The stunning Queen Anne home known as the Tarbox House, located at 514 Broadway St. E. in Monticello, was built by the ever-so-scarcely researched Everett (Everet, or Evert) A. Nickerson, a local lumberman, in 1889.
Through substantial research of the census records in Monticello from the period in which Nickerson supposedly lived here, there was only one family with that surname, and that was the family of Frank C. Nickerson.
Frank Nickerson worked as a clerk at the local lumber mill and is very likely the actual name of the man who constructed this house (and the house to its immediate right).
As was written by James Tarbox Jr., in 1973, Nickerson originally built the residence with all of the best wood from the lumber mill that he worked at, and, in the latter half of the 1890s, he sold the residence to the newly presiding attorney and judge of the 18th District (which was newly formed), James Cushman Tarbox.
Tarbox was born in Maine in 1857 to Benjamin and Sarah Tarbox. Spending his youth as a farm boy and store clerk, he soon found himself teaching at the age of 16. Following that, he entered Bowdoin College in the spring of 1875, and, after his graduation, began his study of law back in his hometown before heading to Washington D.C. to enroll in the Columbia Law School.
After finishing his law course, he was employed for a time as a department clerk for the government. In the fall of 1881, he moved to Monticello, where he established his first law firm, then presiding in the soon-to-be residence of Gustav Eggena at 532 W. Broadway St.
On Valentine’s Day 1891, he married Kathryn (Kate) Walker under the ministry of his uncle, the Rev. Moses Hanscom Tarbox, with Robert Lynch and Clarence French as the witnesses of the ceremony.
Their first child was a girl they named Vivian Ilda, born Dec. 13, 1893, in Monticello. Their next child was a boy, Jack, born Feb. 28, 1897, in the house that is this article’s topic, and their last was another boy, James Cushman Jr., who was born March 4, 1902, also in this house.
In the fall of 1896, Tarbox was elected as the county attorney of Wright County. In the winter of 1897, after the state legislature created the new 18th Judicial District, Tarbox received endorsement from many of the attorneys of the district, and, on May 4, 1897, he was appointed by the governor to be the first judge of the new district.
He held his first term of the Wright County Court in June 1897. Judge L.L. Baxter, from the 7th District heard some of the cases in this term of court. Tarbox also held the term of December 1897 and of June and December 1898.
He became well respected in the area quite quickly on behalf of his fairness among his constituents.
In January 1899, he again took up the practice of law.
It was also around this time that Tarbox moved a barn built of wooden pinions and square nails (which was substantially older than his own residence) from the outskirts of Monticello for use as a horse stable for their horse, Billy.
The horse would live there until Tarbox suddenly died at the railroad station in Minneapolis in 1908, and, because Kate didn’t think it right to sell the 23-year-old horse after so many years of faithful service, she decided to get him chloroformed by the local veterinarian. She buried him in the field kitty-corner from the old Lowry Horse Barn (near Von Hanson’s Meats today).
A few years prior, local plumber Charlie Mauey installed the first bathroom in the house, and James Jr. recalled riding up and down stairs on the shoulders of Mauey.
Kate continued to reside in the house until her death in early October 1960. The two boys then took ownership, as Vivian had passed away in 1958.
Jack died in 1967, leaving the house solely to the ownership of James Jr., who would own the house for just a little over a decade while residing in Woodbury.
It was during this time that the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on behalf of the county historian, Marion Jameson.
In the spring of 1981, he listed the property for sale, but soon after, Dave and Delores Larcom began renting from James Jr. They were repairing and maintaining the residence under reduced rent, and James was footing the bill for the supplies they used.
It was eventually sold by James to Dolly and Dorothy Jahnke in April 1986. Over the next year, they did substantial renovations of the property, restoring it nearly completely to its original glory whilst also turning the horse stable into a garage.
Sometime later, Jesse Dickinson, a technical engineer of some degree, rewired the residence with an advanced speaker system that has been somewhat of a difficulty to understand by his successors in ownership.
Several years ago, the house was sold to Jennifer Mueller and Maria Cox and they sold it last fall to Mike and Amy Matter, previous residents of Elk River.
Ayden Irwin is an eleventh-grade student at Monticello High School. An avid local history buff and genealogist, he serves as the city’s unofficial historian.
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