The Jacob Rickenbaugh House

By Stephen Saalman

Rickenbaugh House--Celina House

Celina Lake, Oil Twp., Perry County, IN-1984

The Rickenbaugh House was built for Jacob Rickenbaugh in 1874. This house was constructed of sandstone blocks by hired Belgian masons and it served as home for his descendants until it's acquisition by the U.S. Forest Service in 1968, and for most of the period between 1878 and 1961 it was the Celina, Indiana, Post Office.

The house is unusual for the region in that it was built of stone by professional masons, blending a variant of the widespread I-house folk housing form with the Greek Revival decorative style which is inspired by architectural design. Also, the Rickenbaugh house was the location of a tannery business and a post office, as well as a farming concern. The Rickenbaugh house is located next to Celina Lake, a reservoir constructed in the 1970's, and has been placed on the National Register of Historical Places. The Rickenbaugh House is significant both for its historical association with Perry County, it's role as a post office and one family home, and for its architectural style and integrity. The position of postmaster was held by various women of the family, who operated the post office out of the corner of one of the parlors.

Jacob Rickenbaugh (1822 to 1910) was born in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and moved to Indiana In 1855, shortly after his marriage to Elizabeth Esther Kerr. In that year he purchased from J.D. Carmickle a parcel of land, in addition to others, on which he set up a tannery. Rickenbaugh chose the site for its abundance of Oak and Chestnut trees, the bark of which he used in his tanning process. This property included a log house which served as the Rickenbaugh home until the present house was built some 19 years later. The log house was located where the lake Celina boat launch parking lot is at present.

It is believed that the stonemason's employed by Rickenbaugh came from either St Croix, nearby communities, or Leopold's George brothers, and that after completion of the Rickenbaugh house they went to work on the abbey at St. Meinrad, which bear similar materials and construction techniques.

The sandstone is said to be local, but no specific quarry site is known; some accounts say that the rock was cut from outcrops near the house site. The cut stones are massive and heavy, because the walls of the house are solid stone. Oxen were used to transport the cut stone, and ramps were needed to place the stones, which were constructed along the walls to assist in stone laying; on the east or rear facade are depressions in the stone which, never filled in after construction, attest to the use and location of these ramps.

The floor plan of the new two-story house was simple. It was laid out in the shape of a "T" with its top at the front, and its leg forming a rear extension. The floor joists were made from massive hand-hewn beams.There were sandstone chimneys at each of the three ends. The front of the house was symmetrical, with four windows and two doors on the lower story and four windows on the upper story.

The interior plan was also simple, having just three rooms on each floor. The downstairs consisted of two parlors at the front of the house, each with its own outside door, and a kitchen in the rear extension. The upstairs consisted of three bedrooms. Each of the downstairs rooms had its own fireplace, the one in the kitchen used for both heating and cooking. A granddaughter of Jacob and Elizabeth, who grew up in the house in the early 1900's after her mother's death, remembers the house being warm in the winters and cool in the summers. The house had attic space under the roof, and a full basement.

The Rickenbaughs' granddaughter recalls that the house was sparsely furnished. There were two wooden beds in each of the three bedrooms, and each had a lower straw mattress while the upper mattress and pillows were filled with goose and duck feathers. A long wooden table in the kitchen was used for dining, and contained a drawer where pies were kept. The house had two spinning wheels, and the Rickenbaugh women made rag rugs on a loom that stood in one of the bedrooms.

The grounds had the usual array of outbuildings, including a barn, a granary, a chicken house, a privy, and a spring house. There were also the buildings and vats associated with Jacob's tannery business. His granddaughter remembers the farmstead property divided into pasture and field areas. There was a cane field, where cane for molasses was grown, and she also remembers apple trees behind the house. There were no trees in the front yard originally, and in the early 1900's cows and sheep were allowed to graze in the yard to keep the grass down. Two springs on the property provided the family with its water supply.

In the late 1870's, Jacob Rickenbaugh closed his tannery and turned to farming. At about the same time, in 1878, Ella Rickenbaugh, one of Jacob's 10 children, took over as postmistress from local blacksmith, George Hilt. Though only 17 years old, she was allowed to hold the job for which she was legally too young. In 1881 Ella married William Richards, and the postmaster-ship was passed to her mother, but she reacquired the position after the death of her husband in 1883. After the death of her mother in 1899, Ella turned the postmaster-ship over to Sarah Carmickle, only to become postmistress again a few years later, a position she held until 1941 when her daughter, Mrs Nola Blunk, took over duties.

During the early 1900's, the nearest store was in St. Croix, about three miles away, and the closest doctor in Bristow, seven miles away. The Rickenbaugh granddaughter remembers that her aunt, who lived in the stone house and raised her, tended to the sick in the neighborhood, and also acted as a midwife.

In 1961 the services of the Celina Post Office were no longer needed. The shelves in the south parlor which served as the repository for postal materials remain in the house. The Rickenbaugh house remained in the family until 1968 when it was acquired by the U.S. Forest Service. A further testimony to the Rickenbaugh family's long association with the site is the Rickenbaugh Cemetery, located approximately 100 yards to the north of the house. Several members of the Rickenbaugh family, including Jacob and Elizabeth, and members of the Carmickle family, are buried there.

The stone work on the house, though not unique, is of uncommonly fine quality, and its integrity has not diminished in spite of the time and neglect. Inside the house one can observe the quality and technique of construction, especially in the cellar where the hand-hewn beams and floor joists are quite sound, in the hand split lath, and in the woodwork which, though not always intact, is consistent with the overall simplicity in the high quality of the house.

Though the surroundings of the house have been altered and all other structures associated with the Rickenbaugh house have disappeared, including the buildings and school at Winding Branch, a small neighboring community which was located at the site of the present Lake Celina dam, the site now has an added integrity--being a part of the Hoosier National Forest and located on Lake Celina. The Rickenbaugh house is a point of interest for recreationists using the trails and the boat ramp, thus remaining a viable cultural resource in its new context, where its notable construction and integrity are highly visible. (Indiana University/Indianapolis University Library-Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory) https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/hoosier/specialplaces/... )

https://library.indianapolis.iu.edu/digitalcollections/IHSSI

History