Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1904 — Still Another Old Building Gone [ARTICLE]

Still Another Old Building Gone

One by one the old time-before-the-war, hewn timber and split lath buildings of Rensselaer continue to fall before th a march of progress, until now there are scarcely any left, and what »rj, have mostly been removed from their original locations. These remarks are inspired by the disappearance of the old E, P. Hammaud residence, at the corner of Washington and Division streets This building, from its associations is one of the historic old residences of the town

This building, or the front part thereof, was erected about 1856. At that time, Geo. W. Spitler, one of the patriarchs of Rensselaer and Jasper county, was the owner of the entire block where the building stood, as well as of many other blocks and lots. He sold that lot to one Joseph St. Johns, a carpenter, who put up the original part of the bouse, a three room dwelling, two rooms down stairs and one up stairs. Before he moved into tbe bouse Mr. St. Johus concluded to move away, and he sold the building to Mr. Spitler, and before the litter had ever transfered the lots to St. Johns.

Daring the war Co'. E. P. Hammond married Mias Jennie Spitler, and Uncle George gave her this property, ae a part of her marriage portion. When the Colonel came home at the close of his distinguished waraervice. they went to living in thia house, while he embarked upon hie still more guiehed legal and judicial career The houae was pretty small, and as often as there was an addition to the family, or good reason to anticipate such, there was a corresponding addition to the residence. This commendible process went on, hand in hand, until the originally small family had increased nearly to the Roosevelt standard, and the house co ered pretty nearly the whole end of the lot; by the time Colonel Hammond, then Judge Hammond, built his big brick residence, at the head of Washington street, and which, after he had served a term as Supreme Court judge, be sold to H. O. Harris, previous to removing to Lafayette, to embark on hie very successful and lucrative legal busi-

n3BB in that city. * The old house has been sold to •Joseph Neeius, of Jordan tp., who is tearing it down, very carefully saving intact every possible piece of timber, board or serviceable lath. It may seem a paradox, but the oldest part of the building is really now the newest, in point of present soundness. The upper timbers and some of the sills are as sound as the day they were hauled from the woods, nearly 50 years ago, and so also most of the lumber in that part of the house. And it is Mr. Nesius’s intention to keep all the lumber from the original old part separate, and to haul it eight miles to bis farm in Jordan and there rebuild it, just as it was before, in all essential particulars, and thus be fitted to stand for another 50 years, as a comfortable farm residence.