McCracken-McFarland House | |
 Front of the house | |
   | |
| Location | 216 N. 8th St., Cambridge, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°1′36″N81°35′23″W / 40.02667°N 81.58972°W Coordinates: 40°1′36″N81°35′23″W / 40.02667°N 81.58972°W |
| Area | Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1825 |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival |
| NRHP reference # | 79001848 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | February 16, 1979 |
The McCracken-McFarland House is a historic house built in 1825 in the city of Cambridge, Ohio, United States. It was once home to one of the city's political leaders, and later a Presbyterian minister. Few extant buildings in the city can compare to it architecturally, and it has been named a historic site.
Cambridge is a city in and the county seat of Guernsey County, Ohio, United States. It lies in southeastern Ohio, in the Appalachian Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains 74 miles east of Columbus. The population was 11,129 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Cambridge Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located adjacent to the intersection of Interstates 70 and 77.
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus. Ohio is bordered by Pennsylvania to the east, Michigan to the northwest, Lake Erie to the north, Indiana to the west, Kentucky on the south, and West Virginia on the southeast.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or simply America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.
William McCracken settled in Cambridge in 1809 at the age of twenty-two. Although he began his residency as a simple blacksmith, McCracken later made himself into one of the most prominent members of local society. McCracken arranged for the construction of the present house, [2] built in 1825, [1] but his wealth was sufficient to pay for the erection of a brick house in the same neighborhood in 1830. [2] Two years later, William McFarland was born in New Athens. At the age of twenty-five, he was ordained as a minister in one of the denominations that later formed the United Presbyterian Church of North America. McFarland moved to Cambridge in 1860 to pastor its United Presbyterian congregation, soon taking possession of the house, and it remained the property of the McFarland family until his daughter conveyed it to the Guernsey County Historical Society in 1966. Since that time, the society has converted the house into its museum. [2]
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils and weapons. The place where a blacksmith works is called variously a smithy, a forge or a blacksmith's shop.
New Athens is a village in Harrison County, Ohio, United States. The population was 320 at the 2010 census.
In Christianity, a minister is a person authorized by a church, or other religious organization, to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community. The term is taken from Latin minister, which itself was derived from minus ("less").
Greek Revival in style, [1] the McCracken-McFarland House is a weatherboarded structure with a slate roof. It sits slightly above the sidewalk; one must climb two small sets of steps to attain the six-columned porch on the front of the house. Both stories of the facade are divided into five bays, with windows in all except for the center of the first story; this place is occupied by the main entrance, its transom light, and its sidelights. The gabled roof is topped with a chimney on either end of the roofline. [3] Although the Greek Revival influence is present, the house is primarily a vernacular structure, retaining a settlement-period mode of design with few extant parallels in the city. [2]
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. It revived the style of ancient Greek architecture, in particular the Greek temple, with varying degrees of thoroughness and consistency. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, which had for long mainly drawn from Roman architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842.
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.
A storey or story is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people. The plurals are "storeys" and "stories", respectively.
In early 1979, the McCracken-McFarland House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying both because of its architecture and because of its place as the home of William McCracken. Among the other National Register-listed locations in Cambridge is the McCracken-Scott House, [1] the brick house that William McCracken had built in 1830. [2]
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.
