Furnald Estate

James Perkins Furnald was a leading citizen of early St. Charles. He was the owner of the St. Charles Clothing Store and Custom Tailoring Establishment, a member of the  Board of Education, Director of School District Number 8, and a Congregational Church leader. Prior to the Civil War, Furnald was a member of the St. Charles Light Guard. The James P. Furnald House, built in the Gothic Revival style in about 1869, was considered one of the finest residences of its time in St. Charles.

Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1813, Furnald was apprenticed to a tailor in New York City at age ten, and completed his apprenticeship at age seventeen. He lived in Kentucky, where his first wife died, and North Carolina, returning to New York before moving to St. Charles with his second wife, Sarah Chadwick, and three children in June, 1845. Sarah died in 1851 and he married her sister, Hannah, later that year. Hannah died in 1863.

After James Furnald's clothing store in the east side Minard & Osgood Building was destroyed by fire in 1861, he reestablished his business on West Main Street. Furnald was a skilled tailor who was particularly well-known for the high quality of the custom-tailored Civil War uniforms he fashioned. James Furnald died on March 31, 1882 at the age of sixty-nine.

Sources

■ Biographical Record of Kane County (View online )

■ Passing in Review (View online )