Our Fieldstone Heritage By Pete Daly Society

A remnant2020 of our glacial past, fieldstones were generally deemed a nuisance by farmers in Michigan. However, ©in the nineteenth century, builders—both amateur and professional—began making use of the state’s plentiful supply of stones to build houses, schools, churches, and countless other structures. Across every region of Michigan, fieldstoneMichigan buildings still stand, serving as a reminder of our rich geological and agricultural history. Historicalof

Above: Located north of Eastport, this fieldstone house was built by stonemason Jack Garrison around 1920. (All photos courtesy of the author, unless otherwise noted.)

Historical Society of Michigan 17 financially able were asked to contribute a total of $10,000 over the next few years, plus “1,500 loads” of stones from their farms. The parish agreed, and the new church was completed in the fall of 1908, with the top of the cross on the steeple standing 110 feet high. The masonwork is described as “rather unique” and in “the rustic rubble style,” with most of the faces “not touched in a single instance by the mason’s .”

Fieldstones and Cobbles The story of the St. Edward church was not an unusual situation in the stony state of Michigan. All over the Lower Peninsula and in parts of the Upper Peninsula, fieldstone houses were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth—and a lot of them were do-it- yourself projects. It appears that low cost was a key factor. In addition to hundreds of houses, still standing are fieldstone churches, schools, town halls, barns, chicken coops, Societytombstones, mausoleums, train stations, former gas stations, institutional and 2020 commercial buildings, and more. Fieldstone home construction in Michigan dates to at least 1836, when the Orrin White House was constructed in Ann Arbor. Also © located in Ann Arbor, the Ticknor-Campbell St. Edward Parish in n 1906, Father Henry J. Kaufmann House was built in 1844 at what is now Mendon in St. Joseph decided something had to be done, Cobblestone Farm. It was originally the County, Michigan. home of Dr. Benajah Ticknor, a U.S. Navy Beginning in 1906, and he had a rock-solid plan. parish members He was the pastor of St. Edward surgeon. The stonemason—Stephen Mills donated both time and Parish in the small town of is identified as the probable builder by the materials to build the Cobblestone Farm Association—was a local fieldstone church. Mendon in St. Joseph County, Michigan.Michigan I man who had previously lived in upstate According to the 1909 parish history booklet, New York and was familiar with the coursed the wooden church had a 1,200-pound cobblestone homes there. bell in its “rather weak steeple.” In high By the middle of the nineteenth century, winds, the steeple moved,of stressing the some higher-end homes in Michigan were whole structure, and plaster above the Historical built using “dressed” fieldstone, which were congregation sometimes cracked and fell: trimmed to a block shape. Later, many “In times of severe storms even the bravest other homes were made of fieldstones that would quake at the crackling of the timbers received little to no trimming, including overhead.” A new church was needed. cobblestone structures. Father Kaufmann proposed “a field-stone Cobblestones can be fieldstones, but church,” larger than the old structure, with not all fieldstones are cobbles. Relatively a “lofty steeple” and a spacious basement. small and of a softly rounded bean shape, The 40 families in the parish that were cobbles that are similar in shape and size

