Built in 1838–1839 for Revolutionary War veteran and Methodist minister Samuel Mitchell, Sr., and his wife, Eleanor, this stone house was owned and occupied by the Mitchell and Rountree families for nearly 120 years. Its design drew on elements commonly found in Virginia and Maryland, with a first floor arranged around a central hall flanked by a parlor and drawing room, and a dining room at the rear. Several members of the Mitchell family lived here, including their widowed daughter Ellen A. Gridley and her daughters, as well as Henry Christopher, who had originally been enslaved and given to the Mitchells by Eleanor’s parents in 1831 before Samuel, who preached against slavery habitually, immediately manumitted him. In 1854, Platteville founder John H. Rountree, the Mitchells’ son-in-law, purchased the home, which served as a school in the 1850s. Beginning in 1869, it was occupied by Rountree’s son Hiram and his wife, Sophia Aspinwall Rountree, whose family farmed the surrounding 40 acres and raised hogs for market. In 1894 a second floor was added to the dining room wing, other small additions were soon made to the north end, and the four Rountree daughters—Nellie, Laura, Bertha, and Mary—bought the house from the John H. Rountree estate. Bertha’s and Mary’s weddings were held inside the house in 1902, and Laura, who lived there her entire life, donated it to the Grant County Historical Society in 1959. The house reflects the migration of people from the East Coast to the lead mining district of the new Wisconsin territory and is associated with prominent citizens who shaped Platteville’s early history.