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A Journey Through DeKalb County - The Henry Roth House - Article in The Daily Chronicle on the 15th of January 2002
A Journey Through DeKalb County - Part 36: The Henry Roth House
Drive back to Route 30, also known as Lincoln Avenue, from Oak Knoll in Hinckley, then return to Somonauk Road and continue north on it. After about three miles, you enter Pierce Township. The name comes from U.S. President Franklin Pierce, who took office in 1853. As in the case of several other townships previously discussed, this was a vast, open prairie, with no groves of timber readily available as a source of building material.
Despite the fact that homesteading did not get started until 1847, once it did, the rich soil allowed for the growing of more wheat than in any other region of the county. The northern end of Pierce is quite undulating, while the southern end is very flat. Before being organized as a separate township in 1853, Pierce was partly in Squaw Grove and partly in Cortland Township.
Many of those who settled in Pierce during its early years were of Irish and German extraction, and staunchly Democratic. Already by 1871, the 1,008 people occupied 165 residences, there being 9,846 acres of land in cultivation. Some 22,351 acres were improved by 1885. Even in this heavily rural environment, the populace enjoyed such items of luxury and personal property as 160 carriages and wagons (requiring teams of horses to pull them), 125 watches and clocks, 102 sewing and knitting machines, six pianos, and 26 melodeons and organs. Absent from the list was billiard tables. There was simply no time for such frills when people had to earn their livelihood working the land.
The Roth House is a familier landmark
Just before arriving at Somonauk and McGirr roads, be sure to pause for a book at the Henry Roth house, on the west side of Somonauk. It has served as a familiar landmark in Pierce Township since the 1850s, and is probably the best surviving 19th-century example of Vernacular Greek Revival architecture in DeKalb County. An "I-House" in the tradition of the Elisha Foster House in DeKalb, the structure's original two-story brick portion is two rooms deep instead of one. (The I-House was a popular building type in Indiana, Iowa and Illinois, most commonly dating from the 1840s through the 1860s.)
The owner still has the original property abstract for the land, indicating that Thomas R. Greene of Cook County, Ill., purchased the 80 acres from the government on Nov. 21, 1849. Greene died on Oct. 28, 1850, and his family held ownership until Nov. 15, 1852, when Jacob Haish and his wife, Sophia, acquired the farm for $122.50. This was the same Jacob Haish who would relocate to DeKalb about a year later, going on to become wealthy as a result of the manufacture of barbed wire, banking activity, speculative building and other business ventures.
It can be assumed that the Haishes erected some kind of dwelling on the land. There was a time when it was thought that Haish was responsible for the stately brick house with which we are familiar. What gave credence to this is the fact that when Haish sold the farm —on Feb. 23, 1856 — to Henry Roth, he was paid $600 for it. An increase in value such as this generally indicates the construction of something substantial in the way of an improvement. - like a new house, for example.
A few mysteries are waiting to be discovered
The owner of the house on Somonauk has subsequently come to the conclusion that the Roths built the striking brick house themselves, probably around 1859 or 1860. His attempts over the years to determine a more precise date through researching official county records have been unsuccessful. Neighbors in the immediate area with whom he has spoken lean toward the late 1850s to early 1860s date.
In addition, there is a historical source containing a picture of the house along with a caption that makes for interesting reading. The 1917 "Reliable Directory of Farmers and Breeders of DeKalb County, Illinois," by Prairie Farmer Publishing Co. of Chicago (though misspelling the Baie family name), states: "H. H. Baier's Farm House, De Kalb, Ill. - This was the first house built in the County. It was erected in 1860." While there are any number of older homes to be found around the county — some able to boast the inclusion of rooms within their walls that originally were log cabins — it is the reference to the 1860 date that is noteworthy. This piece of information may well be something provided by the Baie family.
Henry Roth, like Jacob Haish, was one of Pierce Township's German immigrants, and according to the 1876 "Voters and Tax-Payers of DeKalb County, Illinois, " he had been born in 1813 in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. Married in 1841 in Germany, he and his wife came to America in 1847, and to DeKalb County in 1854. Roth's land holdings grew to 120 acres by 1876 with a value of $7,000, and he enjoyed $2,000 in personal property.
Mr. Roth died on Jan. 27, 1908, and is buried in Miller Cemetery on Duffy Road in Squaw Grove Township, northwest of Hinckley.
"Voters and Tax-Payers" concludes its entry about him by saying he fathered four daughters. Surprisingly, none of the U.S. Censuses - 1860, 1870 or 1880 - nor any of the biographical histories — 1885, 1898 or 1907 — included information on him. Roth's absence from the Census records is particularly curious. His name is on the Pierce Township land maps in the atlases of 1871, 1892 and even 1905. Since he apparently had no sons, though, the property was handed down to daughter Minnie and her husband, Herman H. Baie, whose name is listed in conjunction with that of his father-in-law on the 1905 plat. While a few members of the Baie family are written up in 1898's "The Biographical Record of DeKalb County, Illinois," Herman H. Baie is not, nor is he mentioned in anybody else's sketch.
Although historically the residence may appropriately be called the Roth House, because of the longtime association with Baie's family, there are those who know it every bit as well as the Baie Farm. The next owners, however, were the Dellenbachs, who also had their name associated not only with this house and farm but also with other nearby parcels. |
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1813 - 1908 (94 år)
Has ingen aner men 20 etterkommere i Familietreet.
Mary Roth, f. 4 Sep 1843, Germany