The Eugene Field House is a
historic house museum in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
. Built in 1845, it was the home of
Roswell Field
Roswell Martin Field (February 2, 1807 – July 12, 1869), was an American lawyer and politician. He served on the Vermont House of Representatives. Field was one of the attorneys for the enslaved Dred and Harriet Scott and their daughters in 1 ...
, an attorney for
Dred Scott in the landmark ''
Dred Scott v. Sandford'' court case. Field's son,
Eugene Field, was raised there and became a noted writer of children's stories. A
National Historic Landmark, it is now a museum known as the Field House Museum. (Previously known as The Eugene Field House & St. Louis Toy Museum.)
Description
The Field House is located just south of
Downtown St. Louis, at the northeast corner of South Broadway and Cerre Street. It is largely surrounded by parking lots, with
Interstate 64 a short way to the north. It is a three-story brick building, three bays wide, with a side gable roof whose end wall sections are raised. The entrance is in the leftmost bay, in a panelled recess. The windows have stone sills and lintels.
History
The house was built in 1845, and was once part of a row of similar buildings called Walsh's Row. Most of these were torn down in the 20th century. Threatened with demolition, the house was transferred to the St. Louis Board of Education in 1936. Restored with funding from local preservationists, it opened as a museum to Eugene Field later that year. It was turned over to the Landmarks Association of St. Louis in 1968, and to the Eugene Field House Foundation in 1981.
It was designated a
National Historic Landmark in 2007, for its association with attorney Roswell Field, who was Eugene Field's father, and a lead attorney for
Dred Scott. Field's legal work set the stage for Scott's final appeal to the
United States Supreme Court, which was rejected in the 1857 ''
Dred Scott v. Sandford'' decision, in which Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney issued a decision denying African Americans United States citizenship.
A plaque on the home was dedicated in 1902 with the help of author
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
, who announced it as the birthplace of Eugene Field. Field's brother Roswell, however, noted that he was born elsewhere. Twain brushed the fact aside, telling him, "Officially and for the purposes of the future, your brother was born here." The inaccurate plaque remains. The plaque reads: "Here was born Eugene Field, the Poet, 1850–1895".
[Sorby, Angela. ''Schoolroom Poets: Childhood, Performance, and the Place of American Poetry, 1865–1917''. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2005: 126. ]
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Missouri
*
References
Additional reading
Marguerite Martyn, "Memories of Eugene Field by His Son: 'Pinny' Field, in St. Louis, Says the Poet Was a Child When With Children," ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch,'' September 21, 1936, image 32
External links
Eugene Field House & St. Louis Toy Museum*
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National Historic Landmarks in Missouri
Houses in St. Louis
Houses completed in 1829
Landmarks of St. Louis
Museums in St. Louis
Toy museums in the United States
Historic house museums in Missouri
History museums in Missouri
Historic American Buildings Survey in Missouri
Field, Eugene House
National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis
Downtown St. Louis
1829 establishments in Missouri
Tourist attractions in St. Louis
Buildings and structures in St. Louis