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SIMEON PORTER ?? OHIO ARCHITECT
by ERIC JOHANNESEN
Of the many carpenters and master builders who gave the Western Reserve villages in northern Ohio their characteristic look of colonial New Eng- land in the first decades of the nineteenth century, only a handful are known today. Similarly, the architects of the great era of urban growth in the United States during the two decades before the Civil War are largely anonymous. Yet a few known builders belonged to both periods and spanned the transition from the pioneer, post-colonial society to the urban, industrial one. One of these was Simeon C. Porter of Hudson. The work of Simeon Porter has long been appreciated in Hudson, and he is known by name as the partner of Charles W. Heard in Cleveland. But until now there has been no consecutive account of the entire career and
NOTES ARE ON PAGES 210-212 |
170 OHIO HISTORY
work of this remarkable man, who
achieved the distinction of having done
some of the most notable post-colonial
and Greek Revival work in northern
Ohio, and then of going on to create a
body of equally notable Victorian
eclectic work.
Simeon Porter was the son of the famous
master builder Lemuel Porter.
The elder Porter migrated to Ohio from
Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1818
and settled in the town of Tallmadge.1
Having been born in 1807, Simeon
was eleven years old at the time. Lemuel
Porter was past forty, and had
been trained as a woodworker and joiner
in New England. His abilities
were soon in demand in Ohio, and in 1821
he was employed to superintend
the joiner work of the historic
Congregational Church in Tallmadge. This
church has been frequently described
elsewhere, and there seems to be
general agreement that it is the finest
of early Ohio churches. Completed
in 1825, it is nearly identical in
general appearance, proportion, and
details with churches which the
well-known architect David Hoadley was
building at the same time back in
Connecticut.2
In 1824 Lemuel Porter was appointed to a
committee on location for
a Western Reserve collegiate
institution.3 The town of Hudson, ten miles
north of Tallmadge, was selected, and in
1826 Lemuel Porter was given
the contract for the work on the first
building of the new Western
Reserve College. This building, later
known as Middle College, was com-
pleted in July 1827. Middle College was
a simple rectangular brick block
56 feet by 37 feet, recalling similar
New England buildings of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Its chief architectural feature
was the cupola, an open cylindrical
belfry with arches and pilasters, sup-
porting a hemispherical dome.4 This
feature appeared again in his son
Simeon's work, even as late as 1861.
In March 1829 Lemuel Porter was given
the contract for two new
buildings for the college, the
"chapel" and the "houses for the professors."5
The "chapel" was actually the
building known as South College, for
the present chapel was not built until
1835. Porter moved to Hudson with
his family in order to superintend the
college work, but he died suddenly
in September 1829. The trustees had such
confidence in the ability of
Simeon, now twenty-two years old, that
he was appointed to fulfill his
father's contract. Accordingly, the
South College building was completed
in 1830. South College was a four-story
multipurpose building measuring
64 feet by 37 feet. The chapel and
theology rooms occupied the first floor,
the preparatory and collegiate
departments the second, and dormitory
suites the third and fourth floors. The
lower story was constructed of
sandstone and the other three stories of
brick. The building was marked
with little of architectural note.
Although of four stories instead of three,
it closely resembled Middle College,
having the same stepped gables
and paired chimneys.
Also in 1830, Simeon Porter erected the
second of the two buildings
which had been contracted for the year
before. This was the double
residence built for the accommodation of
two professors. Later it became
SIMEON PORTER 171
known as the President's House. Since
Middle and South Colleges have
both been demolished, the President's
House is the oldest building now
remaining on the campus, and in the
opinion of many, the most architec-
turally gracious of all. A handsome
brick house, its ornamental details
are in the manner of the post-colonial
Adamesque style of New England,
which suggest that probably it was
designed by Lemuel Porter before his
death. The most important feature of the
design is the pair of identical
central doorways. The delicate
proportions and placing of the sidelights,
elliptical fanlights, and the half
columns on either side of the doorways,
give the entrance, and the house, a
distinction equal to that of any
New England counterpart, and make it a
fitting posthumous tribute to
the life work of Lemuel Porter of
Connecticut.
The independent career of Simeon Porter,
then, actually began in
1830. His younger brother Orrin, also a
builder, was now his partner.
The two brothers worked together on
contracting, which included masonry,
carpentry, and painting.6 In August 1834
the erection of the next college
building was authorized by the trustees.
A resolution of their meeting
reads: "Resolved that Messrs.
Pierce, Pitkin, and Bradstreet be a com-
mittee to draw a plan for the
contemplated Chapel."7 It seems certain
that this committee, according to the
general practice of the day, deter-
mined the general plan of the building,
and left the design and details to
the master builder. Colonel S. C. Porter
was the contractor.8 On January
1, 1835, bids for the timber were
solicited, and by November 1 the brick
walls were completed. The Chapel was
dedicated on August 23, 1836,
its total cost having been $6,231.52.
Like South College a multipurpose
building, the Chapel had a library and
two recitation rooms on the
first floor, the auditorium with two
recitation rooms on either side on
the second floor, and the
horseshoe-shaped gallery of the auditorium
occupying the third floor. As originally
built, the Chapel was 40 feet by
60 feet. The bell tower had three square
diminishing stages with balus-
trades. The uppermost tower stage was
removed in 1871, altering the
proportions of the building, and in 1940
the building was extended 22
feet at the rear, still further changing
its original appearance.
For a long time there was a tradition
that the design of the Chapel
was copied from some New England church,
perhaps the chapel at Yale.
This tradition, apparently refuted for
years, was confirmed only recently
with the publication of the description
and pictures of the first chapel
at Yale, built in 1762-63 and razed
toward the end of the nineteenth
century.9 It was a three-story building
with the chapel and the gallery
in the lower two floors, and the library
on the upper one. President
Pierce's committee simply turned the
Yale building upside down! In
design, however, the Yale chapel was a
typical colonial meetinghouse,
with an attached bell tower at the
front. Simeon Porter's design for the
Western Reserve Chapel, on the other
hand, was Greek.
