Spring Bazaar set Friday

The Fairfield Women?s Club will host is annual Spring Bazaar Friday at the McElhinny House.

The women?s club members will be serving coffee, tea and cinnamon rolls from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. They also will be selling baked goods, frozen ham balls and chicken casseroles.

Preorders can be called to 472-4248.

Proceeds from the Spring Bazaar will be used for maintenance of the historic McElhinny House, Fairfield?s first showplace.

The McElhinny House on Court Street, just north of Jefferson County Courthouse, was built for pioneer merchant Robert McElhinny by carpenter John Lynn Jr. Both came to Fairfield from Washington County, Pennsylvania.

McElhinny acquired the building site Jan. 15, 1846, purchasing two lots for $60. Fairfield was less than 7 years old, and Iowa was still several months away from statehood on Dec. 28, 1846.

Most sources list the initial construction of the house as beginning in 1846, with completion between 1852 and 1857.

Originally, the house had a parlor and sitting room on the south, a library, dining room and kitchen on the north, with a summer kitchen in the rear. Five bedrooms, each with its own fireplace, were upstairs. The house was surrounded by a high board fence.

Robert McElhinny, once the largest private landowner in Jefferson County, died May 6, 1878, at the age of 74.

The dwelling remained in the McElhinny family for 69 years. At times, the house was closed, and at others it was rented as a rooming house or used a private home.

The home had various owners, then sometime after World War I, it was bought by Fairfield school district, named Central School and used as elementary school until 1931.

In 1933, the house was purchased by the Fairfield Women?s Club through a bequest from the estate of Elizabeth McElhinny, daughter of Robert McElhinny. In her will, McElhinny gave $10,000 to the club to purchase a club house.

Since then, not only have Fairfield Women?s Club meetings been held in the historic house, but it has been the setting for parties, weddings, anniversaries, receptions, reunions, club meetings and many other events.

After the McElhinny House was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, the McElhinny House Foundation was created as a nonprofit corporation to promote and preserve the historical background of Fairfield and the surrounding area, with the McElhinny House as its focal point.