The Seth Hays House is a historic house at 203 Wood Street in Council Grove,

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. Seth Hays, the first white settler in Council Grove, built the house in 1867. A

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

native, Hays originally moved to Council Grove to start a trading post for Boone & Hamilton; he eventually owned the trading post himself, and he also started a local newspaper and the town's first bank. The house was Hays' third in Council Grove; he built a

log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers. Eur ...

for himself in 1847, the year he settled in Council Grove, and moved to a brick dwelling in 1860. The 1867 house is a one-story

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

brick building with an L-shaped plan. While living in Missouri, Hays enslaved a woman named Sarah Taylor, also known as Aunt Sallie. After Kansas became a state and abolished slavery in 1861, she stayed with Hays as a servant, and she lived in the house's basement. The house was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on September 25, 1975.

References

National Register of Historic Places in Morris County, Kansas Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas Houses completed in 1867 {{Kansas-NRHP-stub