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Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County

John Wood’s Quincy Homes

From the time of his arrival in 1822, John Wood built four homes, in their day as functional and elegant as any around.

The Quincy Homes of Governor John Wood (cont.)

Recognized by historians and architects as one of the Midwest’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture, the Wood Mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Many of the furnishings belonged to the Wodses and their Quincy and Adams County friends.

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Among other settlers was Miss Ann Streeter, whom Wood married January 25, 1826. At the behest of his wife, Wood built his second log cabin on the northwest side of 12th and State Streets. The family’s second log cabin was two stories.

Wood was acquiring additional land in the Military Tract that soldiers from the East did not want. Wood profited from the sale of the land to farmers coming from Kentucky and Tennessee. By 1835, he started building his mansion at 12th and State next to the log cabin. It was completed in 1838. He had gone to St. Louis and New Orleans and gotten German immigrant-craftsmen (carpenters, bricklayers, stone masons, plasterers, etc.) to build the Greek Revival-style house.

Well liked by those who joined him in the frontier town along the Mississippi, Wood was elected mayor of Quincy three times (1844-48, 1852-53 and 1856) and as senator serving in the 17th and 18th Illinois General Assemblies. Wood was a Whig until the party’s demise in 1854, when he joined the nascent Republican Party. In 1856 he was elected Illinois’ lieutenant governor, when the previous nominee Francis Hoffman was found unqualified to serve. Hoffman did not meet the residency requirement. While serving as lieutenant governor Wood started building an even larger house in the middle of the block on State Street between 11th and 12th Streets. The octagonal building would take six years to complete.

During the home’s construction Governor William H. Bissell in 1860 died and Wood became the 12th governor of Illinois. He petitioned the state legislature to stay in Quincy to oversee construction of his home. Legislators agreed and Wood’s Greek Revival house became the governor’s mansion for the State of Illinois. That is its historical significance.

Governor for ten months, Wood did not seek reelection. When the Civil War came in 1861, his successor, Governor Richard Yates, named the 63-year-old Wood the state’s wartime quartermaster general. His job was to oversee procurement of goods and services like blankets, food, ammunition, horses, and other items the volunteers from his state would need for war. He later became colonel of the 137th Illinois volunteers.

In 1863, Ann, Wood’s wife of 37 years, died. They had had eight children. Only four of them—a daughter and three sons— lived to adulthood.

When builders finished Wood’s octagonal house in 1864, he deeded the Greek Revival house to his eldest son Daniel. John wanted it moved to the east side of 12th Street. It was a move at which Wood’s Quincy neighbors marvelled. What had been an apple orchard was converted into a yard. The house was cut in half and the chimneys were removed so the house could be relocated. To save a 12-foot-high line of Osage orange trees, Wood had the movers build a ramp over them. It took 20 teams of horses to move each half of the house across the street and over the hedge row. Logs were used to roll the house along. Originally the house faced the south (as was the norm for Greek Revival style houses – they could take advantage of the summer breezes better). When the house was moved, however, the foundation was cut so the house now faces the west.

Wood lived in his octagonal house on one side of 12th Street and his son Daniel lived in the stately Greek Revival home on the other. Wood’s octagonal house had cost over $200,000 to build and was said to be the most expensive house in Illinois at the time.

In 1873, a financial panic hit the the country’s economy. Faced with their own serious reversals, Wood’s creditors sought what he owed them. To meet his obligations, Wood was forced to sell the home. It returned only $40,000, a severe loss. He and his second wife, Mary Ann Holmes, whom he had married June 5, 1865, moved into the Greek Revival house with his son Daniel in 1875. Wood spent the last five years of his life in this house. Wood died in the mansion on June 4, 1880. He was buried in Woodland Cemetery, which he had earlier donated to his city and which his community named for him.

After his father’s death, Daniel Wood sold the mansion and moved to Galena, Kansas. The Wood mansion became a boarding house with many families living there over the years. In 1906, some businesses on the corner of 12th and State sought to raze the home to install an alley, which would have run through the living room of today’s home. Based on Miss Maertz’s suggestion, the ten-year-old Historical Society was able to buy the house to save it from destruction. The Society first used the house as a museum. Without the funds to maintain it, the Society saw the house by the 1970s fall into disrepair. It was at that time that the Society began raising funds to restore the Wood mansion. To date more than $500,000 has been spent on the home’s restoration.

The John Wood Mansion today is the crown jewel, the centerpiece, of the Society’s collection of historical treasures. It is recognized across the architectural world as one of the nation’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture.