115 W Green St Ithaca

Street Address History:
Earlier street address 13 W Green St.
The city renumbered its streets in 1899 using the hundred block system (see Crandall City Engineering Map, 1899).

Henry St. John Local Historic District Nomination, Sara Johnson and Kristen Olson, Historic Ithaca, Inc., 2012.
Description: 
   115 West Green Street is located mid-block on a deep lot on the south side of West Green Street. The house marks the transition from Ithaca’s downtown commercial area to the residential area of the Henry Saint John district south of Green Street. It is a two-story house of stone construction, built ca. 1837 in a transitional Federal-Greek Revival style. The side-gabled central mass is rectangular in plan, with east and west additions set back from the three-bay primary (north) façade.
   Walls are stone, of random ashlar construction with tooled stone quoins at the corners of the north façade. The north façade features a single recessed door framed by an unornamented stone surround. A modern glass and metal enclosure shelters the recess. The first story is raised above the street level to accommodate large windows in the full basement story. The roof is clad in raised seam metal roofing and the wide cornice below the roof has returns on the east and west façades. An interior brick chimney projects from the roof near the center of the west façade.
   Windows are 2/2, symmetrically arranged and have unornamented stone lintels and sills. The two-story east wing is constructed of stone and brick, with stone on the north façade. The east façade of the wing has a stone first story and brick second story. A one-story shed-roofed addition is on the south side of the wing.
   A two-story brick bay addition is located at the south corner of the west façade. It has a flat roof, wide cornice, and window openings with slightly arched tops. Windows in the bay are 1/1. A two-tracked paved driveway is located along the west side of the house. Immediately east of the house, a chain link fence and separates the property from the gas station parking lot. The deep lot runs east to the McGraw House property (221 South Geneva Street).
Significance: 
Contributing. Architecturally significant. Historically significant.
   115 West Green Street is architecturally significant as Ithaca’s only remaining transitional Federal-Greek Revival style building constructed of stone. The building has a high level of integrity and retains nearly all of its original exterior features.
   115 West Green Street is historically significant for its association with the Mack and Williams families. This is the only surviving house of a row of three Green Street houses owned by early village presidents, formerly known as “Presidential Row.” The other houses were located to the east of this house.
This was one of the first residential lots developed west of Cayuga Street on the south side of Green Street. In 1821, Samuel Hill, a “Nurseryman, Seedsman, and Florist,” purchased from Simeon DeWitt a 231-foot deep parcel of land on the south side of Green Street between Geneva and Cayuga streets. Hill operated a large garden on the property before selling a section or the entire lot to Charles E. Hardy and Jeremiah S. Beebe in 1831.20 Hardy and Beebe, major village landowners, subdivided the parcel and sold the lot now known as 115 West Green Street to Henry and Amanda Moore in 1835. The Moores sold the lot five months later to Thomas Downing, who conveyed the property to Horace and Eliza Ann Mack in 1836.
   The house at 115 West Green Street was built ca. 1837 for Horace Mack by Samuel Halliday, the mason who later supervised the construction of Cornell University’s Cascadilla Hall (1864-1868).21 Mack was the twentieth village president (1851) and held numerous other public positions, including village trustee, township supervisor, and county clerk. Mack worked in the mercantile business independently and with other prominent village residents, including Jeremiah S. Beebe, Steven B. Munn, and Daniel T. Tillotson. His wife Eliza Ann was the sister of Benjamin G. Ferris, the fifteenth village president (serving terms in 1841 and 1852).22 The Mack family owned multiple properties in the Henry St. John district.
   In 1846, Mack sold the property to Timothy Shaler Williams, part of the prominent Williams family. Brothers Timothy, Josiah, and Manwell Russell Williams operated a canal boat business in Ithaca, ferrying goods produced near Ithaca to Albany; they also owned a lumber business in Albany. During the 1836-37 financial panic, the Williams brothers’ businesses continued to prosper and they opened the Merchants and Farmers Bank in 1838 or 1839.23 
   Timothy Shaler (T.S.) Williams was the seventeenth village president, serving three terms, 1844-1846, and was elected to the New York State Senate in 1847. He was one of the first directors of the Tompkins County Bank, chartered in 1836.24 After T.S. Williams’ death in 1849, his wife and children lived in the house and the family retained ownership of the property until 1913, when it was sold to Lucie Wilkinson Bolton.
Alterations: 
   Multiple additions have been made to the east, west and south façades of the house. The first depiction of the house on the 1851 map of Ithaca shows an L-plan structure. This corresponds to the primary stone mass of the house and east stone wing. An outbuilding appeared on the 1851 map slightly southwest of the house. The 1872 map of Ithaca appears to indicate a rear (south) addition to the house. The 1888 Sanborn company map indicates that the front L-shaped mass of the house was two-story and the rear addition was one-story. The existing east addition is stone on the first story and brick on the second; the brick second story was likely added prior to 1888. The west two-story, brick bay addition appears on the 1898 Sanborn company map. In 1904, the west bay and west half of the rear addition were depicted as two stories, and a one-story addition and one-story porch were added on the northwest side of the house. Between 1898 and 1904, the outbuilding was removed and between 1919 and 1929 an automobile garage was constructed in the southeast corner of the lot. The garage was demolished after 1961.
20 Peirce, History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler Counties, New York, 404. 
21 Sisler, Enterprising Families, 35. 
22 Burns, Initial Ithacans, 69-71. 
23 Sisler, Enterprising Families, 35. 
24 Burns, Initial Ithacans, 58-69.
Sources: 
Bevans, John. 1851 Map of Ithaca, Tompkins Co., N.Y. New York: John Bevans, 1851. The History Center In Tompkins County, Ithaca, NY. 
Burns, Thomas W. Initial Ithacans. Ithaca, NY: Press of the Ithaca Journal, 1904. 
Ithaca directories, 1864-1981.Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY. 
Peirce, H.B. History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler Counties, New York.. Philadelphia: Everts & Ensign, 1879. 
Sanborn Map Company. Ithaca, NY fire insurance maps, 1888-1961.The History Center In Tompkins County, Ithaca, NY. 
Selkreg, John H. Landmarks of Tompkins County, N.Y. Syracuse: D. Mason & Company, 1894. 
Deed records, Office of the Tompkins County Clerk, Ithaca, NY. 
Sisler, Carol U. Enterprising Families, Ithaca, New York: Their Houses and Businesses. Ithaca, NY: Enterprise Publishing, 1986. 
Tompkins County Department of Assessment. Tompkins County tax assessment photographs, 1954. Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY. 
Tompkins County, NY. Deeds and survey maps, 1850-2010. Office of the Tompkins County Clerk, Ithaca, NY.