Is This Really the Oldest House in Rockford?
There is an old stone house at 2127 Broadway that looks as if Rockford grew around it and forgot to explain itself.
Known as the Herrick-Logli Cobblestone House, it was built in 1847 by Elijah L. Herrick. It has frequently been described as the oldest surviving house in Rockford. That claim has been repeated so often that it has nearly hardened into fact—much like the house itself—but the City of Rockford now uses the more cautious description “one of the oldest surviving buildings in Rockford.”
That leaves us with a small but irresistible local mystery.
Is it actually the oldest house in Rockford?
Before trying to settle that question, the house deserves attention on its own merits. It is one of only a few surviving cobblestone houses in Illinois and an unusually intact example of a building tradition brought west from New York State. Cobblestone construction became particularly associated with communities near the Erie Canal, where thousands of rounded stones excavated during construction were readily available and skilled masons developed elaborate ways of arranging them.
Elijah Herrick came to Rockford from Massachusetts during the mid-1830s. It has been suggested that he passed through New York and learned about cobblestone construction there. Very little else is known about him, and it is not certain that he personally worked as a mason. The house he left behind, however, strongly suggests that somebody involved knew exactly what he was doing.
The exterior was constructed with carefully selected cobbles reportedly taken from the nearby Rock River. Behind that decorative surface is a heavier supporting wall of larger stones. Together, the walls are approximately fifteen inches thick.
The corners are reinforced and decorated with large blocks of Platteville limestone called quoins. The foundation is made from Galena dolomite. The house also retains the balanced proportions, low roof and orderly arrangement associated with Greek Revival architecture. A Victorian porch was added later, giving the front of the building a visible layer from another period.
In other words, this was never just a pile of river rocks arranged into the general shape of a house. It was a carefully designed structure made from several varieties of regional stone, combining practical frontier construction with a recognizable architectural style.
The Herrick house became Rockford’s generally accepted “oldest house” after another early residence disappeared. The Daniel Shaw Haight House, built in 1842, was demolished in 1967. Haight had established the settlement on the east side of the Rock River that eventually joined the west-side settlement associated with Germanicus Kent and Thatcher Blake. Losing his house apparently elevated the Herrick house into first place among the survivors.
But “oldest surviving house” is a surprisingly difficult title to award.
Dates attached to nineteenth-century buildings are not always exact. A property may have begun as a small cabin and later been rebuilt around. Tax records may identify when land changed hands rather than when a structure was completed. Oral histories can conflict with deeds, maps and architectural evidence. Buildings also move, expand and disguise their original forms under later additions.
That may explain why some historical accounts call the Herrick house Rockford’s oldest while official preservation material now stops at “one of the oldest.”
The uncertainty does not diminish the building. If anything, it makes the house more interesting. A definitive claim ends the discussion. A disputed claim gives Rockford something to investigate.
Which surviving house challenges it? Is there another structure containing an older cabin beneath a newer exterior? Does the disagreement concern the construction date, the definition of a house or the boundaries of Rockford when the building was erected? Somewhere in property records, early maps, tax rolls or an overlooked newspaper item may be the answer.
The Herrick-Logli Cobblestone House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It is also a designated Rockford landmark. Those protections recognize something more important than a numerical ranking: the building is a rare physical connection to Rockford before factories, furniture companies and expanding neighborhoods transformed the city.
Thousands of people travel Broadway without realizing that the river stones beside them have been holding up the same walls since 1847.
Whether the Herrick house is first, second or merely somewhere near the beginning, it has survived long enough to make the distinction almost beside the point.
Almost.
