Folsom House

William Henry Carmen Folsom, a St. Croix River Valley lumberman and land speculator, chose this imposing site for his home in 1854. He, his wife Mary Jane, and their two small sons lived in an open barn on the property to prove up the claim while the five-bedroom house, reflecting both Federal and Greek Revival styles, was built. In 1855, after the family moved in, Mary Jane wrote to relatives in Maine, "We shall have plenty of room for as many as will come." Folsom arrived in Taylors Falls in 1850 and became active in both business and community development there. Although he ran a store for 24 years, he also helped operate a gristmill, a copper mining company, a bridge company, and a cemetery association. A member of the 1857 state constitutional convention, he served five terms as state senator and one as representative. In his spare time, he wrote "Fifty Years in the Northwest," which remains a respected source of information on the early years of settlement in the area. A wagon shed and stable, barn, icehouse, chicken coop, outhouse, and wellhouse once surrounded the main building; of these, only the wellhouse remains, although the present garage was made with timbers from the barn.

St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin · United States