518 Union Street

 

Architecture:

    Style:                        Queen Anne

    Description:              This is a two-story wood frame structure with cement shingle siding and the foundation is mainly brick.  The floor plan is “T” shaped and the house is cross-gabled.  The hip-on-gable side gables are dominant.  The front gable on the right is lower and has a steep pitch.  Underneath is a first story semi-hexagonal bay.  A steeply gabled wall dormer is located left of the main front gable.  There are one-story additions to both the east and rear.  The partial width front porch has a hip roof, and square columns with wood railing.

 

Significant Period:

    Construction Date:     circa 1890

    Architect/Builder:       Unknown

    Context:                    Water Department records show service was turned on 10/17/1890.  The first documented resident was Mrs. Thomas Fleming in the 1893-94 City Directory.  Douglas W. McNutt lived there from the late 1890’s to 1902.  He was a conductor for the F & P M Railway first, then later a grocer at 517 Huron.  The Hial B. and Louisa V. (Phenix) Buckeridge family lived there next.  Hial was vice president and manager of Union Dock and Storage Co, Manager of White Star Line Steamers, and proprieter of Port Huron Garbage Co., and an agent of Anchor Line and D & C steamers.  He began the weekly paper, X-Rays in 1897; then sold it to Ottaway and Weil in July, 1900 who merged it into the Daily Herald.  He then published the Port Huron Sunday News.  Harry S. and Maud C. Elliott lived there from 1910 to 1913.  He was manager of National Grocer Co.  James and Ellen J. Eckles lived there from 1915 to 1920.  He was employed with Welton & Eckles.  Fred J. Kemp was the most prominent resident, from 1921 to at least 1940.  He was proprietor of the Fred J. Kemp Agency, dealing with real estate and insurance.  In the early years he was president of Deckerville construction Co. at 903 6th Street.  He was also City Mayor for at least three years in the early 1930s, and at one time president of the Boy Scouts of America, St. Clair Area Council.  Children included Catherine M., Dorothy M., Gertrude B., and Jack K.  Mrs. Caroline Myron, widow of Thomas J. Myron, lived with the family for twenty years.