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Swedish Episcopal Church parsonage

The Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church of Stillwater was organized in 1880. One of its tenets was temperance, or abstaining from alcohol. After the congregation acquired their church on the northeast corner of Myrtle and Fourth Streets, the next step was to provide a parsonage. On October 31, 1882, recorded in pages 23 and 24 of Book 14 of Deeds, the trustees of the church purchased Lot 24, Block 20 of Sabin’s Addition from Seymour, Sabin and Company. Two years later, in 1884, with a mortgage from one of their parishioners, the Church built its brick parsonage at 504 W. Mulberry Street. The tax assessor valued the new structure at $925.

The church was organized for Swedish immigrants and at its peak, had only about 45 members. Although the mortgage on the parsonage was paid off within three years, it seems likely that as the Swedish immigrants grew older, and the next generation was Americanized, interest in maintaining a strictly ethnic church diminished. In any case, by 1902, the church no longer had need for the parsonage, and the Trustees sold it to a 32-year-old Swedish immigrant Peter Anderson and his wife, Anna. Peter, ironically, was a dealer in Imported and Domestic Wines, Liquors and Cigars with a store at Mulberry and Second Streets. Did Peter, (or Anna) we have to wonder, ever become intoxicated in what has previously been a teetotaler household?

Peter and Anna moved to Minneapolis about 1910, and the house was sold to the Adolph and Alexandra (Sandra) Ryden family who lived in the house until 1965. Adolph was proprietor of a downtown grocery store.

In a city that was the lumber capital of the St. Croix Valley, it is unusual to find a brick house. In style, it is a standard Stillwater cube Italianate house of the 1880s. It has a hip roof with a chimney in the center. The windows have a decorative brick arch over them. On the rear is a one-story addition that would have served as the kitchen, and like many houses of this period, there is an exterior second floor door. Technically it is a three bay design meaning there are three windows symmetrically placed on the second floor with identical windows and the door directly below. The porch is typical of those that were added in the 1890s and 1900s. Nestled in the hillside, this is one of Stillwater’s more attractive and unusual, but little known, houses. Fortunately, the current owners, Joan and Mark Mikkelson, who purchased the house in 2002, have cherished the house and made a considerable effort to retain its historical integrity and charm.

For other brick houses in Stillwater, see: 820 Owens St. N., 320 Holcombe St. S.

Source(s): Information complied by Donald Empson, Empson Archives on 1/22/2009. Building date and value is from the original annual tax assessors’ rolls, 1884 (on microfilm in the St. Croix Collection, Stillwater Public Library); the 1894-95 Stillwater City Directory gives a profile of the church on page 21. The 1906-07 Stillwater City Directory lists Peter and his occupation; the 1910 Census lists Peter and Anna with no children. The Abstract of Deed furnished by the owner provided the rest of the information.

Washington County Parcel Identification Number (PIN): 2803020240109

Common Property Name: Swedish Episcopal Church parsonage

Neighborhood: Sabin's Addition

State Historic Preservation Office Inventory Number: WA-SWC-1719

Construction Date: 1884

Builder:

Architect:

Architectural Style: Italianate