Mystery architect left behind buildings of note in Hannibal

This building, at 200 N. Fourth St., was built in the mid 1890s, under the supervision of Charles V. McDonald, architect and contractor. The building first housed the Missouri Guarantee Savings and Building Association. In the mid 1920s, F.T. O’Dell purchased the building for his business interests.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

While working the ancestry of C.V. McDonald, an architect who left his design imprint on buildings still dotting Hannibal’s landscape, my curiosity was triggered by the lack of information available in newspapers and on genealogy sites, during the years before he arrived in Hannibal, circa 1880, and the years after he finally left Hannibal for good, circa 1907.

I calculated Mr. McDonald’s birth year circa 1847, based upon varying census records, and his birthplace as Ohio.

While following my typical research procedures, I came across a short funeral announcement for a 77-year-old man named C.V. McDonald in the Nov. 12, 1924 edition of The Daily Herald of Everett, Wash. (Accessed via newspapers.com). It piqued my curiosity.

The birth year was about right, but there were no references as to where he might have worked or what he did for a living. His only survivor was a grandson, Roy G. Calentine, of Lowell, Wash., with whom he made his home.

A dive into the history of the aforementioned Roy G. Calentine (1895-1956) revealed that he was the son of George C. Calentine (1872-1956). George C. Calentine was the son of Joseph (1847-1924) and Lucy Ann Bushnell Calentine. (I could find no McDonalds in the family tree.)

A further newspaper search revealed a story that Lucy Ann Bushnell Calentine told The Wenatchee (Washington) Daily World, which was published in the Saturday, March 23, 1907 edition.

“I married Joseph Calentine, alias C.V. McDonald,” she said, “at Peoria, Ill., in 1867. He was an architect, and a good deal away from home, in the west and elsewhere, and about 1876 he left for Oregon to make a home for us. He said he would meet me at Omaha, and with the children we would go on West. I had two sons, Frank and George, and a daughter. Frank and the daughter are dead. I went to Omaha to meet him and he never came. It was a hard struggle for me after that. I came West, and have been a nurse, and followed other occupations. I lived in Wenatchee for a time, and later at Tacoma.”

If her story holds true, and Joseph Calentine is, as Mrs. Calentine suggested, C.V. McDonald, then Hannibal’s noted architect may well have been a man on the run from his family.

Census records show that Joseph Calentine was born circa 1843, in Perry, Ohio, to William and Mary Calentine. In the 1850 census, he was one of 9 children: Eliza A., George W., William H., Mary, Harriett, Joseph, Margaret, Malissa J., and Adelin A. Calentine.

In 1870, Joseph Calentine and Lucy A. Bushnell Calentine (1850-1933) were living in Vernon, Clark County, Mo. Joseph was a carpenter. Living with them were Lucy’s siblings: Sophia, Melvina, Charles, Loring, Walter, Angeline and Dollie Bushnell.

Five years later, on March 1, 1875, the Kansas census finds Joseph, a carpenter, and his wife, Lucy Calentine, living with their two sons in Winfield, Kansas.

Lucy Ann Bushnell Calentine said that her husband left the following year, in 1876.

In the meantime, the man known as C.V. McDonald was married to Nellie Frazee at Warren County, Ill., April 4, 1878. At the time of his marriage, his parents were listed on the marriage certificate as Charles V. McDonald and Mary A. Valentine (editor’s note: or was it Calentine?)

The question remains: Is Joseph Calentine, who left his wife Lucy and children stranded in Omaha, Neb., in 1876, one in the same as C.V. McDonald, who married Nellie Frazee in 1878?

The evidence is certainly circumstantial, but at the same time, hauntingly intriguing.

Architect, whoever he was,

left an imprint on Hannibal

Thanks to a compilation of stories mentioning Charles V. McDonald (estimated 1847-1924) in newspapers during his lifetime, it is possible to compile a visual of the architect and contractor, who inhabited Hannibal during a formable portion of Hannibal’s growth years.

The Palmyra Spectator, which quoted the Hannibal Courier in July 1896, which in turn quoted the Toledo Bee, described McDonald as: The “dressy and flashy” architect.

“Gay and debonair Charles V. McDonald,” the Toledo Bee reported, constructed that town’s “Dunscomb block.”

