 In his "History of Logan County" (1911), Lawrence B.
Stringer writes of the Postville Courthouse that "a fire-place, with
its picturesque outside fireplace chimney, gave heat to the building
when required" (p. 154). The 1929-30 reconstruction of this
courthouse in Henry Ford's Greenfield Village near Dearborn, Mich.,
and the courthouse replica in Lincoln, constructed in 1953, both
have two-story, stone fireplace chimneys on their left exterior
walls. Yet, all of the several published photos of the original
courthouse, the earliest dating to near the beginning of the 20th
century, clearly show the left wall without such an outside chimney.
Instead, the earliest photos of this building show two brick
chimneys, and they are recessed from the ends of the roof peak on
either side. Clearly, those chimneys arise from the interior of the
building.
The only image I had found that suggests the left-side chimney
might have been on the exterior from the ground up is in a mural
painted above a doorway on the upper floor of the contemporary Logan
County Courthouse, dedicated in 1905 (artist unknown). Did this
image give Judge Stringer the idea that there was an exterior
chimney, as he reports in his 1911 "History of Logan County"? If
not, what other source evidence is there for Stringer's reference to
an exterior chimney? If the original Postville Courthouse had an
exterior fireplace stone chimney from the ground up, what happened
to it? (In my various sources of history, I had found no reference
to its removal or destruction.) If the original courthouse did not
have a chimney fireplace from the ground up, was it a revision of
history invented when the courthouse was reconstructed in Greenfield
Village? Did this fabrication then serve as the model for the design
of the replica in Lincoln? Or, was there some other answer to the
question of the exterior fireplace chimney?
I also note the absence of a right-side chimney in the
reconstruction at Greenfield Village that corresponds with the
absence of a right-side chimney in the painting of the 1905 Logan
County Courthouse. In contrast, the courthouse replica in Lincoln
has a chimney recessed from the right end of the roof peak. Does
that feature of the replica accurately correspond to the original
construction?
A curious piece of evidence adding to the chimney questions is a
drawing of the original Postville Courthouse found in "History of
Logan County 1886." This line drawing, perhaps the oldest graphic
representation of this building, shows two chimneys, and they are
recessed from the ends of the roof peak on either side, just as the
photos cited above depict.
McGuire Igleski & Associates Inc., of Evanston, was the
architectural firm that designed the courthouse replica in Lincoln.
This firm's Web page (link below) has an interior photo of the
Postville Courthouse replica's fireplace constructed of brick. If
there really had been an exterior stone chimney, would not the
interior fireplace also have been built with limestone as the
foundation was? (James T. Hickey had written in 1953 that the
foundation limestone was quarried at Rocky Ford on Salt Creek.) In
July of this year I wrote to McGuire Igleski to see whether that
firm could help answer my various questions, and I still await a
response.
In August, I wrote to the Benson Ford Research Center of the
Henry Ford Museum because I had reason to believe its archives
contained photos that could answer my questions. In an article
titled "The Postville Courthouse Revisited," published Feb. 12,
2002, in LincolnDailyNews.com, Stan Stringer (no relation to
Lawrence B. Stringer) had mentioned that Henry Ford's
"conservationist hired my father, Charles M. Stringer, to photograph
the disassembly of the courthouse." Charles Stringer, a professional
photographer, had a studio in downtown Lincoln on Broadway Street in
the 1930s and '40s. The Benson Ford Research Center required a
minimum of one hour of research ($35) for them to see whether the
photos in question were in their archives. I sent the payment and
subsequently received a letter and photocopies of 30 stunning,
black-and-white photos. Most of these are stamped "Stringer Lincoln,
Ill." on the back. The research historian of the Illinois State
Historic Preservation Agency, Mark L. Johnston, says copies of those
photos are in that agency's files. A few are also at the Postville
Courthouse State Historic Site.
[to top of second column]
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Two of the photocopies I received show full views of the left (west)
side of the original Postville Courthouse in 1929. They show a
chimney above the peak of the roof, and the chimney was an interior
structure. The photos, however, also prove that the left-side wall
once had a large, external, two-story chimney, later removed, and
the large hole was covered with boards. These replacement boards are
aligned with the boards on either side of the hole left by the
absence of the chimney. The edges of the abutting replacement boards
form a distinct outline (pattern) of the external chimney that was
part of the original 1840 structure. This outline shows the shape
and contour of the chimney, whose upward sides gradually narrowed.
This shape is reflected in the design of the external chimney
featured in the reconstruction at Greenfield Village and the replica
in Lincoln. The photos also show a window on the left wall that had
been built after the original chimney was gone.
 Fellow history
buff and good cousin Keith Leesman, a volunteer at the Postville
Courthouse Historic Site, found a copy of an undated report
(original at Greenfield Village) that says the building was
remodeled as a residence in 1880. Perhaps that was the approximate
time when the building was moved forward off its original limestone
foundation onto a new foundation composed mostly of brick. Charles
M. Stringer's photos show the excavation of the original stone
foundation behind the 1929 building site and the brick foundation of
the building when it was dismantled in 1929. Ford shipped the
original stone foundation to Greenfield Village. (My friend Ron
Musick and his wife, Sandi, visited Greenfield in 2004 and
discovered that Ford had even shipped some of the dirt from the
Postville site to Greenfield.) Records indicate that the original
stone fireplace chimney was removed when the building was moved
forward, and a brick fireplace replaced it. Whether a second brick
fireplace was constructed on the right side of the building is
unclear. It is possible that the two chimneys on either side of the
building in 1929 were connected from the fireplace on the left wall.
I speculate that the brick may have come from Lincoln's brick
factory, which began operation in the 1870s near the South Coal
Mine. My Postville Courthouse Web page (link below) has various
photos of the courthouse and more information about Lincoln's brick
factory.
On the matter of fireplaces and chimneys of the Postville
Courthouse, neither the present-day replica in Lincoln nor the
reconstruction at Greenfield Village appears to be completely
accurate to the 1840 original. The external stone fireplace chimney
on the replica is accurate, but the chimney on the right side is
not. And the brick fireplace in the replica should actually be
constructed of stone, as the original was. The Greenfield
reconstruction has two brick fireplaces and a cast-iron stove with
stovepipe running to the top of window, but the 1840 construction
did not have those features.
I have added two of Charles Stringer's wonderful 1929 photos to
my Web page telling the story of the Postville Courthouse and its
chimneys. I paid the Benson Ford Research Center its required fees
for permission to use those photos. To the best of my knowledge,
these photos have never been previously published. One photo shows
the left exterior wall of the courthouse with the replacement boards
outlining the original stone fireplace chimney. The other photo
shows Fifth Street paved with brick and an Illinois Route 4 sign in
the year just before that road changed to U.S. Route 66.
___
On the Net:
McGuire Igleski photo of Postville Courthouse replica's brick
fireplace:
http://www.miarchitects.com/governmental5.html
"The Postville Courthouse Revisited," by Stan Stringer:
http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2002/Feb/19/
Features_new/community.shtml
Web site of the Benson Ford Research Center:
http://www.thehenryford.org/research/index.aspx
"Abraham Lincoln and the Postville Courthouse," by Leigh Henson:
http://www.geocities.com/findinglincolnillinois/
alincolnandpostville.html#chimneys
[By
D. LEIGH HENSON,
Ph.D. professor emeritus of English, Missouri State University,
Springfield] |
