Stoner, Joseph J., House

About this property

The Joseph J. Stoner House is a historic Italiante-style house built in 1855 four blocks south of the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was the home of Stoner, the central figure in the birds-eye-view map business of the late 1800s. In 1980 the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places, judged significant for its association with Stoner and as a good example of a detached Italianate townhouse. The Stoner house had its start in 1854 when land agents Henry Wright and Charles Meyer bought a lot where Hamilton Street stops at Lake Monona. This was before the Chicago and North Western Railway built the filled right-of-way between the lot and the lake, and before more fill was added for John Nolen Drive, so the lot was lakeshore property at the time. The house was built 100 feet to the south of its current location, with Lake Monona lapping at the back yard. The front of the house is little changed since then - two stories with windows symmetric around a centered door, with a hip and deck roof, styled Italianate. Hallmarks of that style present in this house are the double brackets under the eaves, the shallow hip roof, and the ornate front porch. Eyebrow windows peek out between the eaves brackets, in line with the windows below. The simple window and door trim are typical of Greek Revival style - not Italianate. The house is clad in local sandstone laid so that small blocks alternate with large, a pattern common in 1800s southern Wisconsin. Three corbelled chimneys rise from the roof. For many years the back of the house sported a two-story porch decorated with scroll saw-work facing the lake. The house was sold to Mrs. Henry Staines in 1856 for $3,607. Henry and Janet Staines were Scottish immigrants who had bought the Sauk City Flour Mill and invested in land in Sauk County. By 1854 they owned a lot in Madison, and in 1856 they moved with their eight children to the Stoner house. They probably lost the house in the Panic of 1857 and Henry ended up as a merchant in Prairie du Sac. Robert and Christina Nichols bought the house in 1863 for $600. Robert was a butcher with a shop a short walk away at the corner of South Hamilton and Carroll. Joseph John Stoner bought the house in 1865 for $3,000. This Pennsylvanian had arrived in Madison in 1864, a book salesman. There he married his boss's daughter Harriet Daggett. They settled in the house on Hamilton Street. During their time, the house's kitchen was in the basement, the first floor held a living room and library, the second floor held bedrooms, and servants quarters were tucked above.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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