appearance of cement surfaces over the entire north and east exterior walls and the puzzling appearance of cement surfaces over the entire north and east exterior walls and over a possible date stone on the upper west wall.
For a few years beginning in 1852, this cobblestone structure was occupied by the first Oswego Orphan Asylum ². Upon formation of the asylum in February of that year "a small building was rented on the east side of West Sixth Street, and was continuously occupied till (sic) the removal to the new edifice four years later." ³ ...
¹ "Old Homes of Oswego" Part 2, (from a paper presented before the Oswego Historical Society on May 13, 1941 by Miss Anna Post of Oswego), 6th Publication of the Oswego Historical Society, Oswego, N.Y., Palladium Times, Inc., Printers 1941. p. 116.
² Ibid., P. 116
³ History of Oswego County 1789-1877, Philadelphia, published by L.H. Everts & Co. 1877 p.159
Editor's Note: Pages 2 and 3 of the report were either not included by the source because they were not relevant to the cobblestone structure or are missing from from the Cobblestone Museum archives folder.
Page 4
...Sometime after that addition was removed another one, the present addition on the back, was built. This addition, presently consisting of a bedroom and a kitchen, is a curiosity in that there is an attic window in it in the space above the rooms, yet the attic is not accessible save through the through this window. Another addition was added to this one sometime later but was razed in 1960 and consequently, the assessed value of the house dropped from $2,500 to $2,115. A foundation stone in the northeast corner of the backyard exists today as evidence of one of these past additions. A porch that still stands today was added onto the front of the house. 7 As an interesting thought in connection with the construction of this porch one might surmise that the cobblestone doorsteps on the house next-door to the north came from this cobblestone house when the porch was added. See photograph Osw-1 147 West 6th St 2
Osw-1 147 West 6th St 2.jpg
The cobblestone house on West Sixth Street, significant in its very existence as a rare cobblestone structure, is also important as a part of Oswego's history in its role as the first orphan asylum and as a home of many working-class people who contributed to the growth of Oswego.
7 Information on additions to the house was obtained from Assessment Records in the City Hall Annex on West Second St., Oswego, N.Y. Most of the information came from a 1960 Assessment Record on a card in the files there.
This cobblestone house at 147 West Sixth St. was among several demolished in August, 2015 to allow for the expansion of the Oswego hospital parking lot. The oldest of only two such residences in Oswego, it was built in 1843. The date stone in the peak of the roof had been plastered over. It served as the Oswego Orphan Asylums between February, 1852 and 1856 when a new building was erected. It was only one of two cobblestone houses in the city. Its destruction went almost completely unnoticed. Richard Palmer blog.
 Osw_2_1.jpg |  Osw_2_2.jpg |  Osw_2_3.jpg |  Osw_2_4.jpg |
 Osw-1 147 West 6th St 1.jpg ¹ |  Osw-1 14X West 6th St 2.jpg ¹ Cobblestone doorsteps on the house next-door to the north. See History Class paper above, page 4, 1st paragraph. |  Osw-1 147 West 6th St 3.jpg ¹ |  Osw-1 147 West 6th St 4.jpg ¹ |
 WEST SIXTH STREET.jpg ² |  146 W. 6th Photo 2.jpg ² |
¹ Photography courtesy Martin and Sheila Wolfish.
² Photography courtesy Richard Palmer.
