studies and the Languages." July 6, 1857, the trustees donated a square to the county upon which in 1859 a court house was erected.
At this time John Lyle began to see within his reach the house of his dream, the spacious home which should adorn a sightly spot on the highland back from the creek. Little by little he and Ellen had saved toward it but now the herds were large and thriving and the top drawer in the mahogany chest of drawers was almost full of gold coin. They had spent happy years in the log cabin and it was a cosy place. There was a little cook stove in the kitchen and in the family room a fire place where oak fires glowed with bellows and hand wrought poker and tongs and shovel at hand; the big clock and gleaming brass candlesticks on the shelf above. There were a mahogany table and mirror, rawhide seated and wooden Winsor chairs about the room. Many friends crossed that flat stone doorstep, neighbors, attorneys and judges who came to court and travelers going to and from the Nesmith-Owens grist mill at Ellendale.
The contract for the house still standing at Lyle Farm was let to William Pitman in 1858. He was also the architect.
The Lyle residence is a typical New England house, symmetrical in plan and elevation, with a stair hall as the central axis—a characteristic early form. In accepting the plan John and Ellen Lyle were forced by pioneer conditions to forego an expressed predilection for the southern type of residence with kitchen and servantsquarters separated from the main dwelling. The house was erected evidently on the verge of the change from the classic to the romantic period in American architecture as shown by the steep gable. That the house belongs to the colonial family is shown in details both exterior and interior which follow classical forms traceable to colonial influence. The porch columns, the cornice and
