Sylvester and Julia Baldwin House

In the wee hours of May 1858, sexagenarians Sylvester and Julia Baldwin escaped through the first floor window of their burning home with only the clothes on their backs. All was destroyed in the blaze that had been their dwelling since 1847. Undefeated, they rebuilt their simple, yet charming, one-and-a-half-story home with a symmetrical facade, a central front door under a square portico with pilasters and fluted columns, a wide frieze band, and flat window surrounds with drip moldings. The house is sheathed in wood lap clapboard and has a Greek Revival roof pitch. A wing behind the main block has a gable ridge running perpendicular to the street and frieze band windows. The foundation on the main block has cut sandstone and the wing has decorative ceramic blocks.

Sylvester Baldwin, son of Revolutionary War soldier Jonathan Baldwin, moved from New York with his wife, father and mother in 1816 to Atwater, Ohio, where they formed a Congregational Church. Sylvester, his wife, Julia, and their children moved to Hudson in 1842. They joined the First Congregational Church, where Sylvester was a deacon for over a quarter of a century. They purchased land from George Kilbourn, one of the first settlers, and built their original home at 98 Aurora St. They raised four children, but lost four others in infancy. Silverster was a shoemaker by trade. When Julia died in 1887 at age 93, she was the oldest person living in the township.