Ewing Hall - history

HENN, JORDAN

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 5/20/2006 at 20:52:55

"Fairfield Ledger", Mon., Aug. 27, 1928, Pg. 8

(Photo of Ewing Hall) The Home of Music on Parsons Campus. EWING HALL. Once the home of Bernhart HENN, a prominent citizen of Fairfield in its early days. One of the wealthy and influential men of Iowa in the days before the Civil War. He served in Congress from 1851 to 1855, and when he returned to Fairfield his fortune was estimated at half a million dollars... Most of what is now the north half of the city once belonged to him. It was not strange that such a man should wish to build a luxurious and costly home.... After its completion the HENN mansion was the center of society for Jefferson County... The panic of 1857 almost wiped out the HENN fortune, however, and when Bernhart HENN died in 1865 the house, with 40 acres surrounding it, was sold to William JORDAN, another well known pioneer of Jefferson County.....

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.