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- [S1346] Public Member Trees, **** 201501, PriscillaStrozier44 re Roberts/Vance, Database online.
Record for Amy Roberts
HS16 Amy Roberts Vance House
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http://scenicwv.org/stealeybydavis.htm
Oldest Brick Home in Clarksburg
Stealey Goff Vance House - also known as the Amy Roberts Vance House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Oldest Brick Home in Clarksburg Circa 1804
BY DOROTHY DAVIS
The Amy Roberts Vance House, 123 West Main Street, Clarksburg, the site of the museum of the Harrison County Historical Society, is listed as the “Stealey-Goff-Vance House” in the National Register of Historic Places. The nomenclature given in 1979 by the Register is apt because it names all the owners of the structure from 1807 to 1967, the year the property was conveyed to the historical society.
The Stealey in the name refers to Jacob Stealey who as a young man traveled from Baltimore, Md. to Lancaster, Pa., and then to Monongalia County where his brother John resided in the town of Morgantown. Here Jacob Stealey met and married Elizabeth Kerns. Jacob and Elizabeth Kerns Stealey loaded their possessions into a wagon to be pulled by ox team and moved with their infant son, John, born Jan. 15, 1792, to Clarksburg in 1793.
Jacob Stealey bought for 300 pounds from George and Elizabeth Jackson on Nov. 17, 1795, the tanyard which Jackson had operated in Clarksburg. The tanyard lay “in line with lot No. 1 on Main Street and south of Tan Yard Run,” a description which places the “3 quarters twenty-two poles and a half acres” in the northwest corner of streets labeled “Water Street” and “Washington Avenue.” The Jacob Stealey family took up residence in a log house which stood on the tannery lot.
By 1804 Jacob Stealey was so successful as a tanner of hides and a retailer of leather that he looked about him for a site to build a fine home. Lot No. 3 on West Main Street in Clarksburg appealed to him because it lay high enough above Elk Creek that chance of flooding was slight and the back of the lot joined the tanyard lot. He may have started to gather materials for the house he would build as early as 1804 since one source states that his son John helped “carry bricks” for the new house when he was 12 years old. Whenever it was, the deed for four lots, land on which the brick house arose, was not recorded until Aug. 20, 1807, when George and Elizabeth Jackson sold to Jacob Stealey for $709 land on the “south side of Main Street to a lot the said Jackson formerly sold to said Stealey called the Tan Yard.”
Workers excavated for a basement to extend under the “house” portion of the new structure and erected foundation stones around the excavation to support the outer walls of the house. Then bricklayers began to lay the outer walls of brick for two floors of rooms that would have ceilings nine feet, eight inches high on the first floor and eight feet, eight inches on the second floor. The workers were skilled enough to lay Flemish bond in the front which faces with West Main Street. Cut stone steps were laid on the west side of a small stoop at the front of the house so that the stoop could be flush with West Main Street.
The plan of the house features an eight foot, 10 inch hallway) extending 24 feet to the back outer wall of the house and containing, opposite the front door, a staircase which leads to a landing from which steps climb toward the front of the house on the second floor; two doors opposite one another which lead to rooms on either side of the hallway; and under the staircase a door which leads to the stairs to the basement. The east room (drawing room) - measures 24 feet by 14 feet, three inches and has two windows in the front and two windows in the front and two windows in the back. The only windows in the east wall of the building are two small ones on either side of the chimney in the attic. The space to the west of the first floor hallway, 24 feet by 15 feet, 11 inches, is divided into two rooms, a parlor and a dining room. Chimneys for fireplaces in the parlor and dining room lead to one chimney which balances the single chimney in the east wall of the house. A window was cut in the west wall to provide daylight for the dining room. The windows to the front west of the house balance the windows on the front east of the house; two downstairs with two directly above upstairs.
