Property Record
6903 NORTHWESTERN AVE
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Ichabod Lordskinner Bailey Farm |
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| Other Name: | |
| Contributing: | |
| Reference Number: | 138903 |
| Location (Address): | 6903 NORTHWESTERN AVE |
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| County: | Racine |
| City: | |
| Township/Village: | Caledonia |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | 4 |
| Range: | 22 |
| Direction: | E |
| Section: | 35 |
| Quarter Section: | SW |
| Quarter/Quarter Section: | SE |
| Year Built: | |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 2001 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Gabled Ell |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Clapboard |
| Architect: | |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| Additional Information: | February 2001-This farmstead consists of a gabled ell farmhouse and two outbuildings. The circa-1880's, clapboard-sheathed farmhouse rises from a cut stone foundation and consists of a two-story main block and a one-story wing. An open, hip-roof porch supported by square posts is positioned within the northeast ell juncture. The porch protects a multi-panel, wooden door flanked by two-pane sidelights. With regard to the main block, its eaves are defined with a plain cornice. In addition, a one-story, canted bay protrudes from the west (side) elevation. The building's chief architectural details are the wooden window surrounds topped with raised hoods and adorned with carved ornaments. Within these surrounds are one-over-one, double-hung sashes; wooden shutters flank the window openings. With regard to the outbuildings, the primary structure is a circa-1870s, gabled dairy barn sheathed in board-and-batten (separate record). A cupola rises from the asphalt-shingled roof. The barn exhibits a vertical-board covered, shed-roof addition from its west endwall and a brick milkhouse on its north elevation. A circa-1920s, poured-concrete silo with concrete cap is near the barn. The earliest available plat (1887) indicates that this farmstead was owned by Ichabod Lordskinner Bailey, who most likely built the extant structures. Research revealed no information on Bailey. In circa 1920, the property was purchased by Joseph Gifford, which he used to house hired hands for his farm. Gifford owned the tract into the 1960s. Today, the property is utilized as a residence and serves no agricultural function. Edmund Bailey purchased the property on which this farmhouse was built in a land sale from the government. This sale was the first transfer made from the original patent. Edmund was from New York and his wife Mary was from Vermont. This early frame farmhouse was built by Edmund around 1844. He saved a little money and around 1870 he built onto the house. He died in 1873 and Mary died in 1879. The property passed on to their son, Ichabod Lordskinner Bailey. J.M. "Joe" Gifford purchased the house and surrounding farmland from Bailey's estate. He and his brother William Allen owned Gifford's Sanitary Milk Company. The business had been started in 1912 by the Giffords and had grown from its beginnings as a one-wagon milk delivery service supplying milk from their own herd. William Allen took over management of the dairy after it became part of Progressive Dairy and Joe took over the family farm. The Bailey property was the next farm south of the Gifford family farm. Half of the farm is now the Bailey's Bend subdivision. Joe Gifford married Kate Jensen and they had three children: Bill James Gifford, James Allen Gifford, and Louise Gifford, who married Daniel Kasen and continued to live in the house as well as the surrounding eleven acres. Joe Gifford was very proud of the fact that he was actively farming at the age of eighty three and boasted that he would still be doing it when he was ninety. Regretfully, he suffered a stroke in August 1976 and did not live to see his last crop of wheat and soybeans harvested. The Bailey Farmhouse was always referred to as "a hired man's house." Joe Gifford never lived in the house. He built the Dutch Colonial house across the street, and he and his wife moved in as newlyweds and continued to live there until he passed away. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Plats. Preservation Racine Tour of Historic Places Guidebook, 2008. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |