New here but not new to our old house

[heartwood]

welcome back banner...i'm sure you'll feel right at home with your old friends, and some new ones as well!
a lovely house that is well loved...
......jade

[Don M]

Hi Dan,
It's great to see you here at Wavy Glass. I always enjoyed seeing your progress on the OHW.
Don

[CS in Low Hud]

Welcome back Dan!

Chris ("cs" on the old site)

[maxhall1023]

Dan your house is totally amazing. I love your floors, and your staircase is amazing. Also you period lights are gorgeous as well. I've never seen a radiator like that before. I'll have to show my wife your FB page she will be quite envious.

[Powermuffin]

Glad to have you here Banner. I love the old pictures of your home. The carpet/rug in the wedding photo is amazing. I bet that it was incredible in real life!
Diane

[Banner]

I remember you (and the missing newel post light) from OHW! Do you have page with more of the history? Just looking through the pictures, I want more of the story! So was Agnes Vincent an only child? How old were her parents (they look much older than the average first time parents). How did you come about all these photos? How did you track down the newel post light? What's up with the jerks who sold all that stuff off piecemeal? So many questions! Great to see you and your beautiful house here.

Hi Clover, thanks, it's nice to be remembered.

I don't have a page with he history but it's something I should work on. I'm afraid that with all the history I do have it might turn into something more like a book. One of the great grandchildren had done a self published family history and genealogy and he provided us with a copy along with many original documents from James Vincent's estate.

Vincent was born on a farm in Half Moon Bay, New York in 1825. He studied and apprenticed in the carpentry trade. As a young man he married and he and his wife Eliza had 3 children, a daughter and 2 sons. Vincent followed the gold rush to California by way of a sailing down to Panama and crossing by land to the pacific. He brought his carpentry tools and even worked along the way doing some construction in Panama. Once he got to CA he, like most of the 49ers wasn't finding any gold so he set about securing contracts to build bridges for the community of Stockton , CA. On his way back to NY he ended up seeing La Crosse, WI and felt it would be a perfect place to bring his young family. La Crosse had just been founded in 1848 and Vincent and his family arrived here in 1855. There were about 1500 residents at that time. He started trading in grain and lumber. By the late 1870s Vincent had amassed a fortune and was making plans to build his Mansion. He and his wife Eliza hired a Chicago architect to draw up the plans for a very large Italianate mansion that had 3 towers. Shortly after making those plans Eliza was killed in a carriage accident in winter when her carriage overturned due to ice. Vincent was now widowed. His young children had been raised and were now adults (one son died at age 17) Because his wife Eliza had died Mr Vincent was now alone and put off plans for the grand house. At some point in the next few years he married Agnes McKillip, (daughter of a local Veterinarian). Agnes was a spinster collage graduate in her 40s and Vincent was in his late 50s. They hired a local architect to scale back the plans to the house and set about construction in spring of 1882. The house was completed in 1885 and the Vincents moved in. In 1887 they had a baby girl join them, their daughter Agnes (named after her mother) was born in the library. James Vincent died in 1911. Agnes got married in the Parlor in 1913 to a young man named Voigt. Together they had 3 children, 2 boys and a girl. They raised their family here in La Crosse in a house on Main St. Her husband died rather young of a heart attack and when her mother (Agnes Sr) was ailing Agnes Jr moved back in to care for her. Her mother died in 1943 at the age of 97 and after that Agnes was married to a man by the name of Osborn. She moved away to the city of Wisconsin Rapids for a short time. I believe one of her children may have lived here in the house with his family during that time. Mr Osborn died and Agnes again moved back into her family home. She lived here until she died at the age of 97, that was in 1984. Her daughter Virginia Robeson came back to La Crosse with her husband upon their retirement in 1987 and she stayed and took care of the family house from 1987 until 2005 when she moved into an assisted living home. She died at age 93 in 2007. So you see the house saw 123 years of Vincents and decedents and they changed very little. That's how so much of the history has been kept together. Agnes was a member of the Historical Society and was also the one who can be credited with having the house placed on the National Historic Register.

So much more information but that sort of sums it up. Dan (Banner)

[Casey]

Welcome back, I have long wondered whatever became of you!
Casey

[clover]

Thank for taking the time to condense the history! I'm so jealous that you have so much information available. We have a single photo of our home, copied from a slide from the 1950s, and an extremely ramshackle oral history (with lots of holes) - and ours is a home that hasn't left my husband's family in all its 150 years!

[Kansas.1911]

I remember when you were shining the woodwork in preparation for your old house tour. Then, I look up to see my woodwork, 10' up there by the ceiling, and I say to myself, "I should get up there and shine it up someday." See, I have missed you. I am so glad you came over here.

By the way, what DO you use when you want your oak woodwork to shine?