This home’s builder abruptly resigned from IWU

MT. PLEASANT — 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 Phillips House, 206 South Locust St.

This week we feature a home built in 1895 by a multitalented gentleman and yet one with somewhat of a mystery attached to his tenure in Mt. Pleasant.

Indiana born William Mahaffie, in a Mt. Pleasant Weekly News item in September of 1891 was characterized as being one of a few faculty members who was responsible for a renewed interest in Iowa Wesleyan.

“His illustrated scientific lectures, persuasive sermons and Christian courtesy had made hosts of friends for the university this summer,” according to the local paper.

He was a professor chemistry and physics and was the driving force behind an industrial department for the college.

Few today are aware that a substantial 40 x 100 foot ironclad frame building was built, located between Old Main and Broad Street. It contained tools and wood and iron working machinery plus a 50 horsepower high speed engine and an 80 horsepower steel boiler.

Industrial arts were slated to become a very popular feature of the college curriculum. From reports, Mahaffie had been given pretty free reign in raising funds and outfitting the building.

In December of 1896, the local newspaper reported that everything was about ready for this operation of commence. But only a year later found Mahaffie resigning, supposedly forced out by other faculty members and the board, along with University President Charles Stafford.

Stafford, however, claimed that Mahaffie had his “unwavering support.”

Mahaffie had ordered machinery indebting the college $2,000-$3,000. That amounts to between $70,000 and $107,000 in today’s dollars.

Mahaffie immediately got a position as pastor of Grace Methodist Church in Burlington. Between then and his death in 1927, he moved on from the pulpit and became the right-of-way agent for the Milwaukee rail system.

Just one further note on the Industrial building: it was demolished in 1904, less than 10 years old, with various components used elsewhere in the campus heating system.

The only vestige of the building extant is the large bell on IWU grounds between Old Main and The Chapel. Originally on Old Main, it had been cracked and the repair added so much weight that the old building could not support it and it was mounted atop the new industrial building.

Back to Mt. Pleasant Beautiful: After building this very nice home in 1895 (and Mahaffie is credited with doing much of the work) it was sold in 1906 to David and Christina Mauch, and they were the owners at the time of the 1909 publication.

The Mauchs were both natives of Germany and when younger, successful farmers. They came to the Mt. Pleasant area for the educational opportunities afforded their children between Iowa Wesleyan and the German College.