Ira Couch (November 11, 1806—February 28, 1857) was an American businessman known for his real estate holdings in Chicago, as well as for establishing and running the city's Tremont House hotel. Couch posthumously obtained two further claims to notability. The first is that a legal dispute over the remaining portions of his estate was the subject of an 1891

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case. The second is that he is buried in what is now the last remaining marked grave in Chicago's

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...

. The land occupied by Lincoln Park had been the occupied by City Cemetery at the time of Couch's interment, but had seen corpses from the other marked graves relocated elsewhere beginning in the 1860s.

Life

Couch was born November 11, 1806 in

New York state New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

. In 1836, Couch and his elder brother James settled in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Couch worked as a

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

and

haberdasher In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothing, ...

. He ran a shop with his brother on Lake Street where they sold furnishing and tailoring supplies, but they sold the business less than a year after starting it. They soon

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

d the

rooming house A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-income people, as ...

they had been staying at, transforming it into the Tremont House hotel. It was located was next door to their former business at the corner or Lake and Dearborn. It became one of the earliest hotels in the city, and one of the city's most famous hotels of its day. The brothers would operate the hotel together. After the hotel was lost in a

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

four years later, he opened a new building at the opposite side of the intersection. This new building was also lost to fire in 1849. After that, they reconstructed the hotel again, building what was the city's first grand hotel. Couch became a

millionaire A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...

through acquisitions of land and

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

he and his brother made across the city's core. In 1853, Couch transferred the lease of the Tremont House to

David Allen Gage David Allen Gage (June 30, 1822 – April 11, 1889) was an American baseball executive, president of the Chicago White Stockings in 1870. New Hampshire-born David A. Gage, with his brother George W. Gage, were prominent Chicago businessmen in ...

and George W. Gage. Couch died at the age of 50 on February 28, 1857 during a winter stay with his family in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. Couch had fallen suddenly ill shortly before his death. His corpse was shipped back to Chicago, arriving on March 4. His funeral was held on March 6. At the time of his death, he was believed to be Chicago's second-wealthiest resident, after only

William B. Ogden William Butler Ogden (June 15, 1805 – August 3, 1877) was an American politician and railroad executive who served as the first Mayor of Chicago. He was referred to as "the Astor of Chicago." He was, at one time, the city's richest citizen. ...

and John Wentworth.

Legacy

The 1891

decision of Potter v. Couch pertained to his last

will and testament A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person ( executor) is to manage the property until its final distributi ...

, which was being litigated over by family and other claimants seeking shares of the remainder of Couch's estate. Couch's brother James Couch named his son born in 1848 Ira.

Tomb

After Couch's death, his family built a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

in Chicago's City Cemetery. He was entombed in it eighteen months after his death, making it his final resting place. The mausoleum was designed by John M. Van Osdel, who had also designed the grand reconstruction of the Tremont House. Its construction attracted great attention. Beginning in the 1860s, the city began relocating corpses from the cemetery and reinterring them elsewhere, and the land was transformed into

. Today, Couch's tomb is the only remaining marked grave in the land that was once occupied the City Cemetery. The tomb is located near the

Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the in ...

building.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Couch, Ira 1857 deaths Businesspeople from Chicago 1806 births American tailors