T.W. Anderson's gift house still stands By WENDELL NELSON Special to The Gazette Like his in-laws, the Browns, T.W. Anderson has largely disappeared from the consciousness of Portage County residents. But he survives in subtle ways beyond the land records, where his name recurs frequently, as he bought and sold numerous parcels over the years. He is remembered by several descendants who still live in Stevens Point, and two of the houses he built still stand here. One was a gift to his daughter. As we have seen, Thomas Wesley Anderson was born in New York State in 1828. He farmed for his father, Holbrook Anderson, until the Westward fever overtook him. In fact, he came West before his brother-in-law, Edward Dexter Brown, did, according to Theodore V. Olsen's "The Rhinelander Country, Volume II: The Birth of a City" (1983). In the first half of the 1850s, Holbrook Anderson "had been making extensive investments in the timberlands of central Wisconsin. He had sent his son, Thomas Wesley...to size up prospects for logging those tracts at a profit. Wesley thought the prospects were very good; his letters home enthused about the potential of the territory and its logging industry," Olsen writes. But T.W. did not stay in Wisconsin. He returned to New York and was married there in January of 1852, his Gazette (old series) obituary of Dec. 20, 1916, says. But he also did not stay long in New York. His wife's (Lucy Bortle Anderson) obituary in the May 15, 1912, Gazette says they left for Wisconsin, to live, in May of 1852. They traveled "by boat and rail to Chicago," and then spent "some months" in McHenry County, Illinois. Then they moved to Wisconsin, not to Stevens Point, but to Oak Grove, Dodge County, where T.W. "engaged in the mercantile business" (i.e., ran or worked in a general store). "A few years" later, they pushed on to Newport, Sauk County (where, it will be recalled, E.D. Brown and family had settled for about two months) "where he followed the same line for two years before coming to Portage county and settling on a farm near the Plover river, east of this city." So, though the Andersons left New York State first, they stayed so long at their various stops that the Browns caught up with them and, apparently, reached Stevens Point first. The Andersons probably settled in the town of Hull near E.D. Brown's sawmill on the Plover River, as we have seen, a short distance north of present Highway 10 north of Iverson Park. In addition, the 1860 U.S. Census places both Holbrook and T.W., and their families, in Hull. The adults are listed as having been born in New York. Holbrook is a 54-year-old farmer, and because he was head of the household, his financial worth is listed. The space for the value of his real estate is blank, suggesting that at that time, he owned no property in the county. But his personal property (household goods and, presumably, cash) is valued at $200, a tidy sum in 1860. His wife, Arvilla, is 51 years old, Thomas W. is 31, Lucy is 27, Charles is 7 and Ada is 5. Both children were born in Wisconsin, probably in the southern counties before the family moved up here. (Their obituaries in the April 6, 1895 (Ada's) Journal, and Aug. 6, 1928 (Charles') Daily Journal confirm this; both were born in Oak Grove, Dodge County.) The same census lists E.D. Brown as a lumberman born in New York, and values his real estate at $6,000 and his personal property at $3,000. So he was still a moderately wealthy man, despite three years of buying land and building sawmills and other structures, of competing in the risky and rough lumber markets as far away as St. Louis, and of fretting that his profits were too small. The census lists him as 36 years old, Helen (his wife) is 29, Anderson Wesley (his oldest child) is 10, Webster is 8, Emma is 5, and Edward, the only family member in 1860, who was born in Wisconsin, is 1. "The Commemorative Biographical Record of the Upper Wisconsin Counties," an 1895 subscription history, contains an entry on Charles W. Anderson - no doubt paid for by him. After columns of distinguished genealogies and forebears, the entry carries a long paragraph on his parents' move from New York: "... in the spring of 1857 he [T.W.] removed to Portage county, settling two miles east of Stevens Point. E.D. Brown, his brother-in-law, had constructed a sawmill here on the Plover river, and with him Mr. Anderson thoroughly learned the lumber business. For six years afterward he lived in the woods, and often Mrs. Anderson would attend to the cooking for the camp, taking with her the two children, whom she taught their letters in the rude lumber camp, for there were then no schools." Ten years later, the U.S. Census places T.W. Anderson in the town of Stockton. He is a 42-year-old farmer, and his real estate is valued at $3,000 and his personal property at $1,500. So he obviously had prospered in 10 years. Lucy is 37 years old and "keeping house," Charles is a 17-year-old "farm laborer," and Ada is 15 and "at school." "The Commemorative Biographical Record" says that in "Sections 19 and 20 of what is now Stockton township Thomas W. Anderson bought his first land in Portage county, a tract of eighty acres. He afterward increased it to 400 acres. He improved the property, constructed buildings, and for nearly thirty years occupied the farm." Volume T of Deeds, page 363, dated May 18, 1869, records what may have been that first Stockton purchase by Anderson, though it lists Lucy as the grantee (buyer). The sellers were Edward D. and Helen Brown, who may have been selling because they had finished building their new house in Stevens Point (on the site of the future Old Main) and were preparing to move into it. The Andersons paid $1,000 for those 80 acres, the north half of the southwest quarter of section 20. Like other farmers, no doubt, Anderson had good and bad years, years of beneficial weather and bountiful crops and years of adverse weather and poor crops, but he appears overall to have been a