It is important to emphasize that the
Porters were not yet architects
in the modern sense at all. They had no
formal architectural training.
172 OHIO HISTORY
Lemuel Porter, as has been mentioned,
came from the New England
woodworking tradition, and was a builder
and contractor by experience.
The Western Reserve buildings are
essentially the building of master
craftsmen, and whatever architectural
merit they have is due to the
use of details supplied by the builders'
handbooks which were so widely
circulated. The comment of I. T. Frary
on this point is interesting:
The clumsy attempts at classic
pilasters, columns, mouldings, and
cornices often produced curious effects
that would scarcely pass
muster in a school of architecture or a
Beaux-Arts competition. They
were crude, the details often painfully
misunderstood, yet in them
we recognize a sincerity that wins our
admiration. Those pioneer
builders were creating a vernacular in
architecture possessing vital-
ity and spontaneity that is often
missing in highly sophisticated
creations.10
It is also important to ask the extent
to which Simeon Porter was
acquainted with the Greek Revival. The
Greek Revival in the East was
beginning and reached maturity
simultaneously with the migration to
the West. The earliest settlers, the
generation of Lemuel Porter, used
the handbooks of the post-colonial
style, the "Adamesque," which were
rapidly going out of fashion in the
East. By 1830, when Simeon Porter's
independent building career began, the
inhabitants of Ohio were cer-
tainly familiar with the Greek Revival.
In Asher Benjamin's manuals
of the 1830's, the Greek style had won
out completely. A copy of Benjamin's
Practice of Architecture, printed in 1835, may be found in the Hudson
Historical Society, where it is
hopefully believed that it belonged to
Simeon Porter. The preface to this work,
written in 1833, suggests rea-
sons for the appeal of the Greek
Revival:
The text is taken from the Grecian
system, which is now universally
adopted by the first professors of the
art, both in Europe and America;
and whose economical plan, and plain
massive features, are peculiarly
adapted to the republican habits of this
country.11
In addition, the classic style would
certainly have appealed to the trustees
of Western Reserve College as a fitting
embodiment of the scholarly cul-
ture which they were intent upon
establishing at "the Yale of the West."
The Chapel is the first of the college
buildings to use Greek detail,
and could possibly be called the only
fully developed Greek Revival build-
ing on the campus. Daniel Giffen has
made a careful study of many of
the decorative details -- pilasters,
moldings, windows, and doorways--
in the Chapel, North College, the
Observatory, and the Athenaeum.12 Com-
paring these with plates in Benjamin's The
Practical House Carpenter
of 1830, he concludes that this book was
almost certainly a source of
Simeon Porter's details. Instead of the
typical Greek columned portico,
the Chapel facade has three-story brick
pilasters, doubled at the corners,
and topped by a Doric entablature and pediment. The entablature does not continue around the sides of the building, but gives way to blind arcades, another feature which reappears in Simeon Porter's work as late as the Civil War years. The tower is of wooden frame construction, and the pilasters on its second stage follow a Benjamin pattern. The next college building to be erected in Hudson was North College. The contracts were made in August 1837, and construction was begun immediately. Designed as a dormitory for theological students, the build- ing was completed in the summer of 1838 and served this purpose until 1853. A simple brick building like the earliest two college buildings, it measured 37 feet by 58 feet, and in the judgment of I. T. Frary had "but little aside from its doorway to claim architectural distinction."13 The wooden door frame is set between heavy stone piers and topped by a heavy stone lintel carved in relief. The college also erected an Observatory in 1838. Notable as the third astronomical observatory established in the United States, and the first west of the Alleghenies, it exists today as the second oldest observatory building in the country. It is named for Professor Elias Loomis, one of the great American mathematicians and astronomers, who worked there. A smaller building, only 16 feet by 37 feet, the Observatory boasted a dome nine feet in diameter. It begins to appear that the 37 foot dimension was a kind of module, being used in four of the six college buildings up to this point. As in the structure of the other buildings, the Observatory |
174 OHIO HISTORY
had foundations, sills, and lintels of
dressed sandstone, and walls of brick.
The telescope was supported by two
monolithic piers of sandstone set six
feet into the ground and independent of
the building structure.
In February of 1840 the last of Porter's
Western Reserve College
buildings was authorized. It was to be a
natural science building, and
has always been called the Athenaeum.
Uncertainty as to its location
delayed construction for over a year.
Meanwhile, in 1841, Nathan Seymour,
professor of Greek at the college, built
himself a house. Helen Kitzmiller,
in a brief paper on the house, says that
"Simeon Porter built Seymour
House, literally under the very eye of
the professor."14 The house is an
imposing rectangular brick structure,
one of the most pleasing in the
village, and its doorway has perhaps the
most handsomely proportioned
Doric portico in Hudson. As Frary says,
"It is quite obvious that a man
of his attainments would have the portal
of his house designed as nearly
as possible in conformity with the
ideals of the Greeks, whose culture
was his life study."15
During the winter of 1841-42, the walls
and roof of the Athenaeum were
completed. In August 1842 the finishing
of the first and second floor
interiors was contracted, and these
floors, containing four large lecture
rooms apiece, were occupied in February
1843. The third floor, finished
later, contained a natural history museum.
This three-story brick building
was the largest of the college
buildings. The front was dominated by a
tower which combined features of the
Chapel tower and the Middle
College belfry, having a square base
surmounted by a cupola. The side
elevations showed the three-story
pilasters and the blind arcades of the
Chapel design. However, the tower was
removed in the 1860's, and a
drastic alteration in 1917-18 converted
the Athenaeum to a dormitory of
four stories, so there is little left of
its original appearance. The comple-
tion of the Athenaeum made a total of
seven college buildings erected
by the Porter family, father and sons,
between 1826 and 1843, and those
still standing remain their most imposing
monument in Hudson.
