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John and Elizabeth Downing Wilkinson House

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1884. 408 Main St.

This picturesque wooden house exemplifies the excellent wood craftsmanship found in even the smaller sawmill towns of Michigan. It was called by the Evart Review for March 28, 1884, “a fine new house of Maltese cross Gothic architecture,” but it is really Queen Anne in style. The gable-front-and-wing plan of the house embraces a mansard-roofed tower. The house was finished with “the best pine siding without knots.” Horseshoe decorative trusses in the shingle-clad gables are reminiscent of the Stick Style. Carved panels, friezes, and running boards on the porches, bays, window enframements, and gables embellish the exterior of the house in a manner common to the Eastlake decorative mode. The Evart Planing Mill crafted the railing and newel post of the central hall staircase. A steeply gabled board-and-batten carriage house stands at the rear of the lot. The house was built for Dr. John H. Wilkinson (1845–1918) and his wife, Elizabeth. From Oxford County, Ontario, with a degree from the University of Medicine and Surgery of Philadelphia, Wilkinson came to Evart in 1873. He practiced medicine in Evart for forty-five years.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "John and Elizabeth Downing Wilkinson House", [Evart, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-OL2.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 375-375.

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