{"nrhp_refnum":"76000712","name":"Batavia Institute","other_names":["Fox Hill Home"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"333 S. Jefferson St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Batavia","county":"Kane County","state":"IL","lat":41.84461267800003,"lon":-88.31635244199998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1976-08-13","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story limestone building at 333 South Jefferson Street in Batavia, Kane County, Illinois, built in 1853-1854 as the Batavia Institute academy and later used as a sanitarium and a girls' home. Elijah Shumway Town was the builder.","why_significant":"It was built as a church-sponsored academy, a forerunner of public high schools, financed by five Batavians including Rev. Stephen Peet. After 1867 it became the Bellevue Place sanitarium, where Mary Todd Lincoln was a patient for a year. It later served as Fox Hill Home, a maternity and residential facility for girls.","narrative":"Built in 1853-1854 as the Batavia Institute, this three-story limestone building on South Jefferson Street in Batavia began as a church-sponsored academy. Five local men financed it, including Congregational minister Rev. Stephen Peet, who raised $12,000. The academy served as a high school, a public library and a home for two literary societies until tax-supported high schools made such academies unnecessary. In 1867 Dr. R. J. Patterson bought the property and converted it into a sanitarium for women with mental and nervous illnesses, called Bellevue Place. Mary Todd Lincoln stayed there for a year. Additions followed in 1871 and 1875, including mansard-roofed wings and a wooden portico. The interior remains largely unchanged, and iron rings once used to restrain patients survive in some upstairs rooms. The sanitarium operated until 1965, when Fox Hill Home opened as a maternity home and later a residential facility for adolescent girls. Only the main building is included in the listing.","period_of_significance":"1853 and 1867","architect_builder":"Elijah Shumway Town, builder.","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"At the time of nomination the building was in good condition and used as Fox Hill Home, a residential facility for girls. Later materials in the file (1981) describe it as vacant and facing possible demolition.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.089107-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/16/8932/28893216/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/76000712.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76000712/388f26cbc4-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76000712/388f26cbc4-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"G LeTourneau","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Batavia_Institute_(Batavia,_IL)_01.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">G LeTourneau</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Batavia_Institute_(Batavia,_IL)_01.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893216","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_Institute","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4868674"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/kane-county/batavia-institute-76000712/"}