White, Orrin, House

Orrin White was born in Wayne County, New York. His father David, a descendant of Peregrine White (born on the Mayflower), had moved his family from Massachusetts three years earlier in a twenty-day trek through unbroken wilderness. Orrin received a 'fair education' in New York. At age sixteen, Orrin and his twin Orpheus served as fife and drummer boys in the War of 1812. Six years later, Orrin, a merchant in Palmyra, New York, married Ann Thayer of Tioga Point, Pennsylvania. In July of 1823 Orrin left his wife and two sons and plunged into Michigan to 'prospect' for likely farmland. On July 24, White paid cash to the federal government for 276 acres of land in the Huron River Valley in Washtenaw County. The following summer White, his wife, three children including an eight-month-old infant, and Ann's father Nathan Thayer sailed from Buffalo to Detroit. Orrin soon became one of the leading farmers in the area. In 1825 he raised a log cabin to replace the original slab structure which had housed his burgeoning family. Orrin started construction of the L-shaped cobblestone house which still stands at 2940 Fuller road in Ann Arbor in 1836. The family occupied the first story of what is now the back wing of the house by Christmas of the same year. Orrin's son Henry K., in an 1891 interview, recalled hauling stone and slaking lime for the rest of the house, which he said was completed in 1840. A four-year period for construction of the cobblestone structure is entirely probable; good use of the small stones and crude mortar employed in construction of the house required long drying periods and the skill of an accomplished mason. White's success as a farmer increased, and he was able to devote considerable portions of his time to the affairs of the local community. He and his wife, both active in the area's social life, were founding members of Ann Arbor's Methodist Church. In 1829 Territorial Governor Lewis Cass elevated White from his rank as a militia captain to the status of lieutenant colonel. In May of 1832 he was called up to serve in the Black Hawk War: Black Hawk was captured, however, just as the assembled militia was preparing to depart from Saline. In 1835, however, White saw action in the brief occupation of Toledo which climaxed Michigan's border dispute with Ohio. White was active in state and local politics throughout his career, serving first as a county commissioner in Washtenaw County, in 1837, later as Ann Arbor Township supervisor, sheriff of Washtenaw County, and associate judge of the Washtenaw Circuit Court. In 1835 White was selected by fellow Democratic Republicans to participate in the abortive Constitutional Convention of 1835: a state government for Michigan set up by the convention was later declared illegal because drafters had neglected to procure an act of Congress authorizing statehood. The Panic of 1837 brought on a conservative reaction and a political drought for Democratic Republicans. After unsuccessful campaigns for associate justice of Washtenaw County, commissioner of highways, justice of the peace, and county commissioner, White eventually won a bid for a seat in the Legislature in 1842, his last political office. White died in 1864. The house, still in excellent condition, is typical of an indigenous architectural style which originated and was most prevalent in the area around Rochester, New York, where White and many of his neighbors lived before migrating to Michigan.

The walls of the Hodges House on Fuller road near Ann Arbor bear distinct traits of at least two of three principal kinds of cobblestone architecture carried out first in upstate New York and carried later to parts of the middle west, especially to Southern Michigan and Wisconsin where many New Yorkers settled. The first story of the L-shaped structure's rear wing, completed and occupied in 1836 is composed of small fieldstone only crudely matched in size, with roughed-out stone quoins placed at the corners. There are gaps between the quoins in the wing's first story where courses of cobblestone run to the extreme corner of the wing. The second story, obviously added later, is composed of cobblestone uniformly matched in size and contour and laid horizontally in even courses. The walls of the two-story main wing are composed of finely matched stone running between dressed stone quoins which climb the entire height of each corner without interruption. The front wall of the house consists of well-matched oval stones laid in a herringbone pattern between symmetrical windows and a door with sidelights. The front of the house is 42 feet wide and 20 feet deep. The rear wing is 32 feet wide and adds 30 feet to the depth of one side of the house. Wood detailing and wavy glass indicate that installation of the windows either closely followed or was perhaps even contemporary with construction of the house. Floors in both wings have been replaced but are quite compatible with the original structure. The house is in excellent condition and is being meticulously restored to its original state by the owners after careful research.