William Howard Taft National Historic Site - History

History

William Howard Taft's father, Alphonso Taft, came to Cincinnati from Vermont in 1839 to establish a law practice. He moved his family to this house ten years later. Alphonso Taft became an early supporter of the Republican Party in Cincinnati. He lived in this house with his large extended family. He would eventually serve as the 31st United States Secretary of War and the 35th United States Attorney General.

The house is believed to have been built in the 1840s by a family named Bowen. Alphonso bought the house at 60 Auburn Street (now 2038 Auburn Avenue), with its accompanying 2 acres (8,100 m2), for $10,000 on June 13, 1851. Mount Auburn was once a popular area to live for upper-class Cincinnatians, as it allowed those of higher incomes to escape the sweltering heat and humidity of downtown Cincinnati summers. The Taft residence, a Greek Revival domicile, was actually quite modest compared to other nearby residences, which were a mix of Second Empire, Italianate, and Georgian Revival.

Alphonso's wife Fanny Phelps Taft died a year after the family moved to the Mount Auburn residence, in June 1852. In 1854 Alphonso remarried, choosing a schoolteacher from Massachusetts named Louise Torrey. Louise Taft would give birth to their second child, William Howard Taft, in the house on September 15, 1857, presumably in the first-floor nursery in the rear ell. (The first child had died at age fourteen months from whooping cough.) Alphonso had six children living in the house, two by Fanny (three others had died beforehand) and four by Louise.

The house was used for social events. Visitors included many local and state dignitaries, including future President James A. Garfield. Rugs in the parlor were often rolled up for dancing. Family activities took place in the library; Alphonso was an avid book collector.

William would live in the house until he went to Yale University in 1874. Afterward, the Taft family would spend less time in the house, starting when Alphonso served in the Ulysses S. Grant administration. In 1878 a fire damaged the second floor and roof. Alphonso and Louise would lease the house in 1889, moving to California for health reasons. William had married three years earlier, and the rest of the Taft children had moved out previously as well. In May 1891 Alphonso died in San Diego, California, and was buried in Cincinnati; the tenants of the Auburn house allowed the mourners to gather at the house for the funeral. Louise eventually was able to sell the house outright, after ten years of trying, in 1899 to Judge Albert C. Thompson, after returning to her home town of Millbury, Massachusetts, to live with her sister.