HISTORY OF THE VILLA
The Museum of Victorian Life and Joliet History was first simply just known as "the home of Hiram and Mrs. Scutt on Broadway street". That was the way everyone knew their home that way or in a less auspicious home it would have been known as 206 North Broadway Street. The people did not refer to their homes as estates, or any thing more. In fact many of the large homes were referred to as farms. Many of these homes, built overlooking Bluff Street and the Canal with all of the activity of the city. Mr. Scutt was originally from Long Island, New York. He did Serve in the Civil War with a statement from a member of Illinois Battery G writing of Mr. Scutt when both were in a hospital after both were wounded. It is also known Mr. Scutt was in DeKalb but that time is vague. He did return to Long Island but he returned to Illnois where he married his bosses daughter in Joliet. They lived on Cagwin Street about five blocks away where he lived while his house on Broadway was constructed. The man rom Battery G was Samuel Churchill one of the most highest decorated soldiers of the Civil War having received the Congressional Medal of Honor for Bravery during the Civil War. Mr. Scutt was but a teen ager teaching in northern Illinois when the Civil War broke out. He enliste in Battery G and served with honor having been wounded. He is buried in Oak Wood Cemetary on Cass St. in Joliet where many veteran of the Civil War buried. The grounds of his home were expansive and included barns where his horses lived and grazed on the grounds. This was a country house for him, his wife and his son. Bluff Street, on both sides of the street and both sides of the canal was the area of industry. There were mills both wood and steel, stables, coach works, hotels (where even President Lincoln stayed, brewies, dressmakers, and every kind of work businesses you could imagine. A bank on the east bank of the canal was the last business standing along the banks of the canal. Broadway had it's own history of which some still remains. The stone vernacular Greek revival teetering ever so precariously at the edge of Western and Broadway housed Governor Joel Mattson who lived in Joliet and who there was no record of until Magosky searched who lived in this impressive home so early. There was the German Lutheran school, small Greek revivals, The large home next to the Scutt home where the man who not only was mayor, founder or the fire department, and innovator of Soda Pop, J.D. Paige, the beautiful stone Greek Orthodox church, the last commercial limestone building, and on through the next block. Mr. Scutt was a mere 39 years old when he originally requested Hugo Boehme to design a large residence for him on this site but artistic differences reared their heads and eventually James Weese designed the building we see and visit today. It is very clearly designed by James Weese as he was widely known for his master of the Italianete and American or Second Empire. This is his best example and it is his best remaining example of that design. It is honored by being placed not only on the Joliet Register of Historic Places but on the National Register of Historic Places for both its design, its connection to the progress of Joliet, the development of barbed wire, and in the life of a great entrepreneur, Hiram B. Scutt. Mr. Scutt was a multi millionaire when his home was built as were many of his neighbors. The unique form of the arches are the same unique shape as the tunnel to the chambers to the area where the Templar Knight, De Molay was held captive for years. If you aim your camera proper it looks as if you are taking your photo through a special bottle or jar.
Many of the homes remaining on the block were designed James Weese and only a few by Hugo Boehme. We have been researching the records of the original owners back as far as we can. Ironically the Magosky family has previously owned the first Scutt home and the Weese home. The Weese home is no longer standing.
