Building date: 1847
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Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 42°19'31.94"N 83°48'04.55"W. Current owner of record, Heydon as of the 2019 Tax Roll.
Scio Township and Washtenaw County Maps.
Another Greek Revival house at 3562 W. Huron River Drive in Scio Township was the home of farmer Morris Richmond, who hailed from New York and built his house in 1847, taking more than two years to do it. The house was obviously built by someone who knew about architecture, since it features classic Greek Revival attributes: gable entrance, symmetrical windows, and even a raised area under the beams forming a frieze.
The most rustic of the seven Washtenaw County cobblestone homes is probably the only owner-built house in the group. Located on the corner of Baker and Shields just south of Dexter, it was built by Obed Taylor, who, according to information researched by his great-great-grandson, Welton Chamberlain, had been a surveyor and a road builder in Northbridge, Massachusetts, before coming west. After his arrival in Dexter, he was hired by Vrelan Bates to dig out a mill race for the Bates Saw Mill on Mill Creek. Taylor worked for three years, digging with pick and shovel, for which he was rewarded with 40 acres of nearby land.
He used the stones that he dug out to construct his house, burning the larger pieces of limestone for cement and using the smaller stones for the walls. Records indicate that he must have finished his home by 1844 because in that year he was hired by Judge Samuel Dexter to build a fence just like the one around his own home.
People curious about cobblestone houses and willing to travel farther afield can see all the cobblestone houses they could ever desire by going to western New York State and driving along Route 104, built on an old sandbar that parallels the Erie Canal. In Childs, New York, The Cobblestone Society and Museum maintains a museum complex that includes a cobblestone church; a cobblestone home and a one-room schoolhouse.
A little closer to home, in Paris, Ontario, near Brantford, are Canada's finest examples of cobblestone homes, all built by Levi Boughton, a mason from Normandale, New York.
Right here in Washtenaw County, we are lucky to have the seven we have: all slightly different, all well kept up, and all beautiful. The best time to view cobblestone houses is when the sun shines on them, giving the stones a beautiful three-dimensional look. Richard Palmer blog.
 Sci-3 Morris Richmond House.jpg ¹ |
¹ Image courtesy courtesy Richard Palmer blog. Attribution not provided.
