A Nineteenth Century Migration
By Megan McKinney
Throughout the decade we have been co-publishing Classic Chicago Magazine—while also delving deeply into the history of the city’s prominent families—we’ve noted that a number of these families originated in Kentucky.
Little Bertha Honoré
Consider the Honorés, whose daughter Bertha, the future Mrs. Potter Palmer, would one day become Chicago’s most celebrated woman.
Henry Hamilton Honoré
In 1855, Louisville’s Henry Hamilton Honoré was a partner in his father’s Louisville hardware and cutlery business when he learned of an astonishing growth in the Chicago real estate market. The hardware partnership was indeed successful; however, the younger Mr. Honoré was tempted by the Chicago boom. He had married Louisville neighbor Eliza Carr and, although they were parents of six year old Bertha, decided to join Chicago’s West Side colony of Kentuckians.
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Above is 231 South Ashland Boulevard, the West Side home of, in succession,two great nineteenth century Louisville to Chicago families, Honoré and Harrison .
Although the gracious house of the patrician Honorés and later Harrisons was grander than those of many neighbors, it was representative. Others around it were also frequently backed by such outbuildings as classic Kentucky smokehouses and stables. And, in the district’s hospitable southern tradition, a lantern was often lit in a rooftop cupola, with the front gate swung open.
Carter H. Harrison III
Carter Harrison III, raised on a plantation in the Louisville area, sold the land and a hundred slaves to rid himself of the slavery tradition before moving to Chicago, becoming a real estate millionaire—and five times mayor of the city.
Carter H. Harrison IV
Mr. Harrison’s son, Carter Harrison IV, also was also five times Chicago’s mayor.
Like the Harrisons and Honorés to whom they were related, the Wallers were a Kentucky family that prospered handsomely in Chicago real estate during the mid to late nineteenth century. In 1849, James Breckinridge Waller, on a visit to Chicago, discovered the immediate and immense profits being made through property investment in the burgeoning city.
The William Waller house is now home to the Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1874, William, the eldest of the four Waller brothers, and his wife, Ann Adelia Johnson, a Louisiana belle, moved into a handsome mansion built for them—not on Chicago’s West Side but on North Dearborn Street. The house, which continues to attract attention today, is notable for its Italianate design, featuring a stone double bay façade, bracketed and ornamented cornice, arched windows and decorative keystones. Now home to the Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, the lovely exterior is largely unchanged. Inside, airy parlors with 14-foot ceilings display the work of academy members, and the top floor ballroom is a group studio where life classes are held. In the fine Kentucky tradition, gardens continue to bloom in front and back of the house. The estate was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Auhor photo: Robert F. Carl
