Description of Historic Place

The building at 10568 Highway 2 (Danforth Road), known as Barnum House, is situated within a rural landscape on a slight rise, on the north side of Highway 2, slightly west of the Town of Grafton in Alnwick/Haldimand Township in Northumberland County. The two-storey wood building was designed in the Neo-Classical style and was constructed circa 1820.

The property was designated as a National Historic Site by the Government of Canada in 1959. The Ontario Heritage Foundation (now the Ontario Heritage Trust) purchased the property in 1982.

Heritage Value

Barnum House is a local landmark situated on a treed country road within a rural landscape. It is built on a slight rise in the land with a white picket fence surrounding the property.

Eliakim Barnum, born in 1784 in the United States, immigrated as a late Loyalist to Haldimand Township, Upper Canada, in c. 1807. He purchased 100 acres of land on the southern half of Lot 23, Concession 1, in 1812, from James Norris. Despite the sale, Norris continued to live in his house, already built on the property. It was accidentally destroyed by fire, set by soldiers quartered in his home, during the War of 1812. Norris was left financially devastated and sold the other half of Lot 23 to Barnum, in 1814. In about 1819, Barnum built a two-storey neoclassical structure on the foundations of Norris' home. The family operated a grist mill, tavern and distillery, but the majority of their revenue came from farming. Eliakim lived to the age of 94, and was a prominent member of his community; as Justice of the Peace, Lieutenant-Colonel of the local militia, and a founder of St. George's Anglican Church in Grafton. After Eliakim's death, the property transferred to his eldest son, Smith. In 1917 Smith Barnum's sons sold the property to Harry and Rose Prentice. During the Prentices' tenancy, Eric Arthur, founding member of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) made several visits to the home, and, it was bought by the ACO in 1939. The ACO restored the house and it opened as Ontario's first house museum in 1940. An image of the house is still used as the logo for the ACO. With Canada's focus on World War II and a lack of funds, the museum closed a year later. In 1958, Haldimand Township purchased the property from the ACO for $1.00 and re-established the house as a museum. The house was purchased by the Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1982, restoration was undertaken, and it was opened as a house museum, in 1991. The museum is currently not open to the public.

Barnum House is a notable neoclassical designed timber frame house, built in c. 1819. It has a two-storey centre block and two one-storey symmetrical wings. The front façade of the house is clad in flushboard, but all of the other elevations are clad with clapboard. The centre block is decorated with pilasters, elliptical arcading over the second storey windows and a pediment with a false fanlight. The pilasters flanking the six-panelled entrance door support a 12-paned semi-circular transom within a broken pediment. Windows on the front façade are single hung, 12 over 12 paned units, with shutters. Triglyphs and metopes adorn the frieze of the centre block and its wings.

Original interior elements include the east and west wing's fireplaces, surrounded by an “Adamesque” (a design type popular in the United States and Scotland in the late 18th century employed by Loyalist settlers) mantel, and the kitchen's cooking fireplace and bake oven cover nine feet of the south wall. The large room on the second floor, was used as a ballroom, and has three windows overlooking the property. In 1840, heating stoves were installed in the home and an east kitchen was added. In the 1870s, a woodshed was attached to the back of the centre block. In 1991 the house was restored and an addition was constructed at the north end of the house.

Beginning in 1982, archaeologists from the Ontario Heritage Foundation carried out a number of excavations on the Barnum House property. Findings included evidence that the James Norris house was destroyed by fire around 1812. Over 36,000 artefacts were recovered. Artefacts dating from the Barnum period indicated that the family lived an elegant lifestyle from the 1820s to the 1850s. The sites of the former west verandah, north woodshed, carriage house and east kitchen were also excavated.

Source: Ontario Heritage Trust Property Files.

Character-Defining Elements

Character defining elements that contribute to the heritage value of the Barnum House include its:
- features of the Neo-classical style
- louvered shutters; amongst the earliest in Ontario
- timber frame construction
- front façade with flushboard finish
- clapboard cladding
- front façade decorated with pilasters and elliptical arcading over the second storey windows
- centre block's pediment ornamented with a false half fanlight
- triglyphs and metopes on the frieze of the centre block and wings
- pilasters flanking the six-paneled entrance door
- broken pediment protecting a 12-pane fanlight
- side hall floor plan
- east and west wing's original fireplace surrounded by an Adamesque mantel
- east and west wing's original cable moulding, and chair rail with reed banding
- evidence of a rear staircase which leads from the kitchen to the upstairs north bedroom
- kitchen's cooking fireplace and bake oven which spanned 9 feet across the south wall
- ballroom on the second floor, with 3 windows, overlooking the property
- original foundations of the James Norris house, now supporting the Barnum House
- collection of 36, 000 recovered artefacts
- pieces of 73 ceramic vessels including plain creamware plates, blue shell-edged plates, and blue printed pearlware teacups which date to the early 1800's
- location in a rural setting
- siting on a treed County road
- white picket fence, surrounding the front yard