The Somerset Historic District

Salmon/Stohlman House - 1893

Virtual House Tour

Sitting on an acre of land set behind a circular drive to the front and extensive perimeter screening and landscaping, this 2-1/2 story frame house is designed in a transitional manner with late Victorian detailing, but with more regularized Colonial Revival-style massing. Today it has bell, flat, and gable roof forms with dormer and a shingled attic story and shingles on two east facade two-story mitred corner bays. Elsewhere it is clapboard with a dentilation course between stories and under-wrap porch eaves. The porch has Doric columns, there is a pedimented north entry, and stick and rail balustrade. A prominent multiflue exterior corbelled brick chimney sits at the northwest corner. Since its construction in 1893 the house has been enlarged with several additions and a deck.

Built by Dr. Daniel Elmer Salmon (1850-1914) as a summer house, this was one of the first five original houses to be built in Somerset. Dr. Salmon called it "Clover Crest." Like the other founders of the Town, Dr. Salmon was a scientist with the Department of Agriculture. He was a brilliant scientist -- of international repute -- who led the fight against pleuropneumonia and Texas tick fever as head of the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Industry. He is best known though for identifying the first strain of Salmonella disease in 1885, which was named after him.

In 1902, John W. Stohlman bought the house from Dr. Salmon. He was the owner of the Georgetown bakery and confectionary, founded by his German-immigrant father. It is said to have sold the best ice cream in town -- for $1 a quart. The store was disassembled in 1950 and rebuilt in the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.

Mr. and Mrs. Stohlman had ten children, three of them born in the house. The children all had birthdays in the summer and their ice cream and cake parties were long anticipated by the Town's other children. Mr. Stohlman was the fifth mayor of Somerset serving for almost twenty years, from 1919 to 1938.

From 1947 to 1951, the Stohlmans rented out the house. In 1951, at the time of Annie Stohlman's death, the property descended to the Stohlman heirs, and in 1958 was sold out of Stohlman family hands. Since then, the property has had three owners. The present owners purchased it in 1998.

The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its significance as one of the earliest houses built in the suburban streetcar community of Somerset, and for its associations with its owner/builder, Dr. Daniel Salmon, and long-time resident J. William Stohlman.

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