Whittier House

Client: Historic Erie Preservation Trust
Location: 530 West 6th St., Erie, Pennsylvania
Dates: Original building — c.1879/1905; Renovation - In progress
National Register of Historic Places Listing: Contributing building in the West Sixth Street Historic District.
Size: 4,100 SF

The Whittier–Converse–Faure–Weschler House has, as its name suggests, undergone extensive alterations by successive owners since its original construction in 1843. The vernacular Victorian-style two-story frame dwelling built c. 1873 for Asa Whittier (1791-1877) and wife, Parnelia “Pamela” Fowler Whittier (1804-1884) has elements of Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival styles from the c. 1905 expansion and remodeling with brick veneer.

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Born in Methuen, Massachusetts, Asa Whittier came to Erie County as a farmer by 1840, moving to the city c. 1860 where he was in the coal oil and oil refinery business, later a gardener. As early as 1843, there was a structure on the property then owned by Thomas G. Colt (1805-1861), the last Burgess and first Mayor of Erie 1851 and was likely part of Whittier’s house.

Charles Crozat Converse (1832-1918), lawyer, inventor, composer, author & manufacturer and wife Eliza Jane “Lida” Lewis Converse (1839-1912) bought the frame construction Whittier house in 1879.

A native of Warren, Massachusetts, Judge C.C. Converse, as he was known, came to Erie in 1872 as Secretary & Business Manager for Burdett Organ Co. following its move from Chicago after the 1871 Great Fire. Judge Converse had music training in Leipzig, Germany followed by the classics in Berlin, then studied law at Albany Law School in New York. Prior to Erie, he was a lawyer, editorial writer for the New York Tribune, and invented several patented useful devices. He was widely known as a composer of hymns, including music for “What a Friend We Have In Jesus” and the orchestral overture “Hail Columbia.” He is also credited with coining the gender neutral pronoun “thon,” a contraction of “that one.” Converse sold the property in 1896. Several owners followed, including a leading citizen and former Mayor, Charles M. Reed, Jr.

Elie Fritz Gustave Henri Faure (1866-1950) and wife Margaret Bard Faure (1877-1957) who studied music and voice in Paris, acquired the Whittier frame house in 1905, expanding and remodeling it as it appears today. Gustave Faure, as he was known, was an electrical engineer, born in France, who came to the U.S. c. 1889 and associated with General Electric Co. In 1904, he joined Burke Electric Co. in Erie, where he later participated in the design of the hand operated generator. After 24 years, the Faure’s sold this property to socialite sisters, Florence Camphausen (1865-1942) and Eda Camphausen (1864-1946). From 1947 to 1975, the house was first owned by Milton S. Surre (1908-1985) followed by Andrew & Elizabeth Tamilin.

Christiane Weschler English and Kathe’ Weschler Rafferty, daughters of Robert Frederic Weschler (1907-1990), President of Weschler’s Of Course Shoes, and Evelyn McCarthy Weschler (1907-1985), purchased the house in 1975. After 44 years, it was sold to Robbie Calvin Dixon. In 2024, Historic Erie Preservation Trust, founded by Thomas B. Hagen, Erie businessman and distant cousin of Asa Whittier, acquired the property to preserve it as a place of historic and architectural interest for the benefit of the community.

The house was listed as 530 W. Sixth Street (Whittier House) on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a contributing building in the West Sixth Street Historic District in 1984.