by Shannon Butler

Historians have a habit of randomly researching something that sparks our interest. You discover something you didn’t know and soon find yourself going down a rabbit hole, searching for clues that give us answers which only lead to more questions, and finding lots of dead-ends. This leads us to this week’s Local History Blog post and a maddening series of discoveries and mysteries (ah! the joys of being a historian). Walking down Main Street in Poughkeepsie today, one would never know that a massive factory once stood on the northeast corner of Main and Cherry Street. Well over a century ago, the building you see on the right (image from the collection of the Library of Congress) was the workplace of over 400 men, and almost everyone in the city would own a pair of shoes or boots made by J.O. Whitehouse and Company.

John Osborne Whitehouse was born in Rochester New Hampshire in 1817 and worked on a modest farm until he was 18 years old. He then made his way into Brooklyn to begin his business career and he appears to have succeeded rather quickly. By the early 1860s he began the firm of J.O. Whitehouse and Company which manufactured boots and shoes, and it wasn’t long before he followed in the footsteps of several other entrepreneurs and brought his company to Poughkeepsie. In 1870, he hired local architect and builder J.I. Vail, to construct a massive factory that ran from Main street, north on Cherry and sat up against the Fall-Kill creek. At the height of its operations, the factory employed over 400 men. He also invested in trains and banks and was the largest stockholder in the Ninth National Bank of New York.

1872 was a very busy year for Whitehouse, as not only did he have a factory to oversee but he also established his own newspaper, The Poughkeepsie Daily News. Also during that year he was nominated to run for Congress for the 13th district. He managed to beat out the very popular General John Henry Ketcham and was elected again in 1874. He and his wife had built a home just off of Hooker Avenue which they called Mountain View (seen on map at right) and in 1868 they purchased Matthew Vassar’s Springside which they added to their property.

There appears to be several tragedies in his life even as he appeared to succeed in business and politics. Though there were no reports in the newspapers, John’s daughter Fannie died in the February of 1865. The only written mention of the death is in the book “Old Poughkeepsie New York – 1865” which mentions that she burned to death when her dress caught on fire from a spark in the family home. She was only about 13 years old. Within a few years, two of John’s sons, Spencer and William, would die from consumption (that’s another term for Tuberculosis). In 1879, his factory was struck by lightning which started a massive fire and killed one of his employees. It was rebuilt soon after but is said to have cost him over $250,000 in losses. Finally, in 1880, his last son, James, who had worked with him at the factory, passed away, also from consumption.

This last loss appears to have been too much for Mr. Whitehouse. His health quickly deteriorated and he passed away in August of 1881, at 64 years old. The New York Times claims that he was worth about three million dollars when he passed, all of which he left to his wife Fannie, and his last child Mary Josephine (who married Eugene Howell). The house appears to have remained in the hands of Fannie until her death in 1893, and later her daughter, but by the early 1900s it disappeared to make way for new development (as seen in the concept drawing to the right, the red circle is roughly where the old house once stood). There is no mention as to what became of the house or when or why it was torn down. Nor is there any further mention of the Whitehouse/Howell family in Poughkeepsie after 1910. As for the factory, we mentioned earlier that it was rebuilt but in two different pieces, and not as large. The main portion on Cherry Street later became the home of a cigar factory. These two distinct buildings are still standing today.

Based on what we have found (and what we were not able to find), this story leaves us historians to wonder what else (if anything) is still out there? Is there more to this story? Well, there must be more, but whether or not there is any documentation left to find remains a mystery. This is one of the many pains of working with history. Sometimes what we wish we could find does not exist anymore. Perhaps fellow history nerds will dig into this for fun on a rainy day. Perhaps someone else will find the missing parts. Do let us know if you do.

Resources:
Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Dutchess and Putnam, New York: Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens, and of Many of the Early Settled Families, Volume 1 – J.H. Beers, 1897
Old Poughkeepsie New York – 1865 – Duane Biever, 1997
New York Times – 20 Aug 1881, John O. Whitehouse’s Will
New York Times – 23 Jul 1879, Losing in Fire
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3938/john-osborne-whitehouse
New York Tribune – 21 Aug 1874
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle -25 Aug 1881, Obituary
The Poughkeepsie Eagle – 22 Mar 1874

Images:
01 – Lithograph of J.O. Whitehouse Factory, Poughkeepsie – Library of Congress
02 – Beers Map showing Whitehouse factor, Poughkeepsie – LH Collection
03 – Beers Map showing Mountain View, Poughkeepsie – LH Collection
04 – New York Times article, 23 July 1879
05 – Sandborn Maps showing Whitehouse factory 1877, Poughkeepsie – LH Collection
06 – Image of John O. Whitehouse – From J.H. Beers book
07 – Image of layout for Whitehouse Knolls, 1911 – LH Collection