Samuel Jewkes/Henry Draper Home

A close look at this house shows how a middling pioneer family built to last. Samuel Jewkes, an English immigrant who ran a sawmill and gristmill in Fountain Green, framed it from heavy pine timbers joined with mortise-and-tenon and wooden pegs — no nails — then insulated the walls by packing adobe bricks between the timbers and plastering straight over them, with clapboard outside. It was solid, warm, and quietly clever. Jewkes sold it to Henry Draper in 1879; the house now stands, relocated, among the pioneer homes at This Is the Place.

What the plaque says

English immigrant Samuel Jewkes operated a sawmill and a gristmill in Fountain-Green, Utah. His middle class home is constructed of heavy pine timbers connected with mortise-and-tenon joints and wooden pegs. He insulated the interior walls by laying adobe bricks between the rough timbers and applying lime plaster and whitewash directly to the exposed adobe surfaces. The exterior is clapboard. In 1879, Jewkes sold the home to Henry Draper.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• This Is The Place Heritage Park — steps away
  A living history village at the mouth of Emigration Canyon
• Natural History Museum of Utah — 0.7 mi
  A world-class museum built into the foothills above Salt Lake City
• Red Butte Garden — 1.0 mi
  A 100-acre botanical garden with panoramic valley views
• Emigration Canyon — 1.9 mi
  The final stretch of trail the Mormon pioneers took into the valley

More markers nearby

• Milo Andrus Home — steps away
• Blacksmith Shop — steps away
• Bodil Mortensen Statue — steps away
• Carpenter's Shop — steps away