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141 2nd Street


West side of 141 2nd Street, circa 1905
West side of 141 2nd Street, circa 1905



This side-passage house has an entrance passage inserted on one side of the main floor, which gives the house a distinctive asymmetrical design. It is a one-and-a-half story and has Greek revival styling with a variety of surface textures and materials giving it a very stylish appearance.

Porter Pierce was born in 1877 and raised by pioneer parents at 140 W 2nd Street. He was a farmer who was brilliant in mathematics and taught school for a while. He was also a fine carpenter and built this house about 1900 and rented it.

In 1908 he married Grietje Smit who immigrated from the Netherlands in 1903 with her parents as converts to the Mormon Church. Porter dismissed the renters so he and his wife could move into his stylish new house. The house was built on a parcel of land that extended from 2nd Street to 4th Street, and he built a large barn south of the house.



149 2nd Street became the home of Wilke and Jantje Smit from the Netherlands in 1920.
149 2nd Street became the home of Wilke and Jantje Smit from the Netherlands in 1920.

In 2013 the house was ruined by a fire, and in 2014 it was replaced with the house on the right.
In 2013 the house was ruined by a fire, and in 2014 it was replaced with the house on the right.

Porter and Grietje had three children that lived to adulthood. A spur of the Oregon Short Line ran in front of their house causing awe to the young children or a disruption in their daily life. Once a baby buggy was stuck on the tracks and was removed just before the train arrived. Sometimes the train spooked the horses as Porter came home from the lower fields. Another time the train hit Pierce’s daughter’s boyfriend’s car when it was parked in front, but the train was slow-moving and merely pushed the car out of the way. [1]


Some neighbors described Porter as humorous and colorful, and one said, “He should have been in movies”. In the 1930s he joined the Jehovah Witness Church and became convinced that the end of the world was coming, and he began to warn his neighbors. He approached one neighbor, Mr. Stone, poked his little boy in the stomach, and said, “The end is coming and it’s going to get you and take everything you have!”


Porter’s neighbor Harry James at 159 W 2nd St. did not want to listen to this nonsense about the end of the world, and he shut his door. Porter brought a talking machine in his car, cranked it up, and played it loudly in front of the James house so that the James family and everyone else on the street could hear the warnings. LOL.


The children in the neighborhood like Porter’s humor and exuberance and liked working for him when he had few jobs for hire. One time at Halloween they decided to play a trick on Porter. They took his farm wagon apart and put it back together on the roof of his barn. When Porter came out in the morning and saw the wagon on the roof, he was speechless. What could he do? He hired some neighborhood children to go up on the roof and bring the wagon down (probably the same children that put it up there). [2]

In 1939 Porter updated his house by installing its first bathroom. He was a good carpenter and built three houses on Childs Ave north of 4th Street for his children. He died in 1955.


Grietje was also a favorite among the neighbors and this article about her appeared in the Standard-Examiner in 1950. Grietje died in 1977 at age 92.



 

[1] - Interview with Myrtle Pierce Page by Anna Keogh, 1998.

[2] - Oral interviews with Warren Stone, Donna Clapier, and Tug Anderson.

Signage at Meet the Shoshone.

 

 

[1] Tucker Garrett, Weber County's Oldest Farm, The Signpost, Feb. 29, 2012.

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