18 Michigan History • Mar/Apr 2020 are sometimes found concentrated in large numbers. In Grand Rapids, short stretches Leonidas of three old city streets—all running up Elementary School and down steep hills—are paved with in the village of cobblestones and still used every day. Leonidas features artistic stonework Fieldstones are generally found on the completed by ground surface or in rivers and lakes, as Charles E. Blue and opposed to stone blocks cut from at Laverne Harman, c. 1935. much greater expense. Quarried was used to build many old mansions and other large institutional structures in Michigan cities. A cobblestone tombstone for a “The Crop That soldier killed in World War I, located Never Fails” at Hillcrest Cemetery How many fieldstone structures are in Six Lakes. there in Michigan? Hundreds, for sure— and certainly thousands if counting all the structures with fieldstone foundations, basements, and porches. Many barns and farmhouses built before the 1930s have fieldstone foundations. One The Michigan Central barn on M-32 in Antrim County was built Railroad Station in in the 1920s by Samuel J. Bricker. Its walls Lawton is one of are built entirely of fieldstone, right up to several fieldstone railroad stations in the roof. The farmhouse near it, behind Society Michigan and dates a screen of thick evergreen trees, is also back to the late made of fieldstone. 2020nineteenth century. Take a drive through Michigan today. The fieldstone porches and foundations can be seen everywhere—and in the state’s© largest cities too, not just rural areas. Why so much fieldstone construction? Clarence E. “Fatsco” Brown was a hunter Because the stones were here—actually, and fisherman from still are here—scattered within the sand, Benton Harbor who gravel, and clay left behind by the melting, built fieldstone hunting cabins near Epoufette to one-mile-thick Ice Age glaciers moving thwart porcupines that between northern Ontario and southern Michiganhad chewed his formerly Ohio for more than 2 million years. wooden structures. The cabins are still used during According to Michigan Geography and deer-hunting season. Geology, some of the thickest glacial drift that was dumped in North America is in of Michigan—as much as 1,200 feet deep in some places nearHistorical Cadillac. The average Builder and farmer Byron Woolsey depth of glacial drift over all of Michigan donated the is 300 feet, as stated by Stanard G. fieldstone buildings of Bergquist in his article, “The Glacial his dairy business to be used as part of an History and Development of Michigan.” airport complex in While lumber barons were busy commemoration of clearing out Michigan’s famous white pine his late son, Captain Clinton F. Woolsey. forests, land promoters promised that the impending removal of the trees would

Historical Society of Michigan 19 open up prime agricultural land. However, many aspiring farmers who settled in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula discovered that much of the area had sandy soil—great for white pines but not for agriculture in general. Later, some sandy Many Michigan soils close to Lake Michigan were found to farmers be good for fruit growing. learned the Thus farm families struggling to make a living after 1900 no longer had cheap basics of white pine lumber available. But most , farms throughout Michigan did have an likely out abundance of “the crop that never fails”— of necessity. frost-heaved rocks that had to be laboriously Around the removed from cultivated fields, sometimes every few years. turn of the Another factor that probably made twentieth fieldstone construction more practical century, labor was the huge increase in Portland cement was cheap, production in Michigan during and after but building the 1890s. That increase was mainly due to advancing technology that enabled the materials development of the immense limestone were not— Top: The Knobloch Corners Mobil gas station deposits near Lake Michigan at Charlevoix being “stoned” in 1935. (Photo courtesy of except for and Lake Huron at Alpena. the Peter Knobloch family.) Inset: The former Many Michigan farmers learned the basics Knobloch Corners station in Allegan County, fieldstone. as it is seen today. of stonemasonry, likely out of necessity. Society Around the turn of the twentieth century, was originally a wooden structure from labor was cheap, but2020 building materials were not—except for fieldstone. Two acclaimed a nearby farm and was purchased by the fieldstone builders who were well-known Knobloch family in approximately 1935. in Southern Michigan from the 1920s to the Brothers Herman, Julius, and Levi Knobloch © used a team of horses to drag the building 1950s were Charles E. Blue and Laverne Harman. Both were listed as farmers in down the road to their farm and installed census records from those decades. The 1930 it near the intersection. It was then rebuilt U.S. Census of Leonidas, St. Joseph County, with fieldstone walls to serve as a Mobil also lists Blue as a 63-year-old stonemason. gas station and convenience store. Peter McNab, a local Scottish stonemason, laid Michiganthe fieldstones. Artistry in Fieldstone construction seemed Architecture to encourage more creativity than Some of the fieldstone houses standing conventional wooden or structures. today were originally older wooden houses Some of Michigan’s fieldstone houses, of several of which are well over 100 years old, that were “stoned” in the early twentieth Historicalcentury to provide greater strength and an have the name of the builder or first owner updated look. For instance, the Ralph and carved into one of the stones—perhaps Margaret Hinkley Centennial Farm south of illustrating the pride of building sturdy Evart had a stone exterior that was a later structures that last for generations. The Ralph and addition to the farmhouse. But there are also artistic design Margaret Hinkley Another example is a little stone house in aspects that set fieldstone buildings apart house in northeast Allegan County, close to the intersection of from others. For example, alternating Mecosta County. 30th Street and 128th Avenue, still known rows of cobblestones occasionally appear to some locals as Knobloch Corners. It in a herringbone fashion, which vividly