The plan of the second floor of the house is the same as the first floor except the portion of the upstairs hail above the front door is enclosed for what would probably have been a small bedroom in 1897, making four bedrooms in the upstairs. Stairs were built, with a landing, from the second floor to the attic, forming a stairwell from the first floor to the third. A window directly above the one in the dining room below gives light to the back bedroom on the west; a window directly above the front door gives light to the small room off the upstairs hallway. Two small windows, one on either side of the chimney, admit light to the attic from the west.
Jacob Stealey in his will was careful to separate “my household and kitchen furniture” since during most of the 19th century the kitchen was not considered a part of the house. A photograph thought to have been made in the late 1 800s or in the early l900s shows a long narrow wing built of brick or stone joined to a portion of the back of the house on the west. The wing looks to have been as long as 60 feet with ample room for storage rooms and kitchen.
Three days before his death Jacob Steaiey had written a codicil in his will: “I give to my son John Stealey in addition to what I have already bequeathed him in the body of my will, the brick house and lot on which I now live being the same bequeathed in the body of my will to my son Edmond K., in lieu thereof my said son John is to construct a building and back building of equal dimensions, quality, and finish in every respect similiar (sic) to the said building that I now occupy with a cellar of equal dimentions (sic) under the principal building of the one under my present dwelling which buildings are to be constructed on the Fiesher farm at such place as my said son Edmond K. shall designate. The whole to be finished within three years after my death. My said son John shall have the priviledge (sic) of taking stone and necessary timber off the aforesaid farm, provided also that my son Edmond K. shall have the use and occupation of the property whereon my said son John now lives free and clear of.rent untill (sic) the aforesaid buildings on the Flesher farm shall be completed.” Edmund K. Stealey did not occupy the brick house on West Main Street while his brother John built the house stipulated in his father’s will. Instead he continued to reside in the Nicholas Carpenter log house on the Flesher farm until a short time after his son Irwin was born in 1843, when the structure identical in plan to the Jacob Steaiey house was ready for occupancy at 412 Milford St. in Clarksburg.
Nathan Goff bought “in front of the Courthouse of Harrison County on the 25 day of May 1881” the lot “on which the brick house in which said John Stealey now resides.., for $2,930” and 24 acres lying south of the house known as the “Stealey meadow and orchard for $3,600.”
John Stealey may have continued to reside in the house until his death on May 1, 1882. At any rate, the house, meadow and orchard must have been let by Nathan Goff after his death by his estate until Jan. 4, 1886, when “the lot on Main Street (on which is the brick house in which John Stealey formerly lived)... (and where Mrs. Virginia Ramsey now lives) and also a piece of land called “the Stealey meadow and orchard were conveyed to Mary R. Hornor Goff for $7,900.”
During her marriage to Nathan Goff, Mary Hornor Goff lived with her husband in the Nathan Goff house which stood on the lot west of Waldomore on West Pike Street, land on which a portion of the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library now stands.
After Nathan Goff’s death, since by terms of the agreement drawn up before she married him, the Nathan Goff residence became the property of his estate, Mary Hornor Goff may have decided to live in the brick house at 123 West Main St.
She set about to remodel the house. A gable added to the roof in the center front enlarged the attic which was divided into two rooms. “Gingerbread” was added to the roof overhang at the east and west ends of the building. A bathroom was installed on the second floor in the small room over the downstairs entrance. The kitchen wing was torn down. A two-story clapboard extension 14 feet, eight inches wide was built to extend 24 feet, nine inches along the west side of the house at the back. The downstairs portion of the clapboard addition was made into a kitchen with one window and an outside door at the back, and a smaller room with two windows and with French doors leading to the lawn and the garden back of the house. Steps built from the first landing of the staircase in the original structure led to a bathroom and bedroom on the second floor of the clapboard addition.
Mary Hornor Goff was not living in the brick house at the time of her death in 1908. John A. Windon ran a boarding house at 123 West Main St. in 1900. Although the house is not listed with boarding houses in Clarksurg after 1900, it could have been a rooming house through 1908 because names occur in the city directories during the period with 123 West Main St. as a site of residence.
