222 Main Street: The S.S. Raplee house

leveland states pretty definitively that the house that stood on this lot was built by Spencer S. Raplee in about 1859, when he bought the vacant lot from the Ryerss estate in Philadelphia. This account is to a certain extent borne out by the records; and by the style of the house.

The lot was sold by Abraham Wagener to John Buckbee, by him to his brother Samuel, and by Samuel to Eliah Holcomb by 1828. Holcomb owned and resided on the vast lot across Main Street where #227 stood later in the century. In 1830 Holcomb sold a strip 18 and a half feet wide off the south end of this lot to Ebenezer Brown, who owned the site of #218 adjacent on that side. Brown built a post office on this strip, which Cleveland believed was the first erected as a separate building in the village.

Rapalee acquired what was left of the original four-rod lot in February, 1859 from Joseph W. Ryerss of Philadelphia (a family who owned a lot of land in Milo, but never lived here); and in April bought back the 18-foot-wide strip that had held the post office.

The land passed out of the Rapalee family's hands in 1883; it passed through several other owners until in 1956 the adjacent Baptist church bought the house and it was razed for extra parking space.

Plots

Above right: The Baptist Church with its original tower, and 222 Main Street next door to the south. The latter was a rather restrained example of Italianate architecture, a three-bay cube with a front porch that doubled as a balcony. The photograph was taken about, say, 1885, and is a stereograph in the collection of the Oliver House Museum.

People related to this lot and structure:

     Abraham Wagener
     Eliah Holcomb
     Ebenezer Brown

Related history:

     The County Seat
     Before the Storm