20 Michigan History • Mar/Apr 2020 stand out from the larger fieldstones geode, a large, prehistoric megalodon tooth above and below. is cemented among the stones. It became fairly common after 1910 for In Traverse City, the Aberdeen Stone stonemasons—be they amateur part-timers Cottage at 315 N. Elmwood Avenue—now or full-time professionals—to decorate walls a bed-and-breakfast—was built using with mirror-image split stones or other baseball-size stones in the 1920s. Cemented intriguing rocks, fossils, and minerals. Such with the stones high up on the front wall features are often found on front walls or is a ceramic piggy bank, the same size and around main entrances. The stone store round shape as the stones. at Knobloch Corners has a piece of fossil A fieldstone house in Hartland has a bird coral high up on the front wall, as well as a feeder built into one of the walls—and there number of pudding stones. are many more examples existing today of A house in Traverse A two-story fieldstone house completed twentieth-century stonemasons’ artistry. City built in the 1920s. Today, it is known in the late 1940s north of Eastport on the as Aberdeen Stone old Dixie Highway has striking rows of More Fieldstone Cottage and is a bed- fieldstones high on both the north and south and-breakfast. walls that appear to have been painted a Examples shiny black. But it is not paint—the rocks Perhaps the most popular decorative are actually basalt, from the nearby shore touch of the state’s fieldstone structures of Grand Traverse Bay. The builders and is pudding stone, technically called jasper owners, father and son Frederick and Lester conglomerate—usually a white quartz Brooks, constructed the stone house up matrix containing flecks and pebbles of around their small shack while living in it. bright red jasper, black chert, and other Working on the house only in the warmer minerals. Although earlier stone houses seasons, it took them about ten years to do not tend to include pudding stones, the complete, according to a descendant. material shows up frequentlySociety in the walls The Maples in Dowagiac is a three- of fieldstone houses and other buildings story mansion built of boulders that was erected after World War I. completed in 1896 by Archie Gardner, 2020The pudding stones found in Michigan, a wealthy heir of Philo Beckwith, who from Drummond Island all the way down founded the famous Round Oak Stove the Lower Peninsula into Indiana, are from Company in 1870. Next to the formal© entry an outcrop near Bruce Mines, Ontario. door of the Romanesque Revival structure, In 1933, Professor Chester B. Slawson of the an opened, hollowed geode is set in the University of Michigan published a research A close-up of a pudding wall, where callers would leave their cards paper titled “The Jasper Conglomerate, stone on the John Hinkley house, built back in the days of high society. Next to the an Index of Drift Dispersion.” Using the near Evart in 1919.

Right: The Michigan Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Lapeer, constructed between 1895 and 1905 using local fieldstone. of (Photo courtesy of Paul R. Burley.)Historical Far right: A fieldstone structure that is part of the Northville Historical Society’s Mill Race Village. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/ Parkerdr.)

Historical Society of Michigan 21 pudding stones’ distribution, the paper demonstrates how the glacial ice cap moved from the northeast and picked up material in Canada and deposited it in the Lower Peninsula, Wisconsin, and beyond. That giant conveyor belt of “processed” earthen material—billions of tons that were ground up, rounded, and sifted under the ice—even included a few diamonds from northern Ontario. To many people, fieldstone houses have an intriguing aura of being rugged and primitive, able to stand year after year despite wind, rain, and snow. A few families and individuals, who could afford to spend more on labor, built -like structures. One whimsical fieldstone house, located in South Haven, was built in 1904 for Charles and Mattie Hemenway. The architect was Sears, Roebuck and Company executive Albert Loeb at the construction site of the Loeb mansion in Charlevoix, which was made using fieldstone in 1918. (Photo A.M. Worthington; the contractor, E.W. Case; courtesy of the Charlevoix Historical Society.) and the mason for the fieldstone work,

