You are here

West Virginia » Oil Country (Mid-Ohio Valley) » Wood County » Parkersburg » Chancellor House

Chancellor House

-A A +A
c. 1870. 904 Juliana St.
  • (West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

This mammoth, irregularly shaped Second Empire house haughtily overlooking its surroundings from an iron fenced yard provides a fitting introduction to the district. Built of brick with a profusion of stone trim and a modicum of iron cresting, it has a prominent third-story mansard roof punctured at every conceivable opportunity by arched dormer windows. A four-story tower glowers over the entrance, which is protected by one of several porches with bracketed cornices. Behind, in the alley between Juliana and Market streets, the original carriage house echoes the main house on a diminutive scale.

William N. Chancellor, for whom the house was built, had a finger in every slice of Parkersburg's pie. A banker and an investor in lumber, transportation, and utilities, he served twice as the city's mayor and twice as a state legislator. He built two of Parkersburg's major hotels, one of which still stands ( WD5), and served as president of the West Virginia Commission for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Writing Credits

Author: 
S. Allen Chambers Jr.
×

Data

What's Nearby

First Baptist Church
First United Methodist Church
House
1034 Ann St.
Kunst House

Citation

S. Allen Chambers Jr., "Chancellor House", [Parkersburg, West Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-WD9.1.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,