Waugh House

Constructed in 1826 for an extended family of entrepreneurs, the Waugh House is Greenville, Pennsylvania's earliest documented standing residence. Its exterior appearance and original plan remain in a perfect state of integrity. The early construction date, the size of the building, brick construction, plus the elements of style mark the Waugh House as an essential survivor from Greenville's early history. The stepped gables are rare surviving elements.

The Waugh House descends from roots in English design. Stylistic signs of the Adam brothers, Scots who influenced the architecture of the English-speaking world in the late 18th century, include the fanlight and sidelights of the entry and the vestigial Palladian tripartite window on the second floor.

In 1826, when the Waugh house was constructed, the Greek Revival became popular as the first appropriately American style for residential architecture. However, the preponderance of settlers in Western Pennsylvania, as were the Waughs, were of English and Scots background, and it is not surprising that the buildings of the era used English design vocabulary with which the Waughs and the local builders were familiar.

James S. and Alexander Power (who signed his name as "AP.") Waugh were sons of James Waugh, an officer in the Pennsylvania Line of the Revolutionary War, who purchased and settled on land near what would become New Wilmington, now Lawrence County, in the late 1790s. The first record of the younger James is his operating a general store on the road between Pulaski and New Bedford in what would become northwest Lawrence County.

In 1818, James Waugh moved his business to New Bedford, near the Ohio border, buying one of the original town lots and building his combination store and house. James and Jane Waugh's son William was born that same year. In the mid-1820s, James moved to Greenville and, with his brother AP, constructed the largest residence in the growing community. The house has been conclusively dated to 1826. According to the census records, A.P. Waugh never married and lived with his brother James and family all his adult life.

James Waugh served one term as Mercer County's delegate to Pennsylvania's House of Representatives from 1824 to 1825. This was an era of considerable political upheaval nationally, as Andrew Jackson defined the Democratic party, and various sectional issues reshaped the old political organizations.

One of the major issues in the mid-l820s was the State Works, a statewide transportation system intended to do for Pennsylvania what the Erie Canal did for New York State. A canal and railroad system would link Philadelphia, the Susquehanna River valley, the Allegheny—Monongahela—Ohio Rivers, and Lake Erie at Erie. When approved in 1826, the State Works was by far the most ambitious public improvement in Pennsylvania's history.

Although James Waugh's reasons for relocating to Greenville can never be known, from his political connections and understanding of the State Works legislation, he knew the canal would follow the Shenango River through Greenville, the largest and most prosperous community in Mercer County.

The Waugh brothers built a store in West Greenville (as the community would be known until the l 860's when the "West" was dropped) on the north side of Main Street at Front Street, very near the west bank of the Shenango River. Their large brick house was constructed at the western end of the same large lot, at the intersection of Main and Second streets. The store building was of frame construction and did not survive. By the mid-19ᵗʰ century, the center of Greenville's business district was along Main Street east of the Shenango. The older part of Greenville, west of the river where Waugh's house and store were located, became more residential.

The house is constructed of locally-produced orange-red brick, carefully sized but varying in quality. The manufacturer of the brick is not known. The wooden framing members of the Waugh House are high-quality clear lumber that is very uniform in size. The likely provider of the excellent lumber and perhaps the supervising carpenter/ builder of the Waugh House was Robert G. Mossman. Mossman was a local cabinetmaker and furniture builder who established a mill on the Shenango before 1820. Mossman had many business ties to the Waughs, and in 1836, he paid the Waughs $150 to buy land flooded by his mill dam.

Although little written record of the Waughs remains, they left their mark on Greenville's business and civic community. In addition to their retail store, which is recorded as the most significant business in Greenville, the Waughs owned tracts of land on which crops and cattle were raised. James and AP, as business partners, speculated in real estate throughout Mercer County. They established the first local iron furnace near town; this venture failed. The Waughs operated a lime kiln near the canal in Greenville and operated at least one canal boat (the "AP. Waugh"). A.P. Waugh was appointed the first postmaster of West Greenville in 1828.

James appears on lists of county residents licensed to sell foreign merchandise and imported liquor. Bills of lading for canal commerce from the 1840s document the Waughs' purchase for resale of candles, tobacco, yard goods, window glass, coffee, molasses, axles, soap, and many other staples of 19th-century commerce. Both brothers were active in different Presbyterian churches in Greenville, and both signed the successful 1836 petition to the state to create the Borough of West Greenville. A.P. was a horticulturist of some renown whose plant specimens won prizes in the Shenango Valley Agricultural and Mechanical Society's fairs. The brothers were founding members of the Shenango Valley Cemetery, a fine example of the park-like rural cemetery, and both are buried there.

James S. Waugh died in 1874, surviving AP by five years. The house was inherited by James's son William. William Waugh graduated from Western University, Pittsburgh (now the University of Pittsburgh), in 1838, studied with an attorney, and was admitted to the bar. William was active in politics as editor and publisher of the partisan Mercer County Whig, 1845-47. He was appointed an associate justice in 1850, conferring on him the title "Judge" he used for the rest of his life. Judge Waugh served in county offices until elected Cashier of Greenville's First National Bank in 1864. He was President of the bank from 1875 to 1888. A few months before Judge Waugh died in 1910 at almost 92 years of age, the University of Pittsburgh conferred on him an honorary degree; he was believed to be their oldest living graduate.

An investigation of the remnants of the wall coverings and a paint analysis reveal that the Waugh House was decorated in extraordinarily high style. Four major decorating campaigns are noted, which can be roughly dated by the layers of wallpaper to the 1830s, 1850s, 1870s, and 1890s. The paint analysis revealed that part of the crown molding in the southwest parlor on the first floor had been silver-leafed, probably as part of the 1850s (or perhaps the 1870s) decorating campaign. Silver leafing is a very unusual, expensive, and difficult-to-install treatment. The silver leaf was coated with yellow shellac or varnish to produce the appearance of gold. The surviving porch likely dates from a mid-19th-century remodeling and may have been added when the interior was made over.

The Waughs spent a considerable sum to keep their house among the most stylish in Greenville; it was one of the community's showplaces. From this fact, it may be inferred that it was essential for the Waughs to be perceived as trend setters in the community. The Waugh brothers and James's wife Jane likely were responsible for the first two of the four remodeling and redecorating campaigns. James's and Jane's son William and his wife Annie may have commissioned the other two. The apparent l 890's remodeling may be the most curious because Annie Waugh died in 1890, and William Waugh retired as President of First National Bank in 1888, and was 72 at the start of that decade.

The house passed from the Waugh family after "Judge" William Waugh's death. It is remembered as the home and office of a local general practitioner, Dr. Joseph Doyle. In the l930s and 1940s, the house was converted into inexpensive apartments, and many interior partitions were added to create small living units.

First National Bank of Greenville took possession of the Waugh House in the early l 990's after a failed attempt to rehabilitate the building, which would have renewed its use as apartments. The Greenville Area Historical Society purchased the Waugh House from the bank at the end of 1993. In 1996, the Historical Society funded carefully rebuilding the exposed stepped gables. In 1997, the front porch was restored, using its surviving original decorative elements, which had been removed and stored.