Published December 7, 2024
By Reg Ankrom
During the holiday season tours at the 189-year-old John Wood Mansion in December, visitors will see more than a national landmark that was designated one of the most important architectural treasures in Illinois. They will visit the home John Wood built as he ascended from poverty to wealth.
It was not chance that inspired John Wood to choose the Greek Revival style, the first of its kind in Illinois, for the design of his nearly 6,000-square-feet, 14-room mansion at Wood Street and Burton Road, today’s 12th and State streets. American architects of the early 19th century looked to Greece for inspiration and found a stylistic form Americans freely accepted.
When Wood started construction, the number of buildings outnumbered the 700 residents of Quincy. There were 752 buildings. It was the community’s commercial engine that drove much of the construction. Along with Wood’s first home, his 18 x 20-foot log cabin near on the southeast corner of Front and today’s Delaware Street, there was Helm’s flour mill, Ira Pierce’s tannery, Jeptha Lambkin’s pottery manufactory, Nathaniel Pease’s pork rendering house, Jole Rice’s river warehouse, and the Steamboat Hotel. At the north end of the riverfront was the log cabin in which Wood’s friend and fellow Quincy founder Willard Keyes lived. And some 40 businesses already operated around John’s Square, today’s Washington Park.
Wood, his wife Ann and five children—all under 10 years of age—were living in his second home, a two-story log cabin on the north side of Wood Street and Burton Road when he started construction of the mansion. Wood contracted John Cleaveland, who had arrived in September 1834 from Massachusetts to build it.
Wood sought out German emigrants to provide the expert craftsmanship apparent in the home. He went to Saint Louis and New Orleans to interest German workmen to come to Quincy to build his home. The incentive he offered was land on the south side of his property and the use of Wood’s pasture for cows the German émigrés would keep in their yards, the genesis of the term “Calftown” in South Quincy.
Wood closely supervised his home’s construction, which unlike its current east-west axis was built facing south between today’s 11th and 12th Streets on Burton Road. Wood selected the trees from which the timbers were made. He converted a threshing machine into a lathe, operated by animal power, to turn the four large Green Revival Doric-style columns in the front of the house. A notable elliptical window was set in the pediment that rests on the four columns.
Much of the interior woodwork was butternut, which Wood chose from nearby groves, whose Greek flutings were hand carved and painted. Plaster medallions were cast for the Woods’ bedroom on the second floor and parlor and front hallways. Wide pine boards form the floors throughout the home.
The family moved into the mansion, which Wood called “the homestead,” in 1837, a year before construction would be finished. It would be the Woods’ family home for the 20 years.
Wood referred to it as his farmhouse and the 1850 census listed Wood as a farmer. His pride was his huge apple orchard east of his mansion. The orchard extended north to Maine and a mile east, the approximate distance to today’s 24th Street. The farm included the “John Wood Pasture,” which extended from State Street south to Harrison Street. Wood was particularly fond of trees and that led to the planting of a row of Osage Orange trees to surround the orchard, a natural fence so thick it kept animals out of the orchard.
In 1855 Wood was elected lieutenant governor on the first Republican ticket with William Bissell as governor. Said to be interested in a house larger than the governor’s mansion in Springfield, Wood in 1857 began construction of a stone octagonal edifice in the middle of his lot between 11th and 12th Streets.
The new home required the move of Wood’s “homestead.” Wood planned and supervised its move across 12th Street to the west side of the orchard. Interviewed by the Quincy Herald-Whig in April 1948, William Kerkseick, who served as the Wood’s coachman from the age of 13 to adulthood, recalled how the house was moved saying that Wood did not want the row of hedge trees damaged by the move and had a ramp built of heavy timbers over the hedge, which rose 10- to 12-feet over the property. The mansion’s four chimneys were removed and the house cut into two sections. The front section was moved first, then the back section. It took 20 teams of horses to pull each section over the hedge row. Seated perfectly on the limestone rock foundation that had been built to accommodate the structure, the home was remodeled by Wood for his oldest son Daniel.
A national financial panic in 1875 and failed investments left Wood unable to take care of the debt he incurred to build his $200,000 octagonal mansion. Creditors forced Wood to liquidate assets, including the stone mansion, which he sold for $40,000 to Chaddock College. Wood moved back into the Greek Revival mansion with son Daniel and family, where he spent the remainder of his days. He died June 4, 1880. The Wood family vacated their home that fall.
There have been several owners of the home since. In late 1906 the City Council approved the request of businessmen at 12th and State to build an alley that would have required the demolition of the home. Louise Maertz, an active member of the 11-year-old Quincy Historical Society, challenged the Board to initiate a city-wide campaign to save the mansion and enlisted the 77-year-old Daniel Wood to help. Within a month, contributions raised enough money to buy the property.
From the mansion’s dedication on November 21, 1907, the community’s generosity, the leadership of the Historical Society, and the countless volunteers have made possible the continued preservation and maintenance of the Governor John Wood Mansion. Once used as a museum, it has been restored with furnishings appropriate to the period. It is the most important artifact in the collection of today’s Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County.
Reg Ankrom is a former director of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. He is a local historian, author of a prize-winning two-volume biography of U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, and a frequent speaker on Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and antebellum America.
Sources:
Cicero F. “Opening of the John Wood Homestead.” Address to Quincy Historical Society, Quincy, IL, November 21, 1907, File MSQ, “Quincy―Historic Houses –John Wood Mansion,” HSQAC.
“History of Gov. John Wood Mansion: Research Information, Photographs, Details of Maps.” File MS 920 WOO, “Research,” Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, Quincy, IL (hereinafter HSQAC).
“The John Wood Mansion.” File MS WOO, “Research,” HSQAC.
“Map: Quincy 1835.” Framed and displayed on the Society office south wall, HSQAC.
Perry, “Report of Committee on House and Grounds [to Quincy Historical Society].” November 21, 1907, MSQ Files 1, “Quincy – Historic Houses – John Wood Mansion,” HSQAC.
“Research on the John Wood Mansion, 425 South Twelfth Street, Owned by the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, By the Research and Restoration Committees.” File MS WOO, “Research,” HSQAC.
Scholz, Nancy. “Genealogy Report on John Wood and Family.” File MS WOO, “Research,” HSQAC.
“William F. Kerksieck, 90, Recalls His Boyhood Days in the Governor John Wood Home.” Quincy Herald Whig, April 20, 1948, 13.