By now Simeon Porter's reputation had
brought him a contract to
build in Brecksville, fourteen miles
south of Cleveland. There he built
the Brecksville Congregational Church in
1844.16 This church is one of
the purest Greek Revival designs known
to have been done by Simeon
Porter. The front is divided into three
bays by double pilasters at the
corners and fluted half-round Doric
columns flanking the entrance. The
tower is a curious combination of an
octagonal base with a circular open
belfry and a conical spire. It is
difficult to tell whether the uppermost
section is part of Porter's original
design, for the present one is a
recent restoration, but it does recall
vaguely the open belfry and spire
of Lemuel Porter's Tallmadge church.
There remains one more public building
from this early Hudson period
of Simeon Porter's career to be
mentioned, and it will always be a
curiosity. The Christ Church Episcopal
of Hudson is the only example
of Porter's work known for certain to
have been done in the pointed
SIMEON PORTER 175
Gothic Revival style. By 1846, the date
of its erection, the Greek Revival
was on the wane. It was rapidly being
replaced by the various medieval
styles, of which the Gothic was to
become a favorite for church edifices.
The Episcopal Church, a wooden frame
building, was authorized in Jan-
uary 1846, its cornerstone laid in
April, and the sanctuary opened for
divine service and consecrated in
September. A historical sketch of 1876
states that "the plan of the church
was furnished by Bp McIlvaine, but
was greatly modified by Mr. Porter, and
produced a church beautiful
in style and proportions."17 Perhaps
this explains Porter's momentary
dabbling in the Gothic fashion. Did
Bishop McIlvaine "furnish" the
Gothic design, or did Porter's
modifications make it Gothic? The fact
that all of Porter's experience so far
was in the classic styles strongly
suggests the former alternative, but we
shall probably never know for
sure. The 1846 building of Hudson Christ
Church Episcopal exists no
longer, having been destroyed by fire
and replaced by the present classically
styled building in 1930.
Sometime in 1848 Simeon Porter moved
from the town of Hudson to
the growing city of Cleveland. Before
leaving the earlier part of his
career, however, it is necessary to
enter the realm of conjecture briefly.
The buildings already described are
those for which there is positive
documentation, but they leave much of
the time between 1830 and 1848
unaccounted for. Frederick C. Waite, the
son of an apprentice and painter
under Porter, and later a professor at
Western Reserve University, makes
the following statement about Simeon and
Orrin Porter: "These two
brothers . . . built not only the
college buildings but all the best residences
in town before the Civil War."18
Unfortunately he does not identify the
specific buildings. Mrs. Henry Farwell,
a niece of Simeon, states in her
biographical sketch of the Porter family
that Simeon "had all the work
he could do and employed apprentices and
journeymen in his mechanical
operations" in Hudson and its
vicinity.19 Furthermore, there were appar-
ently no other men living in Hudson
between 1830 and 1850 capable of
the necessary joinery and masonry
contracting that was done. Since the
town records of Hudson were destroyed by
fire in 1892, we are forced
to rely on clues such as these. If we
take them seriously, what begins to
emerge is the picture of an entire
village, one of the most characteristic
(and best preserved) villages of the New
England type in the Western
Reserve, for which the two brothers,
Simeon and Orrin Porter, were
almost totally responsible.
In view of the fact that such contracts
as are known were made with
Simeon, and in the light of his later
career as partner of one of the
most noted architects of Cleveland, it
seems reasonable to assume that
Simeon was the senior partner and
designer, and the younger brother
Orrin was his assistant in the
contracting and building. Needless to say,
there are varying degrees of probability
for the attribution of certain
buildings to the Porters. It is beyond
the scope of this article to do more
than mention some of the buildings in
which the evidence of the design,
176 OHIO HISTORY
or ownership (as in the case of the
college), or enlightened opinion, sug-
gests attribution of the work to the
Porters.
The old dining hall of the college, or
Nutting House (1831-32), seems
the most nearly certain, inasmuch as
Porter was the college architect.
The house is deservedly famous for its
doorway and "sunburst" fanlight.
The house which now houses the Hudson
Historical Society (1835)
carries an unauthenticated tradition
that it was done by workmen of the
Porters during the times when they were
not occupied on the college
buildings. There are any number of other
houses where a family or verbal
tradition connects their origin with
Simeon Porter. Some of these are
country houses in brick or stone within
a five-mile radius of Hudson. The
Brewster Store, built in 1839 and now
the First National Bank, and another
store built by E. B. Ellsworth on
virtually the same pattern, were worked
on by a carpenter of Porter's.20 If
they were indeed designed by Simeon
Porter, they afford interesting early
examples of commercial buildings
added to his domestic, educational, and
religious work.
The famous Congregational churches at
Twinsburg (1848) and Streets-
boro (1851), each only five miles from
Hudson, are so similar to the
Brecksville church that it is difficult
to suppose that they were not done
by Porter. No less an authority than I.
T. Frary, probably the most noted
historian of Ohio's early architecture,
had this opinion: "[The churches]
at Twinsburg, Brecksville, Streetsboro
and Gates Mills, all [are] located
so closely together and [show] such
similarity of effect, especially the
first three, that it seems quite
probable the same builder may have been
responsible for them all."21 Furthermore,
there is a possibility that a
traveling minister was responsible for
the religious guidance of the
three churches, preaching a Sunday a
month at each of them.22
One more Hudson building must be left
until later. This is the Brewster
house, The Elms, a turreted Gothic
sandstone pile, totally different from
the neighboring Greek Revival work. But
this house must be seen in
the light of later developments. For
Simeon Porter was about to embark
on the second phase of his career, which
would be as notable in its way
as the Hudson phase. His early training
as journeyman and master builder
were to stand him in good stead, so that
the growing mid-century trend
toward eclecticism was always tempered
in him with soundness of pro-
portion and construction.
