Woodland Palace LbNA #38340
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Add Location| Owner: | Pitties  |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | Mar 17, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| City: | Kewanee |
| County: | Henry |
| State: | Illinois |
| Boxes: | 1 |
| Found by: | Pumpkinseedslenore |
|---|---|
| Last found: | May 1, 2021 |
| Status: | FFFFFFFFOF |
| Last edited: | Mar 17, 2008 |
In a small park, 3 miles East of Kewanee, IL just off US Rt. 34, is a house built in 1889 by a man named Fred Francis. Francis was a shy genius who retired at a young age and spent the rest of his life living in the woods with his wife, Jeanie. The house, dubbed Woodland Palace, became a showplace for Fred's many talents and interests. He was a mechanical engineer and mathematician, an inventor and builder, a poet and philosopher, an artist and lecturer and a true eccentric.
Fred and his home are featured in the book “Weird Illinois” by Troy Taylor (https://www.prairieghosts.com/weirdil.html). I have included the story at the end of this clue. It is lengthy, but I couldn't help sharing it with you, especially those of you who can't make it to the house for a tour.
From May through October, Woodland Palace is open daily for tours during daylight hours for a minimal fee of $2.00. I highly recommend touring this unique home. There are also 40 acres of woodland trails for hiking – camping is also available. Call 309-852-2611 or 309-852-0511 for more information.
Clues:
As you travel between Kewanee and Neponset on Rt. 34, you will see a sign for Francis Park/Woodland Palace. The sign will direct you north and in .4 miles you'll come upon the park (N 41° 16.703 W 089° 51.556). If it is off season, the entrance will be gated and you'll see a sign saying the park is closed. The caretaker, Cliff, said it is ok to venture in on foot as long as you don't do any damage. There are also quite a few geocaches in this park.
Head toward the house, take the tour if possible, when finished, check out the merry-go-round and miniature log cabin Fred made. Northwest of the log cabin, at the woods edge, you'll see trail map and sign for the “Living Museum”. Begin your short hike here staying on the trails until directed to go off trail. Take your 1st right – then the next left – you'll come to a T – right would be right (you'll be headed east at this point) – at the next T , go right. Very soon you'll come to a large fork (my daughter Agnes says it is more like an X), just before the fork – look to the right for a large fallen tree. This is the off trail / bushwhacking part I mentioned earlier! From here make your way to the root end of this giant. You should find “our” Woodland Palace (think outside the "box")! Please take note of how the letterbox is placed so you can replace it exactly as it was found. Thank you for seeking! Updates appreciated on Atlasquest , Letterboxing.org or email Ltmarselle@msn.com.
**********************************************************************************
Below is the entire story of Fred and Jeanie and their Woodland Palace as told in “Weird Illinois”:
In 1874, he became the first student from Kewanee to attend the Illinois Industrial University (which later became the University of Illinois). Fred designed and helped build and install the “Class of '78” clock, now in the North Tower of the Illini Union. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and took a job with the Elgin Watch Company in Elgin, IL, where he designed and built tools to manufacture and assemble watches. While working there he obtained several patents. Fred received royalties for this and other inventions, and the payments continued after he left the company in 1889. Eventually, he received so much money from the Elgin company that we wrote them a letter and told them they had already paid him enough for him to live the rest of his life comfortably. He asked that they discontinue the payments, and the company reluctantly agreed.
In Elgin, he met Jeanette Crowfoot, a widow with four grown children. They married in 1890 and never had any children of their own.
Fred was atheist, but he believed in reincarnation (and would eat no meat, fearing that if he did, he might be eating one of his ancestors) and in Physical Culture, a philosophy developed in the latter part of the 1800s by Bernarr MacFadden. The main tenet of the belief was that a person should always be actively doing something, whether for the sake of work or just for exercise. The culture advocated daily exercise and long walks. Preferably, these walks would occur in a place where people could remove their shoes and socks, thus allowing minerals to be absorbed into their bare feet. Physical Culture also promoted nudism, which was referred to as taking an “air bath”.
Kewanee area residents frequently saw Fred riding his bicycle into town. Normally, he wore no shirt, hat or shoes, just light-colored pants, no matter what the weather was outside. He never shaved his beard and was said to look like a wild man.
