Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/05/18
Summary
The James Phillips Smith House is a Queen-Anne-Style single-family residence that was constructed in c. 1885 near the commercial core of the community of Benton, Arkansas.The house was designed and constructed for the Smith family, including James P. and his wife Mary Rachel “Mollie” Smith.The Smith House, with its symmetrical façade; two-story, wood-frame structure; ornamental siding elements; wooden, double-hung windows; and a gabled, asphalt shingle clad roof is an interesting and unusual example of a Queen Anne Style design.The James Phillip Smith House is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion C, with local significance, as an excellent example of a Queen Anne style structure in the historic heart of Benton, Arkansas.
Elaboration
The community of Benton in Saline County, Arkansas, was created in 1833 on the east bank of the Saline River, two years before Saline County was created. [1] In 1833, Rezin Davis, an early settler, deeded eighty acres to the community of Benton and soon became the first mayor.[2]In 1835, the surrounding area became Saline Township and a local postmaster was appointed.After Arkansas became a state in 1836, local commissioners were elected to set a permanent county seat for the area.These commissioners voted to set the town of Benton as the new Saline County seat.The first courthouse and jail as well as a Jockey Club and horse track were built in 1838.The first brick home in Benton, known as the Shoppach House, was built in c. 1850.The small community of Benton grew slowly through the mid-19th century and by 1880 had a population of only 450 people, but featured local schools and a county newspaper, the Benton Courier, now known as the Saline Courier.Through the early 20th century, after the discovery of bauxite in the county, the community of Benton continued to grow and prosper with a population of almost 3000 by 1920.[3]
The Smith, Hutcheson, and Gilbert Families
James Phillip Smith was born in 1849 in DeKalb County, Georgia.His father, J. M. Smith, was a farmer and moved with his wife, Elizabeth (Bradley) Smith, and family to Saline County, Arkansas, in 1859 where he purchased land in Hurricane Township.[4]James P. Smith left his father’s farm and moved to the community of Benton in 1879.James P. Smith married Mary Rachel “Mollie” Hutcheson, a native of Greene County, Georgia, in February of 1884.[5]Mollie Hutcheson was born in Georgia in 1859, the eldest daughter of Charles R. and Electra Kimbrough Hutcheson.[6]While living in Georgia, Mollie attended Shorter College in Rome, Georgia.She moved to Saline County with her father and extended family in the early 1880s. [7] After moving to Saline County, Mollie taught school for at least two years in the Crabtree neighborhood.[8]
After moving to Benton, James P. Smith worked as a clerk for three years before opening a business with H. S. Glenn.In 1886, James P. Smith opened his own independent dry-goods and grocery business.Mr. Smith soon became a prominent local business leader and was a member of the local Masonic Lodge as well as a member of the local Methodist Episcopal Church, South.After 1886, Smith ran his first independent business, dealing in dry-goods and groceries, along South Market Street, now the site of the Royal Theater.He moved his business some years later to the corner of West Sevier Street and Market Street, near the Benton courthouse square. [9] A surviving bill from J. P. Smith’s store indicates the following products and services: “General Merchandise”, “Groceries and Feed Stuffs”, “Country Produce Bought and Sold”, “Perfumery and Toilet Articles”, and “Stationary and Fancy Goods.”[10]During the 1890s, Mr. Smith served as Benton’s city treasurer.Also, while running his local store, Mr. Smith worked as a travelling salesman for Geyer & Adams Wholesale Grocers of Little Rock, Arkansas, for many years.[11]
Sometime in the early 1880s, James P. Smith purchased lots along West Sevier Street, just west of the commercial core of the community of Benton, so he could build a new home for himself and his soon to be wife.According to local histories, the Smith family used the wood from trees on their newly purchased lots to build their new home at 420 W. Sevier Street in c. 1885.[12]Mollie Smith’s sister, Anna Hutcheson, also lived with the couple from c. 1908 until her death in 1923.Anna Hutcheson was buried in the Smith family plot in Rosemont Cemetery in Benton. Although Mollie and James Smith had no children, they helped to raise and educate their niece Mary Williamson, who was the daughter of Mollie’s sister Julia (Hutcheson) Williamson.The large house along West Sevier Street served as the Smith family home until the death of Mollie Smith, who passed away in 1943.Her husband, James P. Smith, had passed away 1920 after suffering a possible stroke and his obituary was noted on the front page of the local Benton Courier newspaper.[13]After the death of James P. Smith, Mollie continued to live in the home until her death in 1943.During this time, the house became known as the “Auntie Smith House”.During the last year of Mollie’s life, her niece Mary “Ma” Gilbert and her husband, Kenneth E. Gilbert, moved into the home to care for her aging aunt.During the 1930s, the large home was also opened up to lodgers, with at least four lodgers recorded in the home during the 1940s census.Mary Gilbert was well known in Benton due to her work as a local teacher and musician at Benton High School where students affectionately called her “Ma”.In 1937, Mollie Smith deeded the house along Sevier Street to Mary Gilbert and her husband, Kenneth Gilbert.After Mollie Smith passed away in 1943, the Gilberts continued to live in the home until 1953 when they sold it to Roy and Opal Adams. [14] Several other families would own the home until 1985 when Charlie and Alice Smith purchased the home and undertook a large restoration and renovation project, adding the rear garage and the extended second floor as well as replacing the front porch and working to restore interior spaces to a late 19th century appearance.