When Porter arrived in Cleveland, its
population of 17,000 was almost
thirty times that of 1820, when the
Porters were newly arrived in
Ohio. Cleveland at mid-century was fully
aware of its destiny as the
great Metropolis of the Lakes. It was already
a center of shipping, com-
merce, manufacturing, and railroad
transportation. The next decade saw
enormous changes in the architectural
character of the city, and playing
the foremost role in these changes was
the firm in which Simeon Porter
became a partner. Porter first listed
himself in the city directory as
"architectural draftsman and
building engineer."23 Although he did not
yet call himself "architect,"
the decade of the fifties saw the emergence
SIMEON PORTER 177
in the Midwest of the profession of
architecture in the modern sense,
and the transformation of Simeon Porter
from master builder into
architect.
In 1848 Porter joined the workshop of
the master builder Perley Abbey
for a brief time, but there is no record
of work done by them. Sometime
in 1849 or 1850 he joined Charles W.
Heard as master builder.24 Charles
W. Heard, one year older than Simeon
Porter, had worked in Cleveland
since 1833. He was the co-worker and
son-in-law of Jonathan Goldsmith,
whose Greek Revival work in and around
Painesville is well known.
Goldsmith and Heard had been responsible
for some of the best houses
on Euclid Avenue, which was rapidly
becoming the most important
residential street in Cleveland. Heard
took over Goldsmith's practice
upon his death in 1847. In 1849 Heard
built a house for Henry B. Payne
on Euclid and Perry (East 21st) Streets,
in the Gothic style.25 Its details
showed Heard's acquaintance with the
books of Andrew Jackson Downing,
one of the chief promulgators of the
Gothic Revival. Heard's most im-
portant non-residential building in the Gothic
style was St. Paul's
Episcopal Church, located on Euclid and
Sheriff (East 4th).26 It was com-
pleted in 1851 after having been under
construction since 1848 and having
suffered destruction by fire during that
time. The brick structure was a
fairly typical design of the early
Gothic Revival, with a lofty spire,
buttresses, and pinnacles.
Thus Simeon Porter came into an office
where the Gothic Revival had
supplanted the earlier classical styles.
This fact makes it possible to
understand how the design of the
Brewster house in Hudson may have
come about. Mr. Brewster built his home
next door to the store at the
north end of the Hudson green sometime
between 1850 and 1853. It must
have seemed quite anomalous among the
late colonial and Greek Revival
buildings as the large squarish
sandstone front rose into the air, presenting
the villagers with a projecting
two-story portico framed by twin octagonal
towers with ogival turrets. A large
pointed arch framed the upper porch,
a shallow Tudor arch the lower one. This
design bears strong resemblances
to that of the Old Library at Yale by
Henry Austin (1846). It may be
traced further to an Ithiel Town and A.
J. Davis project of 1838 for a
University of Michigan building, and
beyond that to illustrations of King's
College Chapel at Cambridge which were
known from architectural books.
In The Elms this design for a large
public building has been greatly
reduced for a private dwelling. Now
Simeon Porter was in Heard's office
with access to some of the latest architectural
books, he was aware of
the Gothic Revival, and he was now an
"architectural draftsman." It is
also certain that he maintained contact
with Hudson friends and relatives.
If The Elms was the work of Porter, it
was probably his first design done
with the point of view of an
"architect" as opposed to that of the master
builder.
It is now obvious, as Edmund Chapman has
pointed out, that "judging
by the number of important buildings
attributed to this firm in the records,
[Heard and Porter] was the leading construction company of the period in the city."27 Within two years after the partnership was formed, they were at work on two important buildings, both churches, which would change the aspect of the Public Square. The first to be completed, the Second Presbyterian Church, was on Superior just east of the square. The other was the second edifice of the First Presbyterian Church, or the "Old Stone Church," located directly on the square. The designs for both churches were neither classic nor Gothic, but Romanesque. We must admit that there is no way of telling the extent to which Heard or Porter was responsible for design and style. Probably Heard was the architectural designer and Porter the master builder in the early years of their relationship, although we know that each designed buildings of his own later. The shift to the Romanesque style can rather be explained by the fact that it was rapidly replacing the popularity of the earlier revivals for a number of reasons. Carroll L. V. Meeks has shown that the round-arched style (called either Romanesque, Renaissance, or Norman, depending on the decorative detail) was the predominant style in America during the decade and a half before the Civil War.28 The Romanesque style was used for all types of buildings. It was justified by apologist Robert Owen on the basis of convenience, economy, beauty, and even morality and democracy.29 Probably the most influential design was that of James Renwick's Smithsonian Institution (1846), chiefly for |
180 OHIO HISTORY
its asymmetrical towers. Churches done
in the Romanesque style displayed
sometimes the asymmetric pair of the
Smithsonian, or a single tower
axially placed. The style gained great
popularity in the late 1840's and
1850's, and spread rapidly and widely
throughout the United States.
Heard and Porter's Second Presbyterian
Church was built in 1851-52,
and opened for services on September 26,
1852. Its general form was
not unlike that of Heard's earlier St.
Paul's, a simple rectangular block
with five windowed bays. The chief
difference was that the central entrance
tower was octagonal instead of square.
The reminiscences of S. J. Kelly
describe the Romanesque detail of the
church:
Its high stone tower at the center, half
imbedded in the church, was
topped by battlements. Above the tower
an octagonal continuation
housed a clock beneath a tall shuttered
belfry, each corner forming
a miniature tower with castle-like tops.
Far above these rose a slender
spire, 185 feet high. . . . Three arched
entrances were at the tower's
base, reached by three radiating flights
of steps. . . . Along the roof's
edge at its sides and front ran
foot-high battlements. The entire front
was of brown sandstone. . . . Completed
and furnished, the structure
cost $70,000 to the credit of the
society; Heard & Porter, who designed
it, and Heard & Warner, who
supervised its erection.30
Inside, the sanctuary, or "main
audience room,"31 was the largest in
the city, 98 feet by 63 feet, and 39
feet high, and had a gallery on three
sides. The principal floor could seat
850. In the basement there were three
meeting rooms, separated by folding
doors, which could be opened into
one room seating 1,000 people. This in
itself was rather remarkable. The
use of folding partitions apparently
developed in the late 1840's. Their
use in this Cleveland church was among
the first, and gives further
evidence of the advanced nature of Heard
and Porter's work. This edifice
of the Second Presbyterian Church served
until 1876, when it was
destroyed by fire.