Many wondered what attracted a delicate woman like Jeanie to an unusual character like Fred. Perhaps it was just his good nature and warm heart, but everyone agreed that she adored him.
The pair often traveled about on their bicycle, which was their only means of transportation. He put a platform over the front wheel to carry supplies and provide a place for his wife to ride. He wore a rear view mirror on a wire loop that was placed on top of his head so that he could keep an eye on traffic approaching him from behind. He was remembered for biking the nearly 5 miles to Neponset to take Jeanie to church.
Tragically, Jeanie contracted tuberculosis around 1910. She spent the last years of her life in a solarium that Fred added onto the house for her. He hung a bell outside the house and attached a string to Jeanie's chair so that she could summon him if he was outside in the yard. The love of Fred's life died in October 1921, leaving him utterly alone in his magnificent house.
Fred had begun to build Woodland Palace in the autumn of 1889 on 60 acres of timberland. Using brick, stone, and wood that he cut from the land, he did all the labor himself. He followed no particular form of architecture; consequently, the home possesses no real architectural style. Its bricks were purchased from a local brickyard, but Fred chipped each one of them by hand, removing the soft spots and giving them a striking appearance. He added stained glass windows to the building just because he liked the look and installed a dome that was made by a tinsmith in Sheffield. He placed it on a white limestone tower that made the house look like the palace it was named for.
On the south side of the structure were two screened porches that could be entered only from the interior of the house. The one on the west side was Jeanie's; the one on the east was Fred's. Among the many oddities of the house were the “missing bricks” openings, which could be found on all four sides of the home. They were part of a system that Fred devised to provide heat to the floors and walls of the basement. He had a heat exchanger installed on the vent pipe for the furnace that heated the house. Heat from the furnace's exhaust warmed exterior air that was drawn into the structure by a windmill-driven fan a the base of an adjacent pipe. The warmed air was then directed under the floorboards in the basement via ducts in the walls and out through the “missing brick” ventilator openings. In this way, Fred was able to capture some of the wasted heat from the furnace and return it to the home to heat the floors and walls and to keep the basement dry.
Fred also had an air-cooling system that was run by the windmill. He achieved this by running a clay pipe underground from the lower level of the house and into the nearby woods. Air from the forest, cooled to about fifty-five degrees under the ground, was drawn into the pipe by a fan powered by the windmill.
The hot water heater was another invention ahead of its time. Under the stairs was a force pump that provided pressure to run water to the kitchen. The exhaust from the kitchen stove was routed into a pipe that surrounded the pressure pump and warmed the water in the pipe. There was a spigot to draw hot water from the pump, giving the house hot running water.
The fireplace room was north of the coach room. The artwork on the copperplate of the fireplace was done by Fred, but the marble plaques under the mantel were made in Italy. He sent a picture of himself, draped only in a towel, bare-chested, right arm upraised and bicep flexed to a marble cutter to have the statues made. Today, it looks as though the marble version of Fred is supporting the mantel on his upraised arm.
Just west of the fireplace room is the solarium addition that Fred built for Jeanie after she contracted tuberculosis. He designed it so that the air changed every 60 seconds to provide her with a constant supply of fresh air.
After Jeanie's death, Fred continued working on Woodland Palace, declaring the he would put the finishing touches on the house on his 100th birthday. To alleviate his sorrow, he began inviting people to his home, where he gave lectures on his ideas, opinions, and philosophies. Sometimes he talked about plants, food, or wildlife; other he read poetry and sang.
He especially liked to entertain schoolchildren and built a merry-go-round for their enjoyment. He allowed people to visit the grounds of his home and use the woods for picnics and nature walks. He placed a sign at the entrance to the land that stated. “Stop, read this – grounds are free for all who do right, and all such are welcome. Those who throw paper and rubbish on the ground , or lets kids do so are cordially invited to stay away.”.
As he aged, Fred arranged a signal with the mailman. If the flag on the mailbox was not up, he should check to see if Fred needed help or night be injured. On December 26, 1926, the flag was not raised. Worried, the mailman went to the house and peered into the back door, where he saw Fred lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Fred had died from a self-inflicted gunshot would, leaving a note behind that said that the pain from a hernia could no longer be tolerated.
