Town resists panel’s call to add house to landmark list

MALTA — The town’s Historic Preservation Review Commission believes a deteriorating house that was once the childhood home of Col. Elmer Ellsworth and is now for sale on Route 9 downtown should be designated a historic landmark.

Ellsworth, a friend of President Abraham Lincoln’s family, was one of the first casualties of the Civil War.

The current owner is opposed, however, to the designation. The Town Board, which would have to rule on the request, appears ambivalent because of that.

“I’ve told them I don’t want it. I don’t know how many times I have to tell them that. This is all going to go commercial, sooner or later,” said Robert Furman Jr., who grew up there and is now handling affairs for his elderly parents.

The small house at 2517 Route 9 is currently vacant and was put up for sale about a month ago with an asking price of $499,000. It’s on fourth-tenths of an acre in an area zoned for downtown commercial development with commercial activity on either side of it.

The house was Ellsworth’s home from 1837 to 1840, the first three years of his life, said Town Historian Teri Gay. His family then moved to Mechanicville, which also claims him as a native son. He is buried in Mechanicville.

“He’s an important native son of Malta for many reasons,” Gay said in a presentation to the Town Board Wednesday.

The landmark designation would put restrictions on the property’s future use to protect its historic character.

Furman said the house has lost much of its historic character already. It was moved off its original foundation when Route 9 was widened in the 1950s, and the house has been altered since Ellsworth’s time, he said.

Councilwoman Sue Nolen said the family’s position should be the deciding factor.

“To me, if they are not in favor of it, that’s like taking their property,” Nolen said. “I think it’s going to hinder the sale of the property.”

Town Supervisor Paul Sausville said he would favor holding a public hearing on the designation, as required by town law, then making a decision. “It wouldn’t hurt to go forward with a public hearing,” he said.

The house sits somewhat hidden, with a row of trees between it and Route 9, two lots north of the Stewart’s Shop at the roundabout. From the road, it appears in disrepair.

“Our recommendation is this is a favorable time to move forward with this designation,” said Gay. “As historian, it’s my job to protect what’s near and dear to us.”

Ellsworth gained celebrity with his death on May 24, 1861, and his close relationship with President Lincoln’s family.

A military buff in his youth, Ellsworth had read law in Lincoln’s Illinois law office, and became so close to the family he traveled with them to Washington after the 1860 presidential election, according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

As Kearns Goodwin recounts the story in her recent book on Lincoln, “Team of Rivals,” Ellsworth organized New York firemen into a unit of Zoaves, soldiers who were distinguished by their exotic and colorful uniforms. The 24-year-old was designated a colonel.

When Virginia seceded from the Union, Ellsworth’s Zoaves were among the first troops to cross the Potomac into Alexandria.

Spying a Confederate flag atop the Marshall Hotel, Ellsworth went up to the roof to confiscate it, and was shot to death by the seccessionist hotel owner as he came down the stairs.

“Ellsworth’s death, as one of the first casualties of the war, was national news and mourned across the country,” Kearns Goodwin writes. “The bereaved president wrote a personal note of condolence to Ellsworth’s parents, praising the young man whose body lay in state in the East Room [of the White House.]”

Ellsworth’s bloodied uniform is on display at the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center in Saratoga Springs.

Reach Reporter Stephen Williams at 885-6705 or swilliams@dailygazette.net.