Discussions had begun as early as
December 1851 on the "expediency"
of tearing down the old structure of the
First Presbyterian Church on
the square.32 Once the
decision had been made to rebuild the "Old Stone
Church" on the same location, plans
were prepared by Heard and Porter,
and the site was cleared. On September
9, 1853, the cornerstone laying
took place.33 By February the
chapel (30 feet by 70 feet) in the new church
was so nearly completed that the first
services were held in it. The church
was finally dedicated on August 12,
1855, having cost $60,000. The spire
on the east tower was carried up after
this date, and finally reached a
height of 228 feet.
In designing the Old Stone Church, it
seems almost as if Heard and
Porter were ringing the changes on the
Romanesque style described
above. Instead of the single central
tower of Second Presbyterian, Old
Stone carried two asymmetric towers.
Whether this scheme can be traced
to the design of the Smithsonian building in every case or not, the towers of the Old Stone Church are very similar to those on the Smithsonian. The main portal makes effective use of Norman zigzag molding within the round arch. Of the original interior next to nothing is known, for it was destroyed by fire in 1884. But there may be some justification for considering the exterior design of the Old Stone Church the masterpiece of the Heard and Porter years together. The mid-decade year of 1855 was a most productive and significant year for the firm. In addition to the completion of the Old Stone Church, at least three schools were finished or begun. Several residences by Heard and Porter were planned or abuilding. The firm also did commercial work in the district between the square and the river. And the first plans for the new Federal Post Office building were made in this year. In January 1855 it was announced that Heard had received the con- tract for finishing the Marine Hospital.34 The United States government had planned a marine hospital at Erie (East 9th) and Lake Streets as early as 1837, and although only partly finished, it was opened for service in 1852. This contract is probably another evidence that Heard worked as a building contractor as well as architect as late as 1855. The Eagle Street School was completed in June 1855.35 This was a three-story brick building 50 feet by 72 feet. An engraving of 1876 shows a front with a simple portico of three piers, and four two-story pilasters with a large scroll-bracketed cornice. On the other hand, there is no documentary evidence that the Hicks Street School was done by Heard and Porter, but the date, the style, the structure, and the fact that the |
firm was employed regularly by the board of education makes it seem likely. The school was described as being in the same style as the Eagle Street School, but was 50 feet by 50 feet.36 Largely rebuilt in 1861 and 1884, it is doubtful whether any of the 1855 work remains in the present building (on West 24th Street), but the interior still has cast-iron struc- tural columns of the same type that were used in other Heard and Porter buildings at the same time. The new Central High School begun that year represents a significant point in the careers of Heard and Porter, chiefly because of its charac- teristic nineteenth century approach to design. The city council on March 9, 1855, ordered the immediate erection of a new high school to replace the temporary building of 1852. It was to cost around $15,000, and Heard and Porter were selected as architects in May. The school was located on Euclid near Erie (East 9th), and by the time the building was dedicated on April 1, 1856, it had cost $20,000. It was hailed as "the finest school in the West," but many taxpayers considered it "a piece of vicious extrava- gance."37 It is not difficult to see why. The front of the 60 by 90 foot brick building was faced in stone. The cornices were battlemented in the Ro- manesque style. The main entrance was framed by two octagonal towers rising three stories, with ogival turrets. The entrance portico was also arched, battlemented, and turreted. This combination of elements is obviously another version of the King's College scheme that has already been seen in connection with The Elms in Hudson. This conclusion would not only link the design of The Elms with that of the high school but also suggest the possibility that Porter was the principal designer of the |
184 OHIO HISTORY
high school. On the interior the Central
High School boasted one of the
earliest uses of cast-iron structural
columns in place of masonry walls.
Architects have always agreed that the
form of a building should be
appropriate to the purpose it serves. To
the nineteenth century mind
this appropriateness was more likely to
be found in symbolic associations,
and a school building might very
logically be medieval. On the other hand,
the nineteenth century builder was an
eminently practical man. The new
invention of cast iron, made available
in structural architectural pieces,
could not be ignored. Men like Heard and
Porter can not be blamed either
for using style as symbolism or for not
being a generation ahead of their
time and suddenly seeing the
possibilities of the all-metal frame. Rather
they must be credited with inventiveness
(or adaptability) in using the
cast-iron column as a space and
material-saving device, even within the
framework of stylistic symbolism. But
this is the point where we can
see the beginning of the breakdown of
the unity of design and structure
which was to afflict the rest of the
nineteenth century. Good brick side
walls, a Romanesque facade for style and
show, interior iron columns
for space and strength--these are
typical of the nineteenth century
approach to design.
The residence which Heard and Porter
built for H. B. Hurlbut was one
of several whose plans were seen by a
reporter visiting their office in
October 1855.38 They included houses for
C. Hickox and a Mr. Mason,
and were in the $11,000 to $16,000 price
range. The Hurlbut House is an
excellent example of the firm's work in
the popular type of so-called
Italianate villa. The Italian, or
Tuscan, villa style was a revival which
had arrived in America in the 1830's and
was extremely popular in the
years before the Civil War. The chief
examples of Richard Upjohn, John
Notman, Henry Austin, and Calvert Vaux
were irregular in plan and
outline.39 But the Hurlbut
House is of the second type of Italian villa, a
large simple cube with a lookout on the
flat roof. It has been suggested that
the "cupola" or
"observatory" was an economical substitute for the more
picturesque tower. The villa also
displayed wide projecting bracketed
eaves. On the Hurlbut House the eaves
were embellished with large
Greek floral ornaments, as was the
cupola and the entrance portico. The
proposed house was to be in
"mastic," evidently a kind of cement for
facing the walls. Apart from the
brackets and the anthemions, the design
was almost austere in its simplicity,
having only the few doors and
windows to break the plane surface.