The Queen Anne Style and the James P. Smith House
The James P. Smith House is an interesting example of a Queen Anne Style house with intricate detailing and an unusually symmetrical front façade.Interestingly, the front façade of this house is symmetrical, recalling the use of Queen-Anne style detailing on more simplified Folk Victorian house forms.However, the highly-detailed wall surfaces of the front façade, including the use of fish-scale shingles in delineating bands, points more toward a true Queen-Anne-Style home.[15]The Queen Anne style was an enormously influential style across the United States, where it was popular from the late 1870s through the 1910s.[16]The style was popularized by a group of late 19th century English architects and designers, including Richard Norman Shaw.Shaw was a popular architect, originally from Scotland, who designed large buildings in various styles during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Shaw is credited with popularizing the Queen Anne style, a misnamed style that combined elements of earlier Jacobean and vernacular English architectural forms to create picturesque architectural designs that focused on the art of individual design and used ornamentation to add layers of complexity.[17]The Queen Anne Style is thought to have been introduced to the United States during the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.According to surviving illustrations, the British Buildings, built as exhibition spaces by the British government for the event in Philadelphia were asymmetrical in massing, included half-timbering across their facades, featured multi-level porches with ornamental balustrades, various roof types, and ornamental chimneys. [18] These buildings echoed the stylistic characteristics of the new Queen Anne style that was in fashion in England and Scotland.
This new style quickly became popular across the United States.New architectural pattern books and magazines, such as the new The American Architect and Building News, included drawings of Queen Anne styles designs from Shaw and other architects.These new, readily available architectural publications helped to quickly spread the style across the United States.[19]New technologies of the era also allowed for the production of ready-made architectural elements such as finished windows, doors, brackets, trim, turned balusters, and other elements; many of which were often cheaper than their hand-made predecessors.[20]These factory made pieces were easily transported along the ever growing rail network in the United States.The James Phillip Smith House in Benton exhibits many features that are characteristic of the style, including the use of ornamental exterior cladding, ornamental features in the eaves and along the porch, turned posts as porch supports and balusters, stained-glass and elaborate window pane arrangements, and asymmetrical house plans.Interestingly, although asymmetrical in plan, the prominent front façade of the house is symmetrical in design, making this an unusual example of the Queen Anne Style.
Statement of Significance
The James Phillip Smith House was designed in c. 1885 as a two story, Queen-Anne-Style single family residence.The Smith House, with its symmetrical façade; two-story, wood-frame structure; ornamental siding elements; wooden, double-hung windows; and a gabled, asphalt shingle clad roof is an interesting and unusual example of a Queen Anne Style design.The James Phillip Smith House is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion C, with local significance, as an excellent example of a Queen Anne style structure in the historic heart of Benton, Arkansas.
Bibliography
Ancestry.com. Arkansas, County Marriages Index, 1837-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas.Chicago, Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889. p. 304.
“J. P. Smith Dead.” Benton Courier.1 April 1920. p. 1.
Laster, Patricia Paulus."Benton (Saline County)." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.21 August 2018.http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net.Accessed 28 August 2018.
Leslie, Frank.Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition1876.New York, 1877.
McAlester, Virginia & Lee.A Field Guide to American Houses.(Alfred A. Knopf:New York, NY), 1984.
McCabe, James D.The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition.Philadelphia, 1876.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Benton, Arkansas:1915, 1921, 1930, 1950.
“Mollie Smith.” Obituary.Benton Courier.9 September 1943.
Smith, Alice.“510 West Sevier, Benton, AR.”Typed Manuscript.James P. Smith House File, Files of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.Little Rock, Arkansas.
Smith Family Vertical file of the Saline County History and Heritage Society.Benton, Arkansas.
Smith, Judy.“Family Makes New Home in Old House.”Benton Courier.1986 (unknown date).Files of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.Little Rock, Arkansas.
United States Census Rolls:1870-1940.
[1] The community of Benton was named after U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.Patricia Paulus Laster, "Benton (Saline County)," The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 21 August 2018, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net, Accessed 28 August 2018.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas, Chicago, Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889, p. 304.
[5] Ibid.The date of February 1884 for the marriage is recorded in the previously cited Goodspeed publication.However, a marriage certificate in Saline County was recorded on January 24, 1883 for Jas P Smith and Mollie R Hutcheson.Ancestry.com, Arkansas, County Marriages Index, 1837-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.Ms. Smith’s obituary from the Benton Courier on 9 September 1943 states 1882 as her marriage date.
[6] “Mollie Smith,” Obituary, Benton Courier, 9 September 1943.
[7] Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas, Chicago, Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889, p. 304.“Mollie Smith,” Obituary, Benton Courier, 9 September 1943.
[8] Mollie Hutcheson had taught school while living in Georgia and taught in the area after moving to Saline County.Smith Family Vertical files of the Saline County History and Heritage Society.
[9] After James P. Smith’s death this business location was later used by Ernest Parker’s Drug Store.In 2018 the site was the location of the local Republican Party office.
[10] Original obtained by current owner, copy in the files of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
[11] “J. P. Smith Dead,” Benton Courier, 1 April 1920, p. 1.U. S. Census Rolls, 1910, 1920.
[12] The numbering along many streets in Benton, Arkansas, were changed and formalized sometime around 1940.Prior to c. 1940, the Smith House address was 420 W. Sevier Street.Information regarding the use of trees from the site is noted in:“Mollie Smith,” Obituary, Benton Courier, 9 September 1943.
[13] “J. P. Smith Dead,” Benton Courier, 1 April 1920, p. 1.
[14]Judy Smith, “Family Makes New Home in Old House,” Benton Courier, 1986.A copy of this article can be found in the files of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, James P. Phillip House, Benton County.
[15] Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, (Alfred A. Knopf:New York, NY), 1984. pp 309-310, 263.
[16] Ibid.pp 262-287.
[17] Ibid.
[18] James D. McCabe, The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876.Frank Leslie, Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition1876, New York, 1877.
[19] Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, (Alfred A. Knopf:New York, NY), 1984. p 268.
[20] Ibid.