Manchester House and Niagara Falls History

At the end of 1902, Flora Langs Pierce married Harry Whiting. Dennis. Within a year they had built their home, which was to become Manchester House Bed and Breakfast in Niagara Falls.

The land on which the house stood had been given to Flora by her widowed mother, Jane E. Pierce, who lived next door at 655 Main Street (this house has since been demolished). In 1876 Jane and her husband Henry F. Pierce bought the land bounded by Ontario Street (now Main Street), Sixth Street, our present property, and Pine Avenue from Augustus Porter's daughter, Jane S. Townsend. There was plenty of land for Flora's new house. A mortgage for $3,500 executed in January, 1903, helped to pay construction costs.

Main Street has changed during the years since 1902, as has the history of Niagara Falls. The Unitarian Church next door wasn't there in 1902. There were no gas stations, either. There were trolley lines: a line ran down Main Street with a branch line on Pine Avenue. The present site of the Self Service station and Car Wash at Main and Pine was occupied by Arthur Schoellkopf's Mansion. In association with his father, he organized the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company to develop the hydraulic canal. His company generated the first commercial power at Niagara Falls, and later competed with the Niagara Falls Power Company. The Discovery Center is on the site of the industrial area Arthur and his father developed. Arthur owned the trolley line, too. A stone wall along Park Place is all that remains from 1902 on the gas station property.

Twenty - year - old Civil Engineer Harry Whiting Dennis, builder of what was to become Manchester House, had come to town in 1899 after graduating from Cornell to work for the Niagara Falls Power Company. Harry hailed from Steuben County, NY. The power company was building a large power plant on Buffalo Avenue. Most of this power plant is now torn down; a waste water treatment plant occupies the site. By 1906 engineering work on the power plant had been completed and Harry went to work for William A. Brackenridge, consulting engineer, in the Gluck building on Falls Street. Brackenridge was working on the design of a new water plant for the City of Niagara Falls.

Because she was a local girl, we know more about Flora and her family than about Harry. Flora was the youngest of nine children. Flora's father, Henry, was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel for meritorious service during the Civil War. He had business interests in banking and coal wholesaling across the river in Clifton, Ontario. Henry held a number of local political offices and ran unsuccessfully for State Assembly (as his obituary put it: "(he) was the Democratic candidate for Member of Assembly when the district was hopelessly Republican.") Henry died of Bright's disease at the age of 47. At the time, Flora was 5 years old.

In 1909, engineering work on the new water plant was nearing an end. George, Flora's oldest brother, had died in March. Her two sisters Jane and Augusta, had moved to New York City with their husbands as had William, one of her two remaining brothers. Henry, her other brother, was preparing to close his News Agency at 513 Pine Avenue and move to New York City with Flora's mother, Jane. There was little reason to remain in Niagara Falls. On November 20, 1909, Flora took out a second mortgage for $1,000 on the property, and by April 18, 1910 when the census taker came by, she and Harry Dennis had relocated to Los Angeles. Subsequently, Harry Dennis went on to become the Chief Civil Engineer for Southern California Edison Co. where he worked until 1933. Flora died in 1943.

Joseph X. Kelly and his wife Sarah rented the house until October, 1915. Then they bought it, taking a $6,000 mortgage. Joseph, a traveling salesman, held the property until April 28, 1916.

Jane E. Pierce, the matriarch of the Pierce family, died in Brooklyn October 4, 1916 at the age of 74. A funeral service was held at the home of Helen Abigail Pierce Langs, the sister of Jane's late husband. Jane is buried next to her husband in the family plot in Oakwood Cemetery here in Niagara Falls.

The house was first used as a combined residence and doctor's office by Dr. Frank H. Towne who purchased the property from the Kellys.

Before the addition, the area on the north side of the first floor was the Living Room (perhaps called a "Parlor" in those days). A "pocket-door" separated the dining room from the center-entrance hallway (the contractor found it, still in the wall, during remodeling). We know, too, that the house was lighted by gas, rather than electricity, in the early days because gas-pipes were found in the dining room ceiling.

