Mount Vernon Victorian Local Home Tour

Home seller Chris Johnson shares, “We are always on the hunt for unique homes, and when the Mt. Vernon Walnut house hit our eye, we had to jump on sharing the photos and a little history.”

What I know about the home is not in written information except what is in the abstract. I left that at the house with the new owners. It tells about when it was built and who has owned the home up to two families before my husband and me. The last family listed is the Funkhousers. They sold the home to Mr. and Mrs. Hale. They owned it for 4 years. My husband and I bought the home in 1996. We lived there for almost 25 years.

The original owners built in 1900. The Rosenbaums owned the general store in town. There is a book on the history of Posey County. There is a picture of the Rosenbaums in the store. You may [also] find the book in the Alexandrian Library in Mt Vernon. There was also a Rosenbaums Newelry store. There is a building on Main Street in town that still has their name painted on it.

I know the home was painted gray. The original gray is still under the siding. There is also a block with a ring in it where horses would be tied up still in the front yard by the street.”

New owners Richard W. Morris, Katherine Conner, and their son Quinten Conner add, “I think we were drawn to the location. I grew up in Posey County ,and she grew up in a small

AFTER

town, so Mount Vernon made a lot of sense to look at. I work in Evansville, so if we ever return to the office rather than work from home, the commute is still manageable.

However, there was a perfect 4th ‘small bedroom’ that I can make a home office, so it works out!

Our son just turned 12 and going into 6th at Mount Vernon Junior High School. Looking at having to change schools from elementary to junior high, it was also the right time to make a move from Evansville’s west side to wherever we ended up. New school, new town, new home, etc. We are also getting married on Oct 2, so 2021 is full of new things for us!

Beats how 2020 went for everyone, right?

We were of course drew to the house, too. We love the age of the home (c.1900) and history. We are the 10th owners of the home, which is pretty amazing considering its age. I am a history nut, so I had to do the research, even before the Jonhsons told me they had paperwork (abstract) of the home. A little history of Mt V shows that these plots of land were originally given to William Henry Harrison by President James Madison. We are in the “Williams Section” of MTV, as Aaron Williams was one of the original guys to split up much of the land. We’re Williams Plot 188. Here’s my quick story on the history, I am sure you’ll be sorry you asked..

Mount Vernon, Indiana has a long history. In the early 1800s, the then Governor of the Indiana Territory (and eventual eighth President

of the United States), William Henry Harrison, was granted 371 acres of land by President James Madison to further bring settlers to the area.

Before moving to Ohio, Harrison sold off much of his land. 185 acres were sold to a man Aaron Williams in 1816 for $500. The area of town still bears his name today, 205 years later.

In 1819, a group of stock investors that included Jesse Y. Welborn purchased the plots divided by Williams to continue the expansion of the small community.

In February 1835, the Welborn family split off plots of land they owned in the Williams Part of Mt. Vernon. Most of the plots were passed down to other members of the Welborn family.

Williams Plot 188 was purchased by Peter Shelhorn in July of 1849.

Eventually the undeveloped plot sold to the Rosenbaum family in December, 1887 after the Shelhorns failed to pay taxes on the land. The cost to the Rosenbaums? $1135.

Circa 1900, David Rosenbaum, a local pharmacist at his family store built a Queen Anne Victorian home on that very Walnut Street plot.

The Rosenbaums moved to Cincinnati in the summer of 1917, selling the family home for $4500 to an Ohio River Steamboat captain, Douglas Jones and his wife Margaret. Captain Douglas passed away in 1925 and Margaret lived on Walnut until her death in 1944. Since, seven other families have raised their families in the home. Our home.

There you have it I guess.

Our favorite part about the house since we’ve settled in? Small town feel is great and we’re close to most anything we need. Quinten can walk to school. Everything you need is a few minutes drive at most. But the space we have in this house also allowed us to have a dedicated room for our pool table … Having what we call the ‘pool room’ is awesome. It’s a great thing to have for the family, and it beats having it in the garage like we did in our townhouse in Evansville. Sounds funny, but it’s our favorite room in the house now.”

FC Tucker Emge Agent Peggy Forbes, represented the seller and FC Tucker Emge Agent Will Ritter represented the buyer on the sale of this home this past spring.