The Nelson Dewey Homesite
An artist's rendering shows how the original
Gothic Revival home of Nelson Dewey
probably looked. "The showplace of Wisconsin with its beautiful green lawns,
gardens and orchards, stables and other buildings,
and miles of stone fences." That's how one contemporary newspaper
described Stonefield, the country estate of Nelson
Dewey, the state of Wisconsin's first governor. After completing
his second term, Dewey began a personal mission to
create such a showplace, one that would provide material
testimony to his years of business and political success.
Dewey completed his dream home in 1868. The three-story
Gothic Revival edifice of red brick featured broad
balconies and elegant furnishings, and the grounds
included elaborate stone outbuildings and fences. The
house stood as the centerpiece of a 2,000-acre estate
overlooking pastures and meadowlands, fruit orchards,
a vineyard, and, in the distance, the Mississippi River.
But the idyllic vision expressed by the beautiful home was short-lived.
Dewey's marriage suffered amid the pastoral surroundings,
and his wife Catherine moved with their children to
Madison in 1871. Then in 1873, the house burned — the
first in a long series of misfortunes that befell the
former governor.
The Nelson Dewey Homesite, often called
the Dewey-Newberry House, as it
appears today. In 1879, General Walter Cass Newberry of Chicago bought the ruins
of the house and 40 acres of land. Newberry worked
the farm for several years and in the early 1890s began
building a summer residence on the foundation of Dewey's
home. Though it followed the original floor plan,
the Newberry house was a much more modest structure,
without the tall, narrow gables and ornate detail of
the original mansion. After the Newberries sold the
house in 1896, a succession of owners maintained it
until 1936 when the state purchased the land
and buildings. Its rich and colorful history helped
spark the rebirth of the former estate as a Wisconsin
Historical Society historic site in the early 1950s.
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