By 1916, the proximity of Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital on Pine Avenue, and St. Mary's Hospital on Sixth Street was making this part of Main Street the place for doctor's offices. In fact, locals began calling this area "Pill Hill" because of the concentration of Doctor's offices. Construction of the Main Post Office in 1906 had already moved the neighborhood away from a strictly residential area. The 1920's extended the trend; the Unitarian Church next door was built in 1921, the City Hall down Main Street in 1924 and the Christian Science Church on Park Place in 1927. In the 1920's, too, Arthur Schoellkopf's Mansion was converted into apartments.

When the Unitarian church next door was built, a photographer recorded the finished building. Fortunately this 1922 picture survived in the church's archives, and shows Manchester House with a large front porch as well as with two chimneys.

Sometime after 1922, the building was modified to accommodate the need to provide both space for the Doctor's practice, and for the needs of his family. It is likely that the rear addition was built at this time (the present "back bedroom" upstairs, and our living quarters downstairs). The addition provided space for the Doctor's office. Initially, the second floor of the addition was a sun-porch. The ledge around the back bedroom's outside wall marks the height of the original brick porch railing. The front porch would have been removed and the entryway would have been added to provide a separate entrance to the doctor's office.

After Dr. Towne's death on May 4, 1933, his wife Edith continued to live in the house. Then, on October 29, 1935 she sold the property to Dr. Irwin M. Walker who commenced to use the property as his home and office. At the same time, Edith sold a part of the 6th Street lot behind the house, and a right-of-way to 6th Street to Dr. Walker. This would have made construction of the garage at the present location possible. The remainder of the 6th Street lot was purchased by Dr. Walker from Edith in 1939.

Dr. Walker made several changes in Manchester House to accommodate his two children. The sun porch was enclosed, and converted to a "recreation room" for games and entertainment. Two bedrooms and a bathroom were installed on the third floor, in what had been the attic.

Dr. Walker continued to practice medicine at 653 Main Street until he retired in 1982 at the age of 84. His practice of medicine spanned 60 years. He outlived his first wife, Dorothy R. Walker. He remarried; this time to another Dorothy - Dorothy McCall Walker, one of the nurses at his practice. Dr. Walker died on June 18,1983 after 48 years of residence in Manchester House. In 1986 the property was sold by Walker's estate and fell into a state of disrepair until we bought the property in 1989.

Considerable renovation was necessary to make Manchester House what it is today. New heating and plumbing systems were installed, and major changes were made to the electrical supply. The old examining rooms and offices were changed into living quarters for Lis and Carl. The laboratory is now an office area. Hardwood floors were refinished or covered by carpet, and extensive changes were made to the traffic pattern upstairs to meet fire regulations. The local building code required fire doors, lighted exit signs, a sprinkler system, hardwired smoke detectors, emergency lighting, and flame-retarding carpet. Lis and friends spent many months cleaning, painting, removing layer upon layer of wallpaper and re-papering. The work was recognized with a Niagara Beautification Commission award in 1992.

We continue to learn about the property. The wrought-iron "Bow and Picket" fence, for example, which was installed in the early 1900's. The church on Park Place has an identical fence. That fence was there when the church was built in 1927, and the house occupying the site was torn down. We've tracked down the manufacturer -- the Stewart Iron Works, 20 W. 18th Street, Covington KY 41011. They have been in business since 1886. The reinforced crosspiece was a patented design used by the company until 1920 when it became too expensive to produce. At one time, they shipped 1,000,000 lineal feet of fence annually from their rail siding.

In 2001 we discovered several signs among construction scrap in the crawl-space under the back addition to the house. They referred to Dr. Towne and so must date from the 1920's or early 1930's. .

The small park across the street holds some interesting history as this story from the Niagara Falls Reporter explains.