{"nrhp_refnum":"79003116","name":"Terwilliger House","other_names":["Colonial Farmhouse","Colonial House"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"E of Woodstock at Mason Hill and Cherry Valley Rds.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Woodstock","county":"McHenry County","state":"IL","lat":42.30616007900005,"lon":-88.35335945099996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-05-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story brick Greek Revival farmhouse with a cupola, built in 1849 on a hilltop 114-acre parcel east of Woodstock, McHenry County, Illinois, at Mason Hill and Cherry Valley Roads.","why_significant":"The house is presented as one of the many midwestern variations of Greek Revival residential architecture, built by a settler from upstate New York who brought advanced architectural ideas to the Illinois frontier. Its three-quarter colonnade, rectangular plan and hipped roof fit the style, while the square, undetailed cupola is an unusual innovation. Samuel Terwilliger was also the third white resident of Nunda Township and plowed its first land.","narrative":"Built in 1849 on a hilltop east of Woodstock, Illinois, this two-story brick farmhouse is an example of Greek Revival design adapted to the Midwest. Samuel Terwilliger, who came from upstate New York to Nunda Township in 1836, built it with locally made soft red brick on a fieldstone foundation. A porch with seventeen white, fluted Doric-based columns wraps the south, east and north sides beneath a hipped roof. At the center rises a square, plain cupola large enough to serve as a bedroom, likely used to watch the fields for fires. Inside, larger rooms, including a second-floor ballroom, have been divided, and the fireplaces were bricked up when a furnace was added in the 1930s. Terwilliger was the third white resident of the township and plowed its first land. The 114-acre property has stayed in his family's hands for more than a century and a quarter, and the house keeps its original exterior color scheme.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Samuel Terwilliger","architectural_style":"Greek Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Exterior in good condition and largely original; the interior has been subdivided, and the house is used as a residence for a tenant farmer and his family.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.695471-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/38/8936/28893638/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/79003116.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003116/17525f0faf-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003116/17525f0faf-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.5","author":"Andy McMurray","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terwilliger_House1.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Andy McMurray</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.5</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terwilliger_House1.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893638","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terwilliger_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7705376"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/mchenry-county/terwilliger-house-79003116/"}