Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/03/03
SUMMARY
The Marshall Strother Gaines House located at 116 North Main Street inGreenwood, Arkansas, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion C with local significance as the best example of a two story Dutch Colonial Revival style house with Craftsman and Egyptian Revival influences in Greenwood.The Gaines House has served as a residence to one of the town's oldest families and has remained a longstanding fixture inGreenwood. The home also survived an April 1968 tornado that killed 13 people and devastated the town’s stock of historic buildings, including the house next door. Unfortunately the building has been sheathed in vinyl siding preventing the building from being listed on the National Register.
ELABORATION
In 1877 Joseph Hodgens built a one story house on Main Street in Greenwood. He gave the house to his daughter, Rebecca Ann Hodgens and her husband Marshall Strother Gaines as a wedding gift.
Marshall Strother Gaines was born on July 13, 1857, in Monroe County, Tennessee. He died on April 9, 1908, in Greenwood, and was buried in GreenwoodCemetery. Rebecca Ann Hodgens was born in 1861 in Mississippi. She died March 20, 1887, in Greenwoodand is also buried in GreenwoodCemetery.
Marshall S. Gaines married Rebecca A. Hodgens, and they began their life inGreenwood. Marshall S. Gaines was a prosperous young merchant. He had been educated in the schools of Fayetteville and by the age of sixteen he was clerking in a store there. He continued this for four years before coming to Greenwood and merchandising on his own. In 1883, he formed a partnership with Thomas E. Little. Their firm was known as Little Gaines.In December 1887, they dissolved partnership by mutual consent, and the firm, Little Gaines, became known as M. S. Gaines & Company. The stock from this company was valued at $15,000.00 and was the largest stock of general merchandise in Greenwood. It brought Marshall Gaines a handsome annual income. He was considered a man with sterling worth and of exceptional good business qualifications, and commanded the confidence and esteem of the citizens of the county.Marshall and Rebecca Gaines had a family of four children.The first born, Joseph Benjamin Gaines, was born March 8, 1878, followed by another son, Edmund Pendleton Gaines, on September 18, 1880.
Rebecca then bore two daughters. Bessie Gaines was born November 6, 1882, and was followed by Hellen Gaines, who was born on October 10, 1885.
Marshall Gaines was involved with several community activities. He was a Democrat and a member of the school board of Greenwood for six years. He was also a Master Mason.Marshall and Rebecca Gaines were both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
In March of 1887, Marshall lost Rebecca (to an unknown cause). But in September of 1888, Marshall Gaines decided to get remarried. He married Sallie Whitworth, who was a native of Texas. Marshall Gaines and Sallie Gaines had a family of six children. The first two children, Jenning and Fern Gaines, both died in childhood. They were followed by Whitworth Duke Gaines (January 14, 1891), Marshall Strother Gaines (February 13, 1893), Mildred Gaines (January 1, 1896), and Margaret Sarah Gaines (1908).
Marshall Gaines and Sallie Gaines were also members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. By 1907 the large family had outgrown the original one-story L-shaped home that had been given to Marshall and Rebecca as a wedding gift. Rather than move to a different home, probably due to this home’s close proximity to Marshall’s store, it was decided that a second floor would be built atop their current home. In 1907 Marshall Gaines sold 100 ft at the end of his lot to the firm of Dawson’s & Stewart. The money from this sale was used for remodeling the house.The Long "L" on the back of the house was brought around so it would be even with the front. The second floor of the house was added at this time, as well as a new front porch. The original plans called for a circular stairway in the front, but due to lack of funds, the rear stairway was built and a porch was added onto the side as another entrance to the house.
Sadly, Marshall Gaines died in 1908. His widow, Sallie P. (Whitworth) Gaines, operated the house as a boarding house until 1910. It was then sold to Chas. E. Osborn.Mr. Osborn and his daughter, Jewell, then occupied the upstairs southwest corner room.
Osborn rented out the rest of the house, and for many years, it was operated by S.E. Williams’ family and called, The Williams Hotel.Mrs. Williams served family style dinners in the downstairs dinning room of the house/Hotel. Several area coal miners stayed in the Williams’ part of the house.
Some of the miners that stayed there were Mayden Stanfield, Herbert Hill, Will Flanner, Chubby Cheek, Fred Gentry, Allen Joyce, Marshal Clever, and Ab Tomlin.
Mr. Osborn died in 1946 and his daughter inherited the house. She and her husband Henry P. Bell occupied the first floor and rented out rooms on the second floor.Jewell Osborn Bell died in 1976, and the house was passed down to her granddaughter, Cinda Bell. On December 16, 2002, the house was sold to Sean K. and Love Samara Whiteacre who presently live on the premises.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Marshall Strother Gaines House located at 116 North Main Street in Greenwood,Arkansas, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion C with local significance as the best example of a two story Dutch Colonial Revival style house with Craftsman and Egyptian Revival influences in Greenwood. Although a portion of the home dates from 1877, the building was dramatically altered in 1907 giving it its current appearance. The house is therefore being nominated as a 1907 building.Unfortunately the building has been sheathed in vinyl siding preventing the building from being listed on the National Register. Nonetheless, the home is still very significant to the architectural history of Greenwood.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Atlas, Sebastian County Arkansas Atlas, 1887, Altas now resides in theGreenwoodArkansas courthouse, with the court clerk.
2.Bell, Cinda, Information provided by Cinda Bell, former owner of the property.
3.Census, Census of SebastianCounty, AR, 1880.
4.Gaines, Helen, Correspondences from Helen Gaines(age 93) to Cinda Bell, 1978.
5.1903, SebastianCounty , Greenwood, AR.
6.Broderbund Software, Inc., World Family Tree Vol. 5, Ed. 1, Release date:
August 22, 1996, Tree #1809.
7.Brøderbund Software, Inc., World Family Tree Vol. 13, Ed. 1, Release date:
August 14, 1997, Tree #1183, Source Media Type: Family Archive CD. "Date of
Import: Dec 13, 1998."
8.Christine Vandekieft Gibson, GEDCOM File : ~ATA3B.ged. 694 Kaikoo Place
Wailuku, HI96793.
9.Broderbund Software, Inc., World Family Tree Vol. 5, Ed. 1, Tree #1809.
10.United States Census, 1900 Arkansas, SebastianCounty, Roll 76 Book 2, Page
37a , United States National Archives.
11.Rootsweb's WorldConnect Project, Source Media Type: Book.
12.Broderbund Software, Inc., World Family Tree Vol. 5, Ed. 1, Tree #1809.
13.Rootsweb's WorldConnect Project,NS1790113, Source Media Type: Electronic.
14.United States Census, 1910 Arkansas, Sebastian, Roll 65 Book 2, Page 73a .
15.Social Security Death Index, pp. 445-18-7450, Ancestry.com.
16.United States Census, 1920 Arkansas, Stephens Co., Pct. 6, ED# 253, p. 20A.