"Cleveland's residences are the
finest, its business architecture the
shabbiest in the United States."
Thus editorialized the Leader in 1869.40
Certainly the majority of the commercial
and mercantile establishments
thrown up in a boom town were purely
utilitarian, but some of them were
architect-designed. During the summer
months of 1855 three wholesale
houses sprang up on Water Street (West
9th). On the corner of Superior
was Payne and Perry's block (not to be
confused with the million dollar
Perry-Payne Building which was erected
near the same site in 1889),
designed by Heard and Porter. A
Cleveland landmark for many years,
SIMEON PORTER 185
the store was a four-story building 48
1/2 feet high, plus a basement, with
a frontage of 138 feet and a depth of
100 feet. The store was described
as being "constructed of face brick
above the first story, which is supported
by iron columns."41
Probably there were structural iron columns on
the interior throughout the five floors.
In the Central High School and
the Perry store then, Heard and Porter
must have been among the first
in the Midwest to use iron columns as
structural supports in place of
masonry walls--this was only six years
after the iron building of James
Bogardus in New York. They built several
such commercial buildings. In
1859 they designed a business block for
I. S. Converse, at the corner of
Merwin and James. The Converse Block was
a three-story building with
a 66 foot frontage on Merwin and a
depth of 100 feet.42
Toward the end of 1855 the first plans
were drawn for the new Cus-
toms House, Federal Court rooms, and
Post Office building. On January
31, 1856, it was announced that the
building would be begun in early
spring and finished by December.43 However,
a series of delays, including
a disagreement concerning its location,
and a long winter in 1857-58,
made this predicted date two years
premature, and the building was
not opened until December 29, 1858.44
The Heard and Porter design for
the Post Office constituted the central
block of the larger building which
was torn down in 1902. Their section,
110 feet long and 60 feet wide,
was in the more classic, or Italian
Renaissance, phase of the round-arched
styles. The Heard and Porter building
was a three-story block with rusti-
cated stone masonry on the first story.
The colonnade and the massive
wings seen in later photographs were
added after 1876. The whole design
had a monumental simplicity undoubtedly
considered more suitable for
public buildings and closely related to
"government style" buildings
everywhere.
Just across the square from the rising
federal building, fire broke out
in the Old Stone Church on March 7,
1857. The flames spread to the
228 foot steeple, and "like a
flaming torch, it swayed and crashed across
Ontario Street."45 The
main church walls, being of stone lined with brick,
still stood, and rebuilding was begun
immediately. The whole was made
as fire-resistant as possible, and the
restored building was dedicated on
January 17, 1858. After the second fire
of 1884, the present interior was
restored by Charles Schweinfurth, and
the new steeple was later declared
unsafe and taken down. A century after
it was built, the Old Stone Church
was the oldest building still standing
in the center of Cleveland, and
although much modified was still
substantially the original design of
Heard and Porter.
The year 1859 marked the completion of
two institutional buildings
which afford an interesting comparison
in their general plan. In the fall
of 1859 the new Lake Erie Female
Seminary (Lake Erie College) in
Painesville was completed. Charles Heard
had been called back to the
city of his famous father-in-law,
Jonathan Goldsmith, to supervise its
construction.46 The Lake Erie College
building, now known as College Hall,
is the largest existing building from
the Heard and Porter partnership.
186 OHIO HISTORY
Measuring 180 feet by 60 feet, the red
brick structure rises four stories
above a basement. A central tower in
turn rises above the main block,
which connects two wings. Connecting the
tower to the wings, and forming
porches in front of the main block, are
two charming wooden arcades
topped by balustrades. College Hall
contained the living rooms for the
instructors and students, the
classrooms, library, gymnasium, dining hall,
and social hall.
In March 1859 it was announced at a
meeting of the Cleveland Orphan
Asylum that a contract had been made
with Messrs. Heard and Porter
"for the speedy completion of the
asylum building."47 The building had
been occupied since 1855. An old
photograph shows a three-story building
with a central tower and block connected
to two side wings. There was
a dome-shaped cupola above. The wings
were connected by a balustraded
and arcaded portico. These similarities
between the two buildings suggest
that this arrangement was considered
appropriate for the institutional
type of building which included the
provision of dormitory space among
its various functions.
But the end of the Heard and Porter
partnership was soon in sight.
In February 1859 the Leader announced
that "an unpretending structure
has recently sprung up in the midst of
that populous portion of the city
[St. Clair below Erie], which must
please the eye of every citizen, and
especially of the Christian."48
The Cottage Chapel was a small house of
worship dedicated to the Sabbath school.
No picture or complete descrip-
tion has been found. But the interesting
fact is that the chapel was planned
by Porter alone, and his builder was G.
H. Kidney. This was the first
indication that Charles Heard and Simeon
Porter were going their separate
ways, and by the next year the firm of
Heard and Porter was no longer
in existence.
Heard and Porter were listed separately
in the city directory of 1859-60.
The reason for the separation is
unknown. Before looking at the final
phase of Simeon Porter's career, it
should be pointed out that Charles
Heard's later career was quite different
from Porter's. Little building
was done during the Civil War. After the
war Heard maintained his
reputation as one of Cleveland's
foremost architects, and he worked in
the latest style, the French Renaissance
revival. The most important of
his buildings were Case Hall, the music
hall and cultural center begun
in 1859 and finally completed in 1867,
the Case Block, a giant five-story
mansarded structure which was leased for
use as the city hall upon its
completion in 1875, and the Euclid
Avenue Opera House (1875). Also in
1875 Heard was chosen as the architect
of the building to represent
Ohio at the 1876 Centennial Exposition
in Philadelphia. The Ohio House
is the only state building from the
exposition still standing on its original
site in Fairmount Park. In the
centennial year, Charles W. Heard died,
on August 29, 1876.