hard-working, skilled, successful, and perhaps lucky farmer. (Like E.D. Brown, Anderson probably did not arrive here from New York penniless.) Several times over the more than 20 years that he farmed in Stockton, the Stevens Point newspapers mentioned his success and prosperity. He also appears to have been what was called "progressive." That is, he was informed on the latest farming techniques and machines and readily adopted them, partly because he probably could afford them. For example, the Stevens Point Journal of Aug. 11, 1877, carried a short article entitled, "A Good Thing": "Hon. T.W. Anderson of Stockton has just been getting something entirely new to Portage county, and something which cannot fail to commend itself to all hop-raisers. We refer to 'Herrington's Hop-box Shade, which as its name indicates, is a contrivance for shielding pickers from the hot sun. Not only that, but by its use, picking need not be suspended during the prevalence of light showers. The shade can be seen at Mr. Anderson's." One measure of his increasing wealth was his paying for the construction of at least three houses in Stevens Point. The first was an apparent gift to his daughter, who on April 14, 1875, had married Gustave F. Andrae, a German immigrant. Andrae had come to the city in 1869, and had run a series of general stores, in partnership with other men and, later, alone. He had several store buildings built, including the opera house, and by the time he died, in 1910, his estate was the largest ever probated in the county; $310,000, according to The Gazette of Nov. 2, 1910, and June 7, 1911. But in 1877, he was not yet wealthy, and his father-in-law was. "We notice," wrote editor Edward McGlachlin of the Journal on Feb. 24, 1877, "that Hon. T.W. Anderson is getting material together for the new house he is going to build for his daughter, Mrs. G.F. Andrae. Mr. Anderson purchased the lots upon which the house will be built, of L.D. Conery, last summer. They are situated on the corner of Clark street and Strong's avenue." That last sentence contains an obvious error about the location of the house, an error which McGlachlin corrected in his next report, on April 14, 1877, on the construction. "Carpenters have commenced work on the new house being built by T.W. Anderson, corner or Clark and Church street(s). The house will cost about $3,000 and will be an ornament to that part of the city." The Journal of May 19, 1877, mentioned the "new house being built on Clark street by T.W. Anderson," because a staging or scaffolding collapsed, dropping two workmen, "James Pollard and another carpenter, named Wilson," 16 feet to the ground. Wilson, a young man, appeared "not much hurt," but Pollard, "who is a much older man, was very seriously injured.... In the afternoon after the accident, it was feared that his lower limbs had been paralized (sic), but fortunately this did not prove to be the case. He has been reported dead, two or three times, but now appears to be quite comfortable, and it is hoped will get well." The next two Journal entries (The Gazette had not yet been founded) on the house, as it nears completion, give the owner as G.F. Andrae and, finally, both him and his wife. The July 14 issue reported that "Work on G.F. Andrae's new residence is progressing finely, the contractor, Mr. H.W. Norton, intending to have it completed about the middle of August. It is going to be one of the finest residences in the city." But like many other construction projects, this one took longer than expected. So the final report did not appear until the Sept. 29 issue; "Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Andrae moved into their elegant new home, this week." The idea that T.W. had this house built for the Andraes was news to the current generation of the family, who had always assumed or been told that G.F. paid for it. Where the Journal got the idea is a mystery by now, but because its information was contemporary (current news or gossip around town, or did T.W. himself tell Edward McGlachlin, the Journal's editor?) it is more to be believed than information 100 years or more later. The deeds help only in an oblique, teasing way. Volume 25, page 616, dated Jan. 6, 1876, records the sale by L. D. Conery to Ada F. Andrae of Lots 1 and 2, Block 28 of Strongs, Ellis & Others Plat to the city, for $1,000. Now, why was the grantee listed as Ada and not her husband? Probably because her father gave her the money to pay for the land with; if not, the grantee would presumably have been her husband. (Levi Conery (1817-1890) was a Vermonter who came to Stevens Point in the mid-1850s, and lived at the southeast corner of Clark Street and Strongs Avenue, where the old Sentry building is now. He was a carpenter, publisher of two local newspapers, "The Wisconsin Lumberman" (in the early 1860s) and The Journal in its infancy in the early 1870s. He was also a stageline agent, and a restaurateur.) This is indeed is one of the finest old houses in the city, and not only because it was large and expensive. It is also one of our best examples of the Italianate style, which flourished in central Wisconsin between 1870 and 1885. Like most houses in the style, this one had a cube shape, deck roof, and wide eaves with fancy brackets under them. Unlike many Italianate houses, though, it is frame, not brick, and it has rectangular windows, not segmental-arched (slightly rounded), and they lack moldings above them. In 1890-91, G.F. Andrae had an addition built onto the house. Included were a library done in red oak, a fireplace, a bay window and a veranda around the front (north) and west side, according to the Journal issues from late 1890 and early 1891. He also had a furnace, with radiators, installed in the house. So this house, the last one in its block, still stands, a fine example of Italianate architecture, a rich and pristine piece of Stevens Point history, and an enduring legacy of Thomas Anderson. NEXT: Anderson's other houses. -Copyright 1999 by Wendell Nelson