“During his two year’s residence in Toledo, (estimated 1894-1896) McDonald cut quite a swath. He was a handsome, well dressed man and his diamonds were the envy of his friends.”

He occupied “his bachelor apartments on Jefferson street.”

Repeated residency

C.V. McDonald was a resident of Hannibal during three different timespans:

From roughly 1880 until 1884, when he moved to Kansas;

from 1890 until 1894, when he relocated from Hannibal to Toledo, Ohio;

and again from roughly 1896-1907.

He was married to Nellie Frazee at Warren County, Ill., on April 4, 1878. (Nellie and Charles V. McDonald divorced in July 1893.)

While residents of Hannibal, on Aug. 1, 1890, they hosted a wedding at their home, for Mrs. McDonald’s sister, Miss Minnie Frazee, to Mr. Marey K. Brown, an attorney of Kansas City, Mo.

The 1880 census shows the Frazee family together in Hannibal:

C.V. McDonald, 28, born about 1852;

Nellie C. Frazee McDonald, 22, born about 1858;

Minnie Frazee, 17, (Nellie’s sister) born about 1863;

and Caroline Frazee, (Nellie’s mother), born about 1832.

The family lived at 144 Seventh St.

Local projects

In a recent installment in this historic series, McDonald was identified as the architect for T.C. Lamey’s house located at 816 Center Street. But that wasn’t the only structure in which his architectural skills were utilized.

Other projects, as culled from Newspapers.com:

In 1890, he served as architect for the erection of two, two-story additions to the Marion County Court House building at Palmyra. (The court house was replaced by the current structure at Palmyra circa 1900.)

In October 1890, he won the contract for construction of a new home for W.E. Sites of Palmyra.

In December 1890, he prepared plans and specifications for a new business house in Palmyra for B. Zoller; and for a new residence for Judge Thos. W. Hawkins, circuit clerk for Marion County.

In 1891, he designed a house for Dr. A. White on a farm west of Palmyra, and he won the contract for construction of Palmyra’s Centenary High School. (For comparison, McDonald bid $7,561 for construction of the school, and the construction cost of the house was estimated to be between $16,000 and $18,000.)

It is suggested in a brief article published in the Dec. 29, 1892 edition of a Quincy newspaper that C.V. McDonald served as contractor for the Missouri Guarantee Savings and Building Association building at Fourth and Center, Hannibal: “C.V. McDonald and his draughtsman, Mr. Haggart, went to Quincy last evening to purchase pressed brick for the new building in course of construction by the Missouri Guarantee, Savings and Building Association. Hannibal Post.”(Note: in 1892, Addison and William Haggart were stone masons living in Hannibal.)

In 1907, McDonald served as architect for Charles Rennau’s cottage located at 715 N. Hayden Street (later renamed Country Club Drive). Today it is owned by William Collier.

In 1907, Dr. A.R. Ayres contracted with McDonald for four tenement apartments on west Church Street

The 1907 Hannibal city directory is the last year that McDonald is included among the listed residents and contractors.

The 1885 Kansas Census suggests that C.V. McDonald was born in 1849, in Ohio. His wife, Nellie, was born in Michigan in 1859.

The Dunscomb, a residence for single men, located at 711 and 713 Superior Street, Toledo, Ohio, constructed in 1896. This may have been the building that C.V. McDonald supervised during his residency in Toledo, which concluded in 1896. A brief story in the Toledo Bee in July 1896, described McDonald as: The “dressy and flashy” architect who constructed the town’s “Dunscomb block.” Toledo Lucas County Public Library Digital Collections. (Dunscomb Flats, Toledo Blue Book, Dunscomb & Co., 510 and 512 Summit Street, Toledo, Ohio)

Mary Lou Montgomery retired as editor of the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post in 2014. She researches and writes narrative-style stories about the people who served as building blocks for this region’s foundation. Books available on Amazon.com by this author include but are not limited to: "The Notorious Madam Shaw," "Pioneers in Medicine from Northeast Missouri,” “Hannibal’s ‘West End,’” “Oakwood: West of Hannibal,”  and “St. Mary’s Avenue District.” Montgomery can be reached at Montgomery.editor@yahoo.com Her collective works can be found at www.maryloumontgomery.com