In the years since 2011, with the community's support, we have completed most of the original goals set for the 1843 Cobblestone House. Our second 5-year plan included replacing the carriage house and becoming more of a resource for the community. The Cobblestone is available for meetings for local non-profits and we have monthly open house hours on the first Saturday of each month (except July) from 10 am to Noon. Community events and regularly changing exhibits will help educate, inform, and ensure that our local past will be accessible to future generations. Special thanks to the Turtle Grange group for their support.ย
The Richardson-Brinkman house at 607 West Milwaukee Road, Clinton, was built in 1843 by Alonzo Richardson. It is of Greek Revival design. Its walls are 16 to 18 inches thick.ย It was placed on the National Register in 1977ย
The cobblestone house consists of a 1ยฝ story gable-roofed block (18' x 24') facing the north-northwest and a one story gable-roofed wing extending 22' to its right or west-southwest. The two second-story windows on the main block do not line vertically with those below.ย
The house, with Greek Revival features such as a returned cornice, straight wooden lintels, and tooled limestone quoins, was built in 1843 by Alonso Richardson. A stylistically typical recessed entry porch adjacent to the main block and within the right wing is now enclosed.ย A lower one-story frame wing now extends behind the one-story cobblestone wing; otherwise there are few external changes to the house.ย A rubble stone core is faced with cobblestones of assorted, well-blended tones of tan, gray, green and black. They contrast with the buff limestone quoins and with the orange painted wood trim of gables and window frames. The stones, bank-run or possibly river stones, are somewhat larger and more irregular, and so show an earlier style of assemblage, than in other mid-19th century examples (like the Rasey and Lathrop-Munn houses in Beloit). They are placed between horizontal bands of mortar and framed with vertical joints. The mortar has remained very sound, with some later tuck-pointing. A limestone water table protrudes slightly over the foundation.ย
The Larsons, who owned the house from 1916 until 1971, moved those interior partitions which were movable and installed water, plumbing and electricity, doing most of the work themselves. They replaced the original living room ceiling beams, which were sagging, and removed seven layers of wallpaper before replastering. The cream-colored mid-19th century interior window moldings of the parlor are intact however, as are the bark-covered oak ceiling joists in the basement. The low-ceilinged opening between the parlor and the dining room wing has 2' thick walls.
The Richardson-Brinkman cobblestone house is significant as one of the finest early examples in southern Wisconsin of this once fairly well represented vernacular style of building. It "very closely resembles the New York prototypes," according to Richard Perrin. It was built in 1843 on an 80-acre farm by Alonso Richardson who supposedly built other houses in Clinton and eventually moved west, probably to the Dakotas. The present 90 x 190-foot lot with a house is all that remains of the original farm. After the coming of the railroads in the 1850s, the village of Clinton eventually surrounded the farmhouse. The house has become the best-known architectural landmark in Clinton.