Hamilton House - Bethany, Missouri - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

County of house: Harrison County
Location of house: Main St. & S. 13th St., Bethany
Built: 1882
Architect: Edmund Eckel
Architectural Style: Italianate

"The Hamilton/Edna Cuddy Memorial House and Gardens is an asymmetrical shaped house of brick construction facing North from its corner lot one block off the square in the City of Bethany, Missouri. This tall and stately Italianate-style home was designed in 1882 by Edmund Eckel of St. Joseph, Missouri, for a prominent hardware merchant by the name of James P. Hamilton (but usually called J.P.). Mr. Hamilton's initials, J.P.H., and the date, 1882, were carved into the projecting double window header off the second floor of the north façade. The initials and dates are further accentuated by a gable pediment in the roof just above this area. There is a one-story, slanted bay below this area. At the top of the windows on both the first and second floor levels, there is a double row of soldier course brick (a design often used by Edmund Eckel) that wraps itself around the north and part of the east façade. This decoration is very prominent from the street. A smooth stone belt accentuates the separation of the first and second floor levels. At the roof line, a projecting cornice is supported by concave, curved brackets with dentils between the brackets. The roof is a low, truncated-hip style covered with asbestos shingles. There are three plain brick chimneys, one on the west and two on the east walls.

"While this home is not the most lavish of Italianate/Victorian styles in America or Missouri, it is elaborate for Harrison County and the City of Bethany. It is a handsome, well-constructed and fashionably-adorned house built for a late-19th-Century, middle-class hardware merchant. This house typifies the life and times of the merchant class in "small town" Northwest Missouri.

"J.P. Hamilton's life (1840-1911) is an interesting case study of a successful southerner on the Missouri frontier engaged in the mercantile business. J.P. Hamilton was born in Green County, Kentucky, in 1840, and came with his parents to Randolph County, Missouri, later to Daviess County, and in 1859 to Bethany. J.P. Hamilton was a pioneer hardware merchant who started his business in 1859 in Bethany when it was still considered a small country town. Mr. Hamilton continued in the hardware business until 1899, when ill health forced him to sell the Hamilton Hardware Company to Phillips and Storm, who reorganized it into the Bethany Hardware Company. During his forty years as a merchant in Bethany, Mr. Hamilton was a prominent man in city and county affairs. He served as alderman for the City of Bethany. He helped organize the Bethany Savings Bank, of which he was a director and vice president.

He was a member of the Independent order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias Lodge. In the 1921 History of Harrison County, Mr. Hamilton is remembered as one of the sturdy pioneers and enterprising characters who helped Bethany and Harrison County grow." ~ NRHP Nomination Form