UAFS sets to work on 1837 house

Tom Wing, an assistant history professor at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, describes the project to restore the Wilhaf house in Van Buren. Built in 1837, it is one of the oldest houses in the city.
Tom Wing, an assistant history professor at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, describes the project to restore the Wilhaf house in Van Buren. Built in 1837, it is one of the oldest houses in the city.

VAN BUREN -- The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith has embarked on a second mission to save one of the oldest homes in the city, and turn it into a classroom and tourist attraction.

The university announced that it recently received a $600,000 grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resource Council to continue restoration work on the Wilhaf house at 109 N. Third St., just off historic downtown Van Buren.

Tom Wing, an assistant history professor at the university, said the house was built around 1837 on about an acre of ground. It is believed to be the second-oldest home in Van Buren, behind to the Drennen-Scott home, built just up the hill in 1836.

Wing said it is uncertain whether the Drennen-Scott house or the Wilhaf house was built first. Plans are to use tree-ring dating from the tree-ring laboratory at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville to help date the house.

"When you put tree-ring information with the archaeology, with the history, then you get a really good picture of what happened and what was going on," he said.

The university acquired the Drennen-Scott house in 2005 and renovated it. It is now a research site and tourist attraction called the Drennen-Scott Historic Site. Wing is the director of the historic site and will oversee the Wilhaf house restoration.

The Wilhaf house was donated to the university in 2013 by two sisters, Sandra Pearson and Melissa Wick, after their father, John Cobb, the last occupant of the house, died in 2012. Wing said the sisters wanted the house preserved but didn't have the money to do it themselves.

With the latest grant, the university will have invested $1.2 million into restoring the Wilhaf property. Wing said it probably will take another $600,000 to finish the work, which he hoped will be completed sometime in 2019.

"Restoration costs are extremely high," Wing said. "You are taking a 19th century home and turning it into a public building. So you have to meet public building standards."

Specialists in 19th century construction methods -- such as masons, carpenters and painters -- also will have to be recruited from around the country to ensure restoration work is done properly.

Fortunately, Wing said, the project's general contractor, Crawford Construction, is located just across the Arkansas River in Fort Smith. He said the company gained experience while restoring the Fort Smith National Historic Site after a 1996 tornado.

When completed, he said, as much of the original home as possible will be restored, and will become a museum open to the public and exhibiting artifacts found on the property.

It also will give university students practical experience in archaeology that they can't get in the classroom, he said.

An addition on the house that was built in the 1980s will be left in place and renovated as a research station for the Arkansas Archeological Survey.

Survey archaeologist Tim Mulvihill said the station will provide more space than he has now on the university campus and will allow him to pay more attention to the potential for historic and prehistoric discoveries in western Arkansas.

Mulvihill said that as archaeological work uncovers the past at the Wilhaf house, it will be interesting to compare the lifestyles of Leonard Wilhaf, a baker, with the wealthy founder of Van Buren, John Drennen.

Using technology to detect anomalies under the ground, survey members found an old cellar on the back portion of the property. Archaeologists excavated the cellar last year, Mulvihill said. The excavation was filled in, but Wing said he would like to see the cellar opened permanently as an example of an archaeological excavation.

Mulvihill said the Archeological Survey will continue to explore the site for other possible archaeological digs, such as a small stable that records showed was on the site and a detached kitchen. He said work will be done as funding allows.

Wing said work is still being done to research Wilhaf's life. So far, officials know that he was a German immigrant who married a Fort Smith woman. He ran a bakery in downtown Van Buren and was a Mexican-American War veteran.

Local historian Ruie Ann Smith Park mentioned Wilhaf, dating his life from 1813-1866, in a 1976 report for the Van Buren Historic District Commission.

Park wrote that during the Mexican War from 1846-1848, a local company of soldiers was formed and called the Van Buren Avengers. Wilhaf, which Wing said was incorrectly spelled Wilhauf, was chosen as the bearer of the company's flag, which was made by Van Buren women.

Wilhaf was ordered to '"yield it only with your life,"' Park wrote. The entry said Wilhaf survived the war and returned with the flag, which is preserved by the Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock.

Metro on 06/18/2017

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