This small house on a quiet back street has passed through ownership of some families with well-known names in Plainfield area history.
In Facts of Aging Structures of Plainfield the Woman’s Club calls this the Alfred Johnson Home and lists him as the original owner, with a building date of 1871. This is contradicted by a handwritten notation on the back of a photograph of the house in Acid Free Box 22 that states “House built by Atkinson”. There is an Alfred Johnson, retired drayman, listed in the 1880 census for Guilford Township, but because there are no house numbers or street names on the census for the town at that time, the location of his residence in unknown. On the other hand, John and Ann (Vestal) Atkinson were Guilford Township farmers of some note at that time with several sons of the age to be building their own homes in 1871, including Riley, Jabin, Oliver, Vestal, Benjamin, and Thomas.
The Pritchetts were living in the home in the early 1900s. Allen Pritchett was a carpenter who had married Almeda Jessup in July 1893. The postcard of the house in the library collection (shown below) has a note from “Meda P.” to her sister Anna L. Kelsey in Berkley [sic] California postmarked 1908. The Woman’s Club book notes “Almeda Pritchett and daughters” as one-time residents, so it is likely they lived there for a time after Allen’s 1927 death.
