This home is one of the oldest in the area

With the cooperation of the Southeast Iowa Union/Mt. Pleasant News, The Mt. Pleasant Historic Preservation Commission will be publishing, every week or two peeks at some of the featured homes in the 1909 book, Mt. Pleasant Beautiful.

In the series, the 1909 picture will be contrasted with one of recent vintage. The Commission has been collecting information for the eventual issuance of a new book updating the information on the still standing homes from the 1909 publication.

You can test your knowledge of historic Mt. Pleasant with this column. The identity of the featured home will be published with the next featured home. The last featured home was the Arms house. 412 North Main Street.

This week’s featured home is one of the oldest in the series, although the exact date of construction has not been determined, but our best guess is 1860 or before.

In 1860 it was occupied by Jesse and Elizabeth Smith. City directories show that by 1867 Virgil and Sophia Hunt lived there, having purchased from the Smiths in 1861. The directory lists Hunt’s occupation as “speculator”. Without further reference we can only speculate as to what Hunt’s speculation involved.

John and Estella Houseman purchased the home in 1871. Houseman was a merchant in downtown Mt. Pleasant and in 1881 was in business with a partner named Buchanan. Their advertising emphasized that they were a “cash” business with prices no “credit house” could match. In 1874 Houseman was one of a group of locals that raised money and collected dry goods and foodstuffs to relive suffering in Kansas and Nebraska where the onslaught of an estimated 120 billion locusts had decimated the land.

In 1887 the house again changed hand when Lucian Willard purchased it. Willard spent forty years in Mt. Pleasant as a harness maker—another long-gone occupation.

What was to turn out to be one of the longest family ownerships of Mt. Pleasant residential property started in 1906. The home was purchased by Milton Campbell (age 40) and his wife Jessie (age 30). Although Campbell had a number of trades, including horse trader and real estate dealer, he is remembered for stints as Henry County Sheriff and later Mt. Pleasant City Marshal. Milton died in 1941 and his wife 20 years later. However, their daughter Maria, a life-long teacher, returned to Mt. Pleasant in 1966 and occupied the house until her death in 1996 at the age of 94.