When the museum gets out-of-town visitors, they sometimes ask what else they “need to see” in town.

I frequently point them to the two field stone mansions in town built for executives at the Round Oak Stove Company in the 1890s. Company President Fred E. Lee lived in the Rockery on High Street, while Vice President Archie Gardner called the Maples on Green Street home.

Today, the Maples has been restored to its original glory by the Bill and Linda Lorenz, who have done a magnificent job with the house. While the outside of the Rockery is largely the same, the inside has been divided into apartments since the 1960s.

Photographs would be the only way to envision its original interior.

Everyone did not have cameras in the 1890s and flash photography was not done regularly outside of photography studios, so few interior photographs exist from this time period (other than standard studio portraits). For example, with the exception of three photographs taken inside the Beckwith Theater just after it was completed in 1893, the museum does not know of any other photos taken inside the theater and vestibule.

I would love to see photos of the grand staircase that I have heard about, but as far as I know photos do not exist.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to report that the museum recently received a photograph album of photos taken inside and outside the Lee Mansion on High Street shortly after it was completed in 1895. The photographs show the grandeur of the Rockery and its furnishings.

The album came to the museum from Carol Mersereau and Rosemary Gentry, two descendants of Mary Gray Lee, Fred’s second wife.

The history of the Rockery is interesting and mildly controversial. Fred Lee married Kate Beckwith, the daughter of Round Oak founder P.D. Beckwith, in 1878. Lee was the son of Chauncey Lee, one of the early banking families in Dowagiac. He joined Round Oak in 1880 and took over the company as president after P.D. Beckwith’s death in January 1889.

While Beckwith lived in a modest house on High Street (it has since been moved to Indiana Street), Fred and Kate Beckwith Lee decided to build the mansion on High Street in the early 1890s. Archie Gardner also began work on his house during this time period.

The timing could not have been worse for the projects. The Panic of 1893 depressed prices of goods nationwide and Round Oak’s sales suffered in 1894. The large Pullman Strike in Chicago in 1894 also prevented shipments to and from Dowagiac — halting production at the stove works for three weeks.

An 1894 catalog in the collection has handwritten notes from the salesman crossing out the prices and writing in reduced prices, from $15 to $9 for a size 14 and from $29 to $17 for a size 24. The 1895 catalog has prices return to normal.

In early 1895, Lee ordered a wage cut of .25 cents (moulders’ wages down to $2.90 per day). Union workers went on strike and shut down the plant from February 14 through 28.

Non-union workers returned on Feb. 28, resulting in fights between union strikers and non-union workers. On March 30, a warehouse was set on fire.

In mid-April, the strike was resolved with management giving into demands to restore wages. Round Oak claimed to have relented because of threats from other foundries to reduce wages following Round Oak’s example. Round Oak did not want to be responsible for reduced wages across the country.

There is an argument that the construction of the Rockery and Maples mansions by Fred Lee and Archie Gardner while asking for wage cuts contributed to the discontent. I tend to agree with that assessment.

Work continued on the Rockery throughout the labor strife. The building was completed in late 1895, and the Fred and Kate Lee held a grand opening party on New Year’s Eve 1895. Visitors that evening arrived from as far away as Grand Rapids and the hosts rolled out the red carpet for their guests.

Much could be written about the Lee family and its members’ travails, but that will have to wait for another article. This month, let’s appreciate the photographs of the Rockery, taken in 1896.

Steve Arseneau is the director of the Dowagiac Area History Museum. He resides in Niles with his wife, Christina, and children, Theodore and Eleanor.