Clendenen House

 

 

George W. Clendenen was born in Greenebrier County, Virginia about 1779.  He moved to Kentucky where he was married to Mary Reynolds, then to St. Charles Missouri, arriving in a one-horse Dearborn Wagon.  In the spring of 1819, he and his family moved on to Greene County, Illinois, near the point where the Macoupin Creek breaks through the bluff in Woodville Township.  According to the best information they were the first settlers in Woodville Township..  Here they built a Log Cabin and son Hazard Perry attended school mostly taught by his father.  George died in 1841 and Mary in 1869. It is rumored that Blackhawk a famous Indian Chief was a frequent guest of the Clendenen Family when he was in the area.

 

Though it is unclear exactly when the limestone home was built the Greene County Atlas of 1873 shows Hazard as the owner of the Stone House, and the largest land owner in the township where he had come in to possession of 1700 acres of bottom ground..  Hazard lived in the stone house until his death in in 1880.  The home then passed on to George Schild who lived in it till 1911 when the wood frame house was built. 

 

He early became identified with the whig party, and so continued until it disorganized, when he joined the ranks of the republican party, and two of his family, Oscar C., and Robert King, aided in the preservation of the Union, in the late war, and Mr. Clendenen was one of the strong supporters of the Union cause. Mrs. Clendenen died on Dec. 5, 1862, and Mr. Clendenen survived her until Nov. 20, 1880, both being buried at the old homestead.

Theodore and Mary Koster bought the house in 1943 and it was while in their owner ship that the word famous Koster Archeological site was discovered on the property.