Early Life
House was born in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest son of Ezekiel House, an architect and builder, and Susannah King. His father was an architect and builder, and at that time was assisting his brother Royal Earl House in perfecting and getting capital interest in his New Printing Telegraph.
In the spring of 1846 the House family moved to Little Meadows, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where they built a home on the side of a hill which was known as the Castle. There was a natural spring nearby, which was piped into the house to give running water, an unusual thing for those days. At that time there was no railroad to that part of the country, so in order to move their household goods from New York, they boarded a barge which was towed by steam up the Hudson River to Troy where it was taken through the lock into the Erie Canal and towed by horses to Ithaca on Lake Cayuga, New York. The last part of the trip was made by ox teams and the whole journey took over a month.
In 1852 the family moved to Owego, New York where there were better educational facilities. Here they lived by the Susquehanna River. The boys James and Henry built a boat and rigged it up like the side wheelers they had seen on the Hudson River. This they used to take people up the river on excursions and also to carry produce down the river, thus earning money with which to pay their father for the material used to build the boat.
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