Built by a master carpenter from New York, the Hardin residence, which once stood at 1335 East Broadway, served as the first clubhouse for Monmouth Country Club.

Hardin’s East Broadway residence became clubhouse

Jeff Rankin
5 min readJan 8, 2020

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MONMOUTH, Ill. — During the 1850s, a master carpenter from New York named William Webster built a magnificent Greek Revival-style residence on the site of Monmouth’s Pattee Park. It was moved in 1930 to make way for an automobile tourist camp, but still stands at 201 North 9th St.

Webster built another fine home for Monmouth industrialist Chauncey Hardin, who hailed from the same county in New York and may have been responsible for summoning Webster to Monmouth.

Hardin’s Italianate country home, built in the 1860s, stood at 1335 East Broadway, just down the road from the Webster house at 1204 East Broadway. By the time the above photo was taken in the mid-1880s, the house belonged to his son, Delevan S. “Dell” Hardin.

Dell Hardin followed in his father’s footsteps as a successful merchant, banker and entrepreneur. Born on a farm in Tompkins Township in 1844, he joined his father’s hardware business on Monmouth’s Public Square in 1863, while a student at Monmouth College. At age 20, he enlisted in the Union Army, and following that service he resumed his work at the hardware store.

In 1866, Hardin married Mary Parsons, the daughter of a livestock dealer who had immigrated from England. Always a private man, Hardin kept the impending marriage a secret, even going so far as going to work in the hardware store on the day of his wedding.

Hardin left the hardware business in 1870 to become assistant cashier of the newly organized Monmouth National Bank, working under its president, his father’s cousin, Abner C. Harding. In 1873, he moved to Dodge Center, Minnesota, where he organized a bank in association with his father, eventually running it himself. In 1882, the bank was sold and Dell moved back to Monmouth.

Delevan S. Hardin used the Italianate residence built by his father on Broadway as a country home, after he constructed his own house on South First Street.

When Chauncey purchased a new home at 608 East Broadway, Dell and his wife moved into the old family residence at 1335 East Broadway. There they raised three children — Everett, born 1869; Nellie, born 1875; and Mary, born 1883. (Mary is the child pictured sitting in a wagon on the front porch.) For the next 10 years, Hardin would devote much of his time to developing farms in Warren County. In 1884, he also became a partner in the Hardin McCoy shoe store on the Public Square.

After the death of his father in 1892, Hardin was elected a director of the Second National Bank, which Chauncey had founded in 1874. Desiring to reside in a more fashionable neighborhood, he built a grand Queen Anne-style home at 323 South 1st St., while continuing to use the old house on East Broadway as a country home. During this period, he also served as director and secretary of the Edison Illuminating Co., which he had helped organize in 1889. That same year, he also helped establish the Weir Pottery Co., and became its vice president. Following the death of company founder William S. Weir in 1901, Hardin was named president of the firm.

In 1899, Hardin offered his 38-acre Broadway property as a potential site for the future Western Illinois University for the price of $20,000. Macomb, of course, was ultimately selected as the site. Also in 1899, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Monmouth.

After he became associated with the Second National Bank of Monmouth, Dell Hardin built a grand Queen Anne Style home at 323 South 1st St.

As would be expected of a leading capitalist, Hardin and his wife were active in Monmouth social circles. While it was common for the wealthy class to throw lavish parties and host balls in their homes, this was increasingly considered an inconvenience and by the turn of the 20th century, a movement to construct a private country club was gaining momentum — coincident with the growing popularity of golf.

The Monmouth Golf Club was organized in 1900, and the following year it was reorganized as Monmouth Country Club. The Hardins offered to lease their home on East Broadway as the clubhouse, and a nine-hole course was constructed to the south. By 1902, the club had become so popular (with 200 members), that it was decided to construct a new clubhouse at the end of a lane on South 11th Street at 3rd Avenue.

After Weir Pottery was sold to Western Stoneware in 1905, Hardin was named vice president of the Second National Bank. Upon the death of its president in 1912, he again assumed the office, holding it until the age of 77 in 1921. Despite his advanced age, Hardin maintained a rigorous schedule at the bank, except for wintering in California — a habit adopted by many of Monmouth’s wealthy citizens.

On July 16, 1921, Hardin died suddenly from a bowel obstruction. His widow continued to occupy the Hardin home on South 1st until her death in 1926.

According to the late Monmouth historian Ralph Eckley, the original Hardin house at 1335 East Broadway served as a home for a family of Belgian refugees during World War I. That family’s name was Cochel, and descendants who changed the spelling to “Cokel” still reside in Monmouth. The house was apparently razed before 1920, but in the fall of 1921 the farm on which it stood was in the news, as the celebrated aviator A. G. McMann from Davenport, Iowa, fell to his death there in a plane crash witnessed by thousands of spectators.

The Broadway property remained in the Hardin family through Dell Hardin’s youngest daughter, Mary, who married Fred B. Pattee, son of Monmouth’s prominent plow maker, J. Howard Pattee. Although Mary died in 1944, her husband and her son, Fred H. Pattee, built a modern ranch home on the site in 1949.

Jeff Rankin is an editor and historian for Monmouth College. He has been researching, writing and speaking about western Illinois history for more than 35 years.

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Jeff Rankin
Jeff Rankin

Written by Jeff Rankin

Retired editor and historian for Monmouth College. Avid researcher of western Illinois history for 40 years. FB and Twitter. jrankin@monmouthcollege.edu

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