Simeon Porter, on the other hand,
continued to do some work for the
Cleveland public schools, but his most
important buildings after 1860
were done outside of Cleveland. The
Civil War was a time of testing for
SIMEON PORTER 187
the builder as well as for the Union.
Just before the opening of the
conflict, Simeon Porter, perhaps to
dramatize his independence as an
architect, took his first (and only)
advertisement in the city directory of
1861. It simply said: "S. C.
Porter, ARCHITECT, No. 7 Perkins' Building,
Cleveland, Ohio." On the same day
that Fort Sumter was bombarded by
the Confederates, the Leader carried
a small story to the effect that the
carpentry work was finished on the new
West Side High School, designed
by S. C. Porter.49 The building on
State and Clinton Streets was occupied
in the fall, and was described as being
a two-story brick building with a
nine-foot basement of stone. Its
dimensions were50 feet by 96 feet, and
the total height was 51 feet. An old
photograph shows that the West Side
High School was a smaller (but still
"elegant")50 version of the 1856
Central High School, and hence another
reference to the King's College
type. An important difference, however,
was the addition of four battle-
mented corner towers to the Romanesque
theme.
When construction in Cleveland nearly
reached a standstill, fortunately
two or three jobs came to Porter from
outside Cleveland. One of these
was his brother Orrin's house in Hudson.
It is not known for certain
where the complete responsibility lies
for its plan, but in all probability
Orrin and Simeon worked on it together,
taking advantage of Simeon's
experience in Cleveland. The Porter
House seems to be an amalgamation
of elements from both the early Hudson
era and the later Cleveland one.
The house has the square, symmetrical
simplicity of houses of the Hurlbut
type. The bracketed eaves certainly show
the knowledge of the Italianate
style of the fifties. But in spite of
its obviously Civil War character, the
Porter House lives very harmoniously
with its neighbors from the earlier
Western Reserve period. The cornice
return is a reminder of the earlier
classical houses, and the most
recognizable Romanesque element is the
pair of round-arched second-story
windows together with a circular attic
window, translated of course from
masonry into wood.
In December 1861 the president of Mount
Union College near Alliance,
some sixty miles southeast of Cleveland,
procured the services of Simeon
Porter to build its College Hall. On
December 27 the building specifications
and contract were signed by the
architect and the building committee
of the college. The cornerstone laying
ceremony was held on July 4, 1862.
After several delays due to the
unavailability of labor during the war,
College Hall was completed and dedicated
on December 1, 1864.51 By a
remarkable circumstance the manuscript
specifications by Porter are still
in existence, and give unusual insight
into the building practices of the
day.52 The specifications contain
twenty-one paragraphs which give specific
details on all parts of the building. On
the other hand, such general terms
as "suitable," "the most
thorough and approved workman-ship," and "in
the strongest and best manner"
appear over and over again in the specifi-
cations. These are obviously the specifications
of an architect who fully
intended to oversee the construction
himself, and did not need to spell
out what they meant. The basic
construction of College Hall (later named
Chapman Hall) was unvaried from his
standard practice since the earliest
188 OHIO HISTORY
buildings at Hudson, that is, a wooden
frame with outer walls of brick,
and foundations and trim of sandstone.
Although he originally specified the
use of cast-iron columns in the first
and second stories of Chapman Hall,
it was only in a supplement to the
specifications, dated some three weeks
later, that they were also specified in
the interior foundations. This sug-
gests that even after the modern usages
practiced with Heard, Porter
wrote the original specifications from
years of habit in the carpenter-mason
tradition.
What Porter seems to have done with
Chapman Hall was to take the
basic block of the Cleveland Central and
West High Schools, and add
a few touches of Hudson reminiscence on
top. This is not to suggest that
the final result is frivolous. It is
eclectic, it is bold, it perhaps shows a
certain lack of discrimination, but the
result has much dignity. The
main mass of the building is basically
that of the Romanesque high
schools, including the corner towers of
the West Side school. Its overall
length (120 feet by 64 feet) is somewhat
greater. The additions which
recall the classic details of the Hudson
period are the cupolas on either
end of the building. The south cupola is
octagonal and supports a dome
which served as an astronomical
observatory. On the north there is a
square clock tower with shuttered
openings. As a combination of elements
from several periods of Porter's past,
Chapman Hall almost seems to
be a conscious stylistic summary of his
career.
While Porter was supervising the
erection of the Mount Union College
building, Professor Ira O. Chapman (for
whom Chapman Hall was later
named) built a house for himself in
Mount Union village. This was in
1863. The last owner of the house before
it was demolished in the 1950's
reported that it was built "by the
same man who built Chapman Hall."53
A photograph of 1880 shows a brick house
which was almost certainly
not merely contractor-built. It seems
likely that the Chapman House was
one of the last examples of Simeon
Porter's domestic work. The general
form of this house is related to the
Hurlbut and Orrin Porter Italianate
type. It is basically a simple cube with
wide bracketed eaves. Instead of
the crowning observatory, there is
simply a railed platform on the roof.
An unusual note is the third floor
dormer which takes the form of a
curved pediment inserted into the main
cornice. These details show the
continuing freedom with which the early
Victorian architect was able
to rearrange details on a basically
standard plan.
Porter also had another building under
way in Hudson now, the new
brick edifice of the First
Congregational Church. The cornerstone of the
church was laid on July 21, 1863, and
the building dedicated on March 1,
1865.54 The First Congregational Church
is also Romanesque, with a
single, symmetrically placed tower,
buttresses, arcaded corbeling, and
round-arched windows. The entrance door
is an interesting translation
into wood of the slender columns,
foliated capitals, and zigzag molding
of the Old Stone Church. The basic form
of the church, however, probably
gives the best possible indication of
what Heard's Gothic St. Paul's looked
like. Still standing in 1863, that
church must have provided the pattern
SIMEON PORTER 189
for Porter. The Hudson Congregational
Church is essentially a late
example of the early Gothic Revival,
with Romanesque details.