In his will, Fred wrote that he wanted to be cremated on his own land. He included instructions on how to build a funeral pyre and said that he wanted to be left burning until all the mourners had left. Unfortunately for Fred, state law prohibited bodies to burned in the open, and so he was taken to a crematory in Iowa, and then returned to Kewanee, where he was buried in Pleasant View Cemetery. Much to the dismay of his relatives, Fred left his entire estate to the city of Kewanee, and it has maintained Woodland Palace ever since. It remains today as a tribute to a remarkable and eccentric man.
Fred and his home are featured in the book “Weird Illinois” by Troy Taylor (https://www.prairieghosts.com/weirdil.html). I have included the story at the end of this clue. It is lengthy, but I couldn't help sharing it with you, especially those of you who can't make it to the house for a tour.
From May through October, Woodland Palace is open daily for tours during daylight hours for a minimal fee of $2.00. I highly recommend touring this unique home. There are also 40 acres of woodland trails for hiking – camping is also available. Call 309-852-2611 or 309-852-0511 for more information.
Clues:
As you travel between Kewanee and Neponset on Rt. 34, you will see a sign for Francis Park/Woodland Palace. The sign will direct you north and in .4 miles you'll come upon the park (N 41° 16.703 W 089° 51.556). If it is off season, the entrance will be gated and you'll see a sign saying the park is closed. The caretaker, Cliff, said it is ok to venture in on foot as long as you don't do any damage. There are also quite a few geocaches in this park.
Head toward the house, take the tour if possible, when finished, check out the merry-go-round and miniature log cabin Fred made. Northwest of the log cabin, at the woods edge, you'll see trail map and sign for the “Living Museum”. Begin your short hike here staying on the trails until directed to go off trail. Take your 1st right – then the next left – you'll come to a T – right would be right (you'll be headed east at this point) – at the next T , go right. Very soon you'll come to a large fork (my daughter Agnes says it is more like an X), just before the fork – look to the right for a large fallen tree. This is the off trail / bushwhacking part I mentioned earlier! From here make your way to the root end of this giant. You should find “our” Woodland Palace (think outside the "box")! Please take note of how the letterbox is placed so you can replace it exactly as it was found. Thank you for seeking! Updates appreciated on Atlasquest , Letterboxing.org or email Ltmarselle@msn.com.
**********************************************************************************
Below is the entire story of Fred and Jeanie and their Woodland Palace as told in “Weird Illinois”:
In 1874, he became the first student from Kewanee to attend the Illinois Industrial University (which later became the University of Illinois). Fred designed and helped build and install the “Class of '78” clock, now in the North Tower of the Illini Union. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and took a job with the Elgin Watch Company in Elgin, IL, where he designed and built tools to manufacture and assemble watches. While working there he obtained several patents. Fred received royalties for this and other inventions, and the payments continued after he left the company in 1889. Eventually, he received so much money from the Elgin company that we wrote them a letter and told them they had already paid him enough for him to live the rest of his life comfortably. He asked that they discontinue the payments, and the company reluctantly agreed.
In Elgin, he met Jeanette Crowfoot, a widow with four grown children. They married in 1890 and never had any children of their own.
Fred was atheist, but he believed in reincarnation (and would eat no meat, fearing that if he did, he might be eating one of his ancestors) and in Physical Culture, a philosophy developed in the latter part of the 1800s by Bernarr MacFadden. The main tenet of the belief was that a person should always be actively doing something, whether for the sake of work or just for exercise. The culture advocated daily exercise and long walks. Preferably, these walks would occur in a place where people could remove their shoes and socks, thus allowing minerals to be absorbed into their bare feet. Physical Culture also promoted nudism, which was referred to as taking an “air bath”.
Kewanee area residents frequently saw Fred riding his bicycle into town. Normally, he wore no shirt, hat or shoes, just light-colored pants, no matter what the weather was outside. He never shaved his beard and was said to look like a wild man.
Many wondered what attracted a delicate woman like Jeanie to an unusual character like Fred. Perhaps it was just his good nature and warm heart, but everyone agreed that she adored him.
The pair often traveled about on their bicycle, which was their only means of transportation. He put a platform over the front wheel to carry supplies and provide a place for his wife to ride. He wore a rear view mirror on a wire loop that was placed on top of his head so that he could keep an eye on traffic approaching him from behind. He was remembered for biking the nearly 5 miles to Neponset to take Jeanie to church.