By terms of the will of Mary Hornor Goff her estate was to be divided equally between her nephews 1. Carl Vance and Lynn S. Hornor with the reservation that if either or both should “die without children, their part would go to my (Mary Hornor Goff’s) sister and brothers and to the heirs of my deceased brothers and sisters.” Both nephews were young men, a fact that assured partition of the estate would probably not occur for many years.
Perhaps the assurance that the property would not be transferred soon caused Dr. Ulysses W. Showalter to rent the house in 1909 for his home and office. He lived in the house and practiced medicine from the house until 1913. By 1919 Dr. Percy C. Showalter, son of Ulysses Showalter, had residence and office for the practice of medicine at 123 West Main St. After the death of Dr. Percy C. Showalter, his widow Bertie Showalter lived in the house until 1932.
Lynn S. Hornor died September 1933 without having been the father of children. J. Carl Vance, the other divisee named in the will of Mary Hornor Goff, had died in 1922 the father of two sons, Cyrus Roberts Vance and John Carl Vance. The partition of the Mary Hornor Goff Estate was recorded Dec. 15, 1933. As part of the partition Amy Roberts Vance, widow of J. Carl Vance, was awarded one-half interest and her sons Cyrus R. Vance and John C. Vance were awarded one-half interest in “all the lot on the south side of Main Street.” Amy Roberts Vance established her residence in the “Jacob Stealey Brick House in 1934.
Amy Roberts Vance contributed to the cultural and social life of the Clarksburg community. She was first listed as a member of Tuesday Club of Clarksburg in 1910 and was president of the club 1916-17, 1943-44, 1944-45. After she moved into the StealeyGoff-Vance House, the Tuesday Club met regularly for its bimonthly meetings at 123 West Main St. Mrs. Vance was a member of the Clarksburg Country Club, the Goff Plaza Garden Club, and a member of the board of directors of the Clarksburg Chapter of the American Red Cross. She was a founder of the Clarksburg Community Concert Association in 1933 and of the League for Service in 1934. The annual membership tea of the Clarksburg Community Concert Association was held at her home which was open for meetings and social events of all organizations in which she was interested. Mrs. Vance was elected to the board of directors of the Clarksburg Public Library in 1943. She was an associate director of the library board at the time of her death in 1967.
In 1967 Cyrus R. Vance offered to pay $10,000 and John C. Vance $1,000 of the $35,000 assessed value of the brick house in which their mother had resided if the Harrison County Historical Society would purchase the house and lot. The historical society borrowed $24,000, which was repaid in six months through public subscription, and purchased the property Nov. 15, 1967, for a museum.
Downstairs in the east room the society installed cases to hold artifacts that illustrate the history of Harrison County. The hallway, the west parlor, and the dining room were furnished with 19th century furniture most of which was once owned by people well known in the history of the county. The kitchen was converted into an office, with shelves for a small library, filing cabinets and a compact kitchen unit.
A table in the hallway is the only piece of furniture owned by the society which stood in the house when Jacob Stealey lived there. The table was donated in 1974 by Frances Stealey Skinker at the time she was disposing of the house and furnishings of the John E. Stealey estate, 610 Milford Street. As soon as members of the society who are informed as to Clarksburg cabinetmakers saw the table, they identified it as a John Hursey piece because tiger maple was used in it. Hursey, who operated a cabinet shop on the northeast corner of West Pike and North Fourth streets circa 1820, used tiger maple in a high percentage of the furniture he built.
The east room upstairs in 1985 is the meeting room of the Harrison County Historical Society. The west front room upstairs is called “The Jackson Room” because it contains pictures and artifacts associated with Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson. Also in the Jackson Room are specimens of pottery from all the potteries known to have existed in Harrison County. The room next to the Jackson Room is decorated as a 19th century bedroom. The room on the second floor of the clapboard portion of the upstairs houses the tool collection owned by the Harrison County Historical Society.
Jacob Stealey Builds a Tannary 1795
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Jacob buys the land on Main Street - 1804
Jacob builds a house - 1807
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Kitchen is separate wing along West side of house
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1810 - 1880 (69 years)
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