Lafayette Square Parlor Tour 2024

8 | Lafayette Square Parlor Tour | 2024 The Second Empire home was built on land owned by Charles Gibson in the early 1870’s. Property records indicate that James A. Jackson purchased the home in 1873 from Charles Gibson. Jackson was a wholesale grocer and entrepreneur who had an interesting career up and down the Missouri River, playing a part in the founding of Omaha, NE, Council Bluffs, IA, and Sioux City, IA, before settling in St. Louis after the CivilWar. His liquor distribution company was called Jackson, Proust, and Co. He went into the grocery business here in St Louis and was successful for a time, before his company went bankrupt apparently due to the unscrupulous spending habits of his partners. He promptly sold the house and moved to Sioux City Iowa where he became one of the city’s early leading citizens. He died in 1876. Seymour Thompson and family purchased the house from Jackson’s widow in 1877 for $13,000.Thompson was a civil war veteran and self taught lawyer. Originally from Illinois, he grew up mostly in Iowa before joining the Union Army at the age of 18 shortly after the war broke out. He would serve with the 3rd Iowa Infantry Regiment in northern Missouri and eventually under Grant at the Battles of Shiloh and Corinth. He was promoted to Captain of the 3rd U.S.C. Heavy Artillery and was stationed in Memphis. It was there he met his wife at the end of the war and passed the bar. He moved to St. Louis in 1872 where he edited a law review and was the “Master in Chancery”. In 1880 he was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals. He would own the house with his wife and family until 1895, when he would move to New Jersey to join a partner in their own law practice. The house was then sold multiple times over the years. Elijah Galt purchased the house from the Thompson’s in 1895 for $7000. Galt was a clerk and office worker for several different companies throughout his career. He and his wife had a daughter and four sons. He would own the home for 27 years until 1922. In 1922 Samuel and Anna Richards purchased the home.They owned the home until 1936, when it came into the possession of the Home Owners Loan Corporation. Inez Newhouse purchased the home in 1937 for the HOLC. She would own the home for 43 years, operating it as a boarding house. Census records indicated that 24 people were living in the house in 1940. It was around this time that a fire escape was added. Maybelle Huskey came into possession of the home in 1980, and it continued to be a 1 2110 Lafayette Kevin & Maria Stunkel