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JOSEPH GOODRICH BUILDS THE MILTON HOUSE
When Joseph Goodrich brought his family to Prairie du Lac, as Milton was called then, they lived in a red frame house he built in 1838, on his first trip to Wisconsin. This frame house also served as a store and an inn for travelers. Religious meetings were also held here. To provide more room, he bought a log cabin in Lima Township, moved it, placing it along side the frame house as an annex. This cabin now stands to the rear of the Milton House. The frame house has been torn down but can be seen in old pictures of the area.His daughter Jane described how crowded the cabin could sometimes be. The homemade furniture included three-legged stools and a dining table on saw horses. After each meal the table was moved outside and leaned against the house. At night the floor was covered with beds, but prairie hospitality always made room for any late arriving travelers.
Goodrich built the Milton House in 1844. In this building he made architectural and structural history. The Milton House is the oldest poured grout (concrete) structure in the United States.
The material he used, which he called "grout," was a mixture of slaked (burnt) lime, sand broken stone, gravel and water. All materials were native to the area. His estimate of the materials used was: lime, 250 bushels, slaked cost 4 cents per bushel; lumber for standards and top of wall, $6; and the gravel was from his own pits. He estimated that the walls of the building were four times cheaper than wood and six times cheaper than brick.
The building was in the shape of a hexagon, 6-sided. Joined to the hexagon on the south was a long two-story section of 5 units, called the Goodrich Block. The upper floors of the hexagon and wing were living quarters and guest rooms. The ground floor of the hexagon housed a lobby and a dining room and the ground floor of the Goodrich Block housed businesses. In 1867 the third floor was added to the hexagon.
This description of the building appeared in the January 24, 1946 edition of the Janesville Gazette:
"A center stone pillar rises from the basement and around which winds a circular staircase, leading to a rotunda in the second story. There are six convenient bed chambers. The roof is concave having a declivity toward the center, with a pipe conveying rain water to a cistern in the basement. The center pillar contains a vacuum to admit all stove pipes used in the different rooms. Each wall is carried seven feet above the roof and terminated in the shape of a gable with an imitation chimney on the peak. the whole of the gravel structure cost $1,000 and bears an analogy to an ancient castle, the six gables serving as a balustrade. The walls are 18 inches thick in the basement, 15 inches on the first floor and 12 inches on the second.
Mr. Goodrich informs me that a house can be built of gravel cheaper than of any other material . . . He uses one bushel of lime to every seven or eight bushels of gravel. His method of construction was to use one tier of boards, nailing them to a scantling or standard, and kept from spreading by braces when the grout was poured between the boards. He would wait for it to harden, which usually took 24 hours, and then raise the boards one tier higher. Labor for the construction cost about $12 per month.
Besides the tavern (Milton House), the academy, the dwelling of a physician and one of the blacksmith shops are built of gravel and lime, a preparation for the discovery of which we are indebted to the inventive genius of the intelligent proprietor of Milton."
The above text was taken from the Bicentennial History of Milton, Copyright 1977, by the Milton Bicentennial Committee and the Milton Historical Society, Milton Wisconsin.
Updated October 11, 1997