Harold R. & Rosalie C. Baum Home

Built in the 1790’s , this house was home to the early millers of Monroe City.   It contains outstanding examples of rock fireplace work.  The home was also occupied in the 1830’s by William H. Bissell who would go on to become the 11th Governor of Illinois.  

Closeup of keystone

Gustav Hirsch purchased the farm in 1891.  His daughter Caroline married Berthold Baum in 1905 and they lived into this house.  In 1931, their son Harold G. Baum, his wife Edith, daughter Diane, and son Harold R. moved into the house.   There was no electricity in this rural area.  Harold G. built a small dam on the creek and ran a wooden trough to the yard in front of the house.  He constructed an overshot wheel which turned a generator to provide the house with electricity.  Son Duane was born in this house.

From 1933 through 1937, Harold G. operated a woodworking shop in a shed on this farm.  His signature item was the HUCKABAY & BAUM brand baseball bats.

The main fireplace features a seven foot hearth opening.  An oven on the rear wall opens to the outside of the fireplace chimney.  By the 1940’s Grandma Huckabay no longer used the fireplace and enclosed as a small closet.  When Harold and Rosalie moved into house they put their washing machine inside it.  In the 1960’s they remodeled the room.  They tore out the closet and expanded the fireplace to the width of the room.  The original fireplace had a log lintel across the opening of the hearth which had burned almost completely through.  Harold replaced it with the arched rock you see today.  He used a keystone he found at the old mill.  The large rock in the center of the hearth was formerly the front doorstep of the house.  The massive chimney is topped by a concrete pad poured by Harold R.   

The upstairs fireplace extends floor to ceiling.  It sits above another first floor fireplace.  The first floor fireplace has a hearth opening but the surrounding rockwork is hidden behind the finished walls.  

In 1862, Confederate deserters from Quantrill’s Raiders holed up in Monroe City.     Four of them were caught horse stealing.  They were held prisoner in the upper story of this house and undoubtedly sat on this hearth pondering their fate.  Three were hanged from a tree across the creek.  The fourth, a young boy, was horse whipped and sent back to Missouri to tell them what the men of Monroe City do to horse thieves.