Tragically, Jeanie contracted tuberculosis around 1910. She spent the last years of her life in a solarium that Fred added onto the house for her. He hung a bell outside the house and attached a string to Jeanie's chair so that she could summon him if he was outside in the yard. The love of Fred's life died in October 1921, leaving him utterly alone in his magnificent house.
Fred had begun to build Woodland Palace in the autumn of 1889 on 60 acres of timberland. Using brick, stone, and wood that he cut from the land, he did all the labor himself. He followed no particular form of architecture; consequently, the home possesses no real architectural style. Its bricks were purchased from a local brickyard, but Fred chipped each one of them by hand, removing the soft spots and giving them a striking appearance. He added stained glass windows to the building just because he liked the look and installed a dome that was made by a tinsmith in Sheffield. He placed it on a white limestone tower that made the house look like the palace it was named for.
On the south side of the structure were two screened porches that could be entered only from the interior of the house. The one on the west side was Jeanie's; the one on the east was Fred's. Among the many oddities of the house were the “missing bricks” openings, which could be found on all four sides of the home. They were part of a system that Fred devised to provide heat to the floors and walls of the basement. He had a heat exchanger installed on the vent pipe for the furnace that heated the house. Heat from the furnace's exhaust warmed exterior air that was drawn into the structure by a windmill-driven fan a the base of an adjacent pipe. The warmed air was then directed under the floorboards in the basement via ducts in the walls and out through the “missing brick” ventilator openings. In this way, Fred was able to capture some of the wasted heat from the furnace and return it to the home to heat the floors and walls and to keep the basement dry.
Fred also had an air-cooling system that was run by the windmill. He achieved this by running a clay pipe underground from the lower level of the house and into the nearby woods. Air from the forest, cooled to about fifty-five degrees under the ground, was drawn into the pipe by a fan powered by the windmill.
The hot water heater was another invention ahead of its time. Under the stairs was a force pump that provided pressure to run water to the kitchen. The exhaust from the kitchen stove was routed into a pipe that surrounded the pressure pump and warmed the water in the pipe. There was a spigot to draw hot water from the pump, giving the house hot running water.
The fireplace room was north of the coach room. The artwork on the copperplate of the fireplace was done by Fred, but the marble plaques under the mantel were made in Italy. He sent a picture of himself, draped only in a towel, bare-chested, right arm upraised and bicep flexed to a marble cutter to have the statues made. Today, it looks as though the marble version of Fred is supporting the mantel on his upraised arm.
Just west of the fireplace room is the solarium addition that Fred built for Jeanie after she contracted tuberculosis. He designed it so that the air changed every 60 seconds to provide her with a constant supply of fresh air.
After Jeanie's death, Fred continued working on Woodland Palace, declaring the he would put the finishing touches on the house on his 100th birthday. To alleviate his sorrow, he began inviting people to his home, where he gave lectures on his ideas, opinions, and philosophies. Sometimes he talked about plants, food, or wildlife; other he read poetry and sang.
He especially liked to entertain schoolchildren and built a merry-go-round for their enjoyment. He allowed people to visit the grounds of his home and use the woods for picnics and nature walks. He placed a sign at the entrance to the land that stated. “Stop, read this – grounds are free for all who do right, and all such are welcome. Those who throw paper and rubbish on the ground , or lets kids do so are cordially invited to stay away.”.
As he aged, Fred arranged a signal with the mailman. If the flag on the mailbox was not up, he should check to see if Fred needed help or night be injured. On December 26, 1926, the flag was not raised. Worried, the mailman went to the house and peered into the back door, where he saw Fred lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Fred had died from a self-inflicted gunshot would, leaving a note behind that said that the pain from a hernia could no longer be tolerated.
In his will, Fred wrote that he wanted to be cremated on his own land. He included instructions on how to build a funeral pyre and said that he wanted to be left burning until all the mourners had left. Unfortunately for Fred, state law prohibited bodies to burned in the open, and so he was taken to a crematory in Iowa, and then returned to Kewanee, where he was buried in Pleasant View Cemetery. Much to the dismay of his relatives, Fred left his entire estate to the city of Kewanee, and it has maintained Woodland Palace ever since. It remains today as a tribute to a remarkable and eccentric man.