Richmond home of McHenry County pioneer to be marked as historic site

RICHMOND – The William McConnell homestead in Richmond is receiving a plaque from the McHenry County Historical Society Sunday marking it as a historic site, although the house already has a homemade plaque.

Homeowner Rommy Lopat said a white-painted sign with black cutout letters on the house reads “W. A. McConnell Homestead 1852,” in honor of the man who built the house, William McConnell.

The house itself is not as significant as the man who built it, said Grace Moline, chairwoman of the historic sites committee.

McConnell, one of McHenry County’s first settlers, came to the area from Pennsylvania in 1837, according to a news release, and at one point owned 1,400 acres in the county.

He worked many jobs in the area, including postmaster, school director, associate county judge and county commissioner, according to the release. McConnell also donated land to build the first schoolhouse, in what is today Richmond, and helped establish the first church in the area.

“He is such a significant man to the county, as well as to the Village of Richmond,” Moline said.

At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, the public is invited to the house at 6119 Broadway Road, Richmond, for a ceremony to plaque the house that will include speeches from Moline and a McConnell descendant.

After McConnell and his wife, Elizabeth Bodine McConnell, built the two-story, five-bedroom Greek Revival house in 1852, they eventually gave it to their son, John, who sold it to Lopat and her husband, John Drummond, in 1987.

“The landscape has changed virtually not at all, so it’s very seductive to be here because you feel like you have been transported in time back to the 1800s,” Lopat said of the home that she and her husband purchased as a weekend home while they were living in Chicago.

Moline said the house sits on about 6 acres, which used to be farmland, and much of the land behind the property has been deeded to the McHenry County Conservation District.

When the house was purchased it was in disrepair, but Lopat and Drummond have “very lovingly” restored it and consider themselves the “caretakers of history,” Moline said.

Lopat and Drummond have backgrounds in architecture and history, and some changes made were replacing the front porch and a shed.

“We have tried to do as little as possible,” Lopat said, “so the house is basically exactly the same as in 1852.”

Original features of the house include triangular pediments in a gable, typical of Greek Revival houses, Moline said.

Moline said that Greek Revival houses were some of the first houses built in the county after log cabins.

“I think it would be impossible for anyone not to want to stay with the vernacular of the time,” Lopat said of making changes to the house.

Lopat said she respects the man that founded this location, and the McConnell family who protected the house until she and her husband came along.

Lopat and Drummond live in Lake Forest now, but still visit their Richmond home, she said.

Lopat said she keeps in contact with some of the McConnell descendants, including Bo McConnell who lives in Harvard and will speak Sunday.