(Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series about one of Missouri’s most unique and treasured Civil War homes.)
The Kendrick House, located one mile north of Carthage at the intersection of Highways 571 and V, in the village of Kendricktown, is the oldest brick structure in Jasper County.
The home was once the hub of one of southwest Missouri’s largest and most prosperous farms. Victorian Carthage, Inc., bought the house from the Kendrick family in the 1980’s.
A stately old brick two-story, Georgian style home, it mentioned in Mr. [William B.] Kendrick’s will as the mansion house, is located north of the outskirts of Carthage, Mo.
The home, now rented out for weddings and private special occasions, was built by the Rankin family, started in 1849 and completed in 1854. The brick for the home was made by slave labor.
Each brick is concave on one side, so it could hold more mortar. Some bricks are dark in color while others are light. There is a heavy porcelain glaze marking on some brick, caused by lying too close to the outside of the kiln.
Outside measurements of the home are 20 feet in width, 58 feet in length and approximately 30 feet in height. The brick walls are laid in the common bond style, meaning every seventh row is laid opposite from the first six rows. The walls are three bricks thick. The mortar is a burned lime.
The wood and large timbers are said to have come from the farm. The foundation is made of rough Carthage stone to a thickness of 20 inches, faced with four-inch thick slabs of smoothed sandstone, that came from around Jasper County.