The Snyder House: Society A Monument to a Tragic Era 2020 An impressive two-story fieldstone© farmhouse with all the modern conveniences of 1918 was the hallmark of success for John Snyder,

a hardworking potato farmer Above left: Photographs from the February 19, 1919, issue of Greenville Independent, who lived a couple miles west of which praised the home of John and Jane Snyder. The home featured large fieldstone Greenville on what is today M-57. boulders surrounded by rings of cobblestones in a “string of pearls” finish. (Photo courtesy of the Flat River CommunityMichigan Library.) Above right: The Snyder house as it is seen today. The structure earned the admiration of a newspaper reporter from to carry out the original plan,” some According to one of their grand- the Greenville Independent, who stones came from east of Greenville, children, John and Jane Snyder had featured the house in an article with whileof others were from the village of 12 children. However, just one year photos on February 19, 1919. Parnell, about 15 miles to the south. after the publication of the flattering “There is somethingHistorical entirely newspaper article, the Snyder The article states that “no evidence different in the home architecture, in of the mason’s hammer appears” family suddenly changed forever. In the exterior design of this beautiful on the surface of the stones, though February 1920, four of the Snyder residence,” wrote the reporter. there was at least one expert children died in one week from “While it is a field-stone house, it is stonemason. Roy Lavoy—incorrectly pneumonia that accompanied the far and aloof from a cobblestone.” spelled “Laroy” in the newspaper— worldwide influenza pandemic. Many of the stones came from the supervised the masonwork, assisted “The death angel paid two more Snyders’ 170-acre farm, but “in order by his father and brother. visits to the home of Mr. and Mrs.

22 Michigan History • Mar/Apr 2020 Willoughby W. Sweet. A postcard from 1910 identifies it as Rock Terrace Resort, but it was later an apartment house. Today, it is a private home. Probably the best-known imitation castle in Michigan is Castle Farms near Charlevoix, now a tourist attraction and wedding venue. However, the word “castle” was never used in the first newspaper accounts describing its construction and planned use. It was designed as a massive dairy and livestock barn on a farm started in 1918 by Albert Loeb, an idealistic The Loeb Farms Barn Complex in Charlevoix County, Michigan, was listed on executive of Sears, Roebuck and Company the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The complex features several in Chicago. Loeb wanted to demonstrate fieldstone structures and is currently an events facility called Castle Farms. the potential of agriculture in Northern (Photo courtesy of Castle Farms/The Weber Photographers.) Michigan, and the farm would also serve as a working demonstration of agricultural public—is the massive fieldstone summer equipment sold by Sears. home the Loebs built overlooking what was Not far from the farm buildings—but out then called Pine Lake—Lake Charlevoix of sight today and strictly off-limits to the today. A few years after it was built, a special guest at the mansion was attorney Clarence Darrow, hired to argue against the death penalty for Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb in the John Snyder, since our last issue,” sensational 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder began an article from February 25, Society trial in Chicago. 1920. Dead were children Freddie, A similar fieldstone barn, plus other Bertha, Grace, and Carl. Readers 2020buildings, was built in the 1880s near were told that “the burden of Jackson for Theodore G. Bennett, a wealthy grief and sorrow that has fallen industrialist who wanted, and got, a highly on this excellent family is very© publicized dairy herd. Today, the Bennett heavy indeed.” Farm buildings still stand and are occupied—as condos. One son, John Jr., caught pneumonia There is so much intriguing history and might have died had not a in Michigan’s fieldstone structures, doctor come to the Snyder house such as the Woolsey Memorial Airport and performed an emergency in Northport, architect Earl Young and his famousMichigan stone houses in Charlevoix, operation on him on the dining room table. In order to successfully Emory L. Ford’s rustic fieldstone mansion in the forests near Port drain fluid from the little boy’s Huron, and sportsman Fatsco Brown’s Above top: The Delta flooded lungs, the doctor had to porcupine-proof hunting cabins in the Kappa Epsilon fraternity break one of the child’s ribs. of house at the University Upper Peninsula. The list goes on and on. of Michigan was a The Snyder familyHistorical plot is located in And a leisurely drive on a country road in Queen Anne-style Oakfield Township Cemetery. There Michigan might suddenly reveal yet another fieldstone building. A (Photo courtesy of the are four tombstones side-by-side— stone house that merits a second look. Library of Congress, for Grace, Bertha, Carl, and Freddie. LC-D4-11934.) Above: Pete Daly, a native of Hart, Michigan, has A postcard of South The Snyder house still stands and a journalism degree from Michigan State Haven’s Rock Terrace is a reminder of the misery of the University. He began as a daily newspaper Resort from 1910. (Photo courtesy of the pandemic that swept through the reporter and worked as a writer, editor, and Historical Association of world from 1918 to 1920. photographer at various publications. South Haven.)

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