History of the Shaw House

our present office

 

 

The house was built in 1835 (almost 100 years before Memorial Hospital was built) and is one

of the oldest homes in Owosso. Originally the house was in a forested area on a dirt road.

The original abstract to the house was hand written.

 

The property originally had two full city lots across the front and another city lot across the back. There are six black walnut trees on the lot. The black walnut tree closest to the fence line is one of the oldest black walnut trees in Owosso and is very valuable. Also at one time there was a small vineyard in the back yard. A large oak tree once stood on the property but it was struck by lightening.

 

Lyman and Jane Woodard bought the house from Dr. A.L. Arnold in 1944 and owned the house for many years. Even after they moved out of the house they continued to own the house and rented it. Some of the renters were Dr. Clifford and Howard Sherman. Eventually the Sherman’s bought the house in 1970. Pat and Jim Shaw’s daughter Jamie was a close friend of Suzie Sherman and she heard that they were moving through her friend so the Shaw’s asked if they could buy the house. Therefore the house was sold and never put on the market. The Shaw family owned the house for 35 years until Memorial Healthcare took it over in 2005.

 

The original house was the brick (center part) of the house. The Woodard’s added the sun room on the East side and the bedroom on the West side of the house around 60 years ago. The Sunroom has a slate floor like the front porch and originally was not heated. There were two windows identical to the other windows in the room on the North side. The Shaw’s had the two windows removed and a firewall installed in preparation for installing a wood burning stove but the wood burning stove was never installed when they decided to put in a heating system. The wall between the sunroom and the dining room had just a single door opening and Pat Shaw had the doorway enlarged which also helped with the heating of the rest of the house.

 

The fireplace wall in the living room and the dining room North wall window and cupboards were designed by Gordon Graham.

 

The dining room has wide plank wooden floors under the carpeting. There are also wood floors in the living room. The living room wood floors were nicer around the outside perimeter of the room and not so nice in the center of the room which was probably originally covered by a

large carpet.

 

The neighbor across the street said that at one time the owners of the house were two men that made their living as “honey dippers”. A “honey dipper” is a person that cleaned out-houses.

 

There were originally two sets of basement steps. The Shaws had the ones that ran under the stairway near the living room removed and enlarged the bathroom to include a shower.

 

Memorial Healthcare offered the house to Respite Volunteers of Shiawassee in November of 2008 to be used as their offices.