Four Square

The farmhouse is old. Really old. The papers filed with county tax assessors indicate the house was built in 1890, but the abstract for the property stretches all the way back to 1866, when the United States government deeded the property to George Sallmennsberger. President Andrew Johnson signed the deed. There’s no indication as to what the land cost at that time. The property changed hands a few times in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s. In 1890, when the house was supposedly built, Albert Dittbarner owned the place.

When we first found this property for sale on the internet, we drove around the area for awhile then stopped at the local gas station to ask for help. “That’s the old Phillips place,” one old-timer said. “Two miles down, about the fifth place after the S curve.”
It was 1907 when the first Phillips purchased the farm and the property stayed in the Phillips family for eighty years. Our neighbor just to the north is a Phillips and all the cropland to the east is held in a Phillips trust.

The house isn’t at all architecturally significant. Its design is called Four Square or Prairie Box. Its design is simple – four rooms on each floor, all about the same size. That’s the way it was described in catalogs of the time. Houses like this dot the countryside and can even be found in the city. Most have front porches and many have dormer windows that protrude from the third level. Ours has neither of these features.

At some point, perhaps this winter, I hope to visit the local historical society to learn more about the area around here. Maybe I’ll even stumble on a picture of our house, or George Sallmennsberger, Albert Dittbarner or Nicholas Phillips. That would really bring the history of the old house to life.