Olympia's oldest surviving home was built by pioneer lawyer Daniel R. Bigelow and his schoolteacher wife, Ann Elizabeth White Bigelow, sometime before 1860. Its style is primarily Gothic Revival or "Carpenter Gothic," one of the most popular American architectural fashions of the day. The earliest part of the house rests on a foundation of whole cedar logs that were hardened by fire to protect against rotting, much as Northwest Native people prepared logs for cedar canoes.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow came west over the Oregon Trail-he as a sober bachelor and she as a teen with her family-in 1851. They met here, married in 1854 and lived at first in a tiny cabin that stands (though greatly altered) on the grounds of the Bigelow House. Daniel Bigelow served in the Washington Territorial Legislature and held many other civic offices, including county treasurer and superintendent of schools. Both he and Ann Elizabeth were fierce supporters of voting rights for women. In 1871 the famous suffragist Susan B. Anthony dined at the Bigelow House while passing through Olympia on one of her lecture tours.

Like many other settlers, the Bigelows developed a small farm on their homestead. Several gnarled fruit trees from their pioneer orchard still grow at the Bigleow House and in the gardens of neighboring homes.

The historic Bigelow House, still occupied today by members of the Bigelow family, was purchased in 1994 by the Bigelow House Preservation Association and carefully restored. It contains an unusual collection of original family furnishings and is open to the public as a historic house museum.

The Bigelow House is located on Glass Ave NE, just off East Bay Drive. It is listed on both the National and Washington State Registers of Historic Places, as well as on the Olympia Heritage Register. Please see http://www.bigelowhouse.org/ for more information.

Bigelow House. Olympia Heritage Commission photo.

The Bigelow House as it appeared during the 1860s. The Carpenter Gothic style borrowed elements from medieval church architecture and reinterpreted them in wooden construction: a steeply pitched roof, gothic (pointed) arches, decorative millwork that suggested the carved stone of old cathedrals. It was a style that peaked in popularity back east at about the time early pioneer settlers were moving west. The Bigelow House Museum Collection.