During these war years Porter maintained
his residence in Cleveland.
He had been living at the same address
on Huron Street since first settling
there. In 1865 and 1866 Porter had a new
young draftsman and junior
partner, Charles T. Roesling. During
these two years they did two buildings
which may be compared, the Brownell
Street School in Cleveland, completed
in September 1865,55 and
another building for Mount Union College,
finished in August 1866. Both buildings
were simple rectangular blocks
of three stories with a series of rooms
along a central corridor. The school
had ten windows on a side, with slightly
projecting end blocks grouping
them into a two-six-two division. At
Mount Union the new building was
a boarding hall (later called Miller
Hall). Here there were likewise ten
windows on a side, but they were divided
into vertical ranks by three-story
pilasters and corbeling, like Chapman
Hall and the Western Reserve
buildings.
As Miller Hall was nearing completion,
Porter, as college architect,
was appointed a member of a committee to
prepare a history of Mount
Union College. It contained Porter's own
description of the boarding hall:
Its dimensions are 134 1/2 feet long, by
46 1/2 feet wide, having three
ten feet stories above its basement
story, which contain sixty good
rooms that measure each 12 by 15 feet,
and having proper arrange-
ments in each room for light, heating,
ventilation and furniture, with
roofs of slate, and the interior neatly
and thoroughly finished, and
plastered with hard-finish, and
skillfully constructed throughout, with
reference to health, convenience,
permanence, and architectural taste.56
The interior of Miller Hall was rebuilt
with fire-resistant construction
early in this century, but the outer
walls are those of 1866. Later the
building was marred by a new entrance on
the south side, placed directly
beneath a brick pier and ignoring
completely the structural logic of that
form.
Miller Hall is the last building by
Simeon Porter of which there is a
positive record. Mrs. Farwell states
that "his very active life in overseeing
the buildings he was erecting in various
parts of the country undermined
his health and the last years of his
life [he] was an invalid and slowly
declined until his death."57 By
1870 he no longer listed a business address
in the directory. The next year he died
in Cleveland, on May 6, 1871, and
was buried in the new Lakeview Cemetery.
It was a singular circumstance
that Orrin Porter died in Hudson about
the same hour in the morning
of the same day.
Simeon Porter was a New England pioneer
of the Western Reserve, a
master builder of integrity, and a
fairly typical Victorian architect. He
was not an original genius. His sources
were clear. As an apprentice to
his father and as a master builder, he
learned a solid trade in carpentry
and masonry. As a designer he
undoubtedly relied heavily on the wide-
190 OHIO HISTORY
spread pattern books of the day. But
while using them for decorative
details, he does not seem to have copied
buildings intact from any source.
This freedom was characteristic of the
early Victorian architect. It was
not until the late nineteenth and
twentieth centuries that designers copied
buildings whole. The mid-century
eclectic was an unscholarly one who
assembled details from various sources
with boldness and zest, but always
with freedom and originality. As a
builder, Porter was always conscious
of high standards, to which we can
ascribe the fact that so many of his
buildings are standing and in use today.
But once he set upon the path
of designing, he does not seem to have
returned to the actual building
trades himself. He did indeed
superintend construction, seeing that ma-
terials were sound and specifications
followed, but this was part of the
job of the architect.
Simeon Porter could probably be said to
have worked chiefly in three
styles. His early post-colonial work
before 1835 was of course the heritage
of his father, simply continued until he
became aware of any other
possibility. His Greek Revival work in
Hudson is typical of the provincial
simplification with which that style was
treated all over the Midwest.
His arrival in Cleveland just as the
Romanesque style was taking hold
seems to have set his preference for the
rest of his building career.
The work of Heard and Porter was among
the most advanced in the
Midwest. Their use of the Romanesque, of
cast-iron columns as soon as
they were available, and of folding
partitions, was among the earliest.
Perhaps more important, Heard and Porter
helped to change the face
of Cleveland. The dozen-odd buildings
that are known must be assumed
to be only a portion of their actual
work. If one considers as a sample
one or two masterpieces of Romanesque
church architecture, a half dozen
schools and residences, several important
public buildings, and commer-
cial stores in which the new structural
system was eagerly tried, this is
an impressive record, and the other jobs
coming to such an important firm
can be readily imagined. The work that
Porter did alone in the last decade
of his life completed his development as
a Victorian architect, and might
be seen, in one sense, as a
recapitulation of the various stylistic elements
of his earlier career.
Simeon Porter developed from a master
craftsman into a Victorian
architect as the Western Reserve was
developing from a pioneer, agrarian
society into a mercantile, industrial
one. It has frequently been observed
that the evolution of architecture not
only parallels but even embodies
the growth and development of a region,
and for this reason alone the
career of Simeon Porter is an invaluable
chapter in the story of the
Western Reserve of Ohio.
THE AUTHOR: Eric Johannesen is the
chairman of the art department at Mount
Union College.
|
SIMEON PORTER ?? OHIO ARCHITECT
by ERIC JOHANNESEN
Of the many carpenters and master builders who gave the Western Reserve villages in northern Ohio their characteristic look of colonial New Eng- land in the first decades of the nineteenth century, only a handful are known today. Similarly, the architects of the great era of urban growth in the United States during the two decades before the Civil War are largely anonymous. Yet a few known builders belonged to both periods and spanned the transition from the pioneer, post-colonial society to the urban, industrial one. One of these was Simeon C. Porter of Hudson. The work of Simeon Porter has long been appreciated in Hudson, and he is known by name as the partner of Charles W. Heard in Cleveland. But until now there has been no consecutive account of the entire career and
NOTES ARE ON PAGES 210-212 |