Feature 221: 217 North Main Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Marshal's House; Jackson County Jail & Jail Annex; Howard Schoolhouse - Marshal's House.
Architectural Style: Federal (late).
Construction Date: 1859-1860.
Period 1 of Harry S Truman's Life: The Period of Pre-Significance, before 1890.
Tax Identification: 26-230-02-01.
Legal Description: Old Town, south 20.34 feet of lot 2 and 33.51 feet of lot 3.
Description: The Marshal's House is a contributing two-story brick government building; rectangular in shape; low-pitch gabled roof; red brick exterior; double-hung sash windows occupy five bays on second-floor facade and three central bays on ground floor; single-leaf wood doors on both ends of primary facade; stone foundation.
The Jackson County Jail [Feature 222] is a contributing two-story cut limestone government building; rectangular in shape; with a low-pitched gabled roof; cut stone exterior; six windows on the north and south walls; a two-story brick annex was added to the jail in 1903; the annex addition has a flat roof, brick exterior, and concrete foundation. A corridor that extends along the east side of the Marshal's House connects that building with the jail facility.
The Howard Schoolhouse [Feature 223] is a contributing one-story, one-room wood-frame government building, gabled roof; clapboard exterior; moved to the site in 1960, during the period of significance.
These three building are located on the east side of North Main Street toward the north end of a long block; the Marshal's House abuts the sidewalk; small recessed yard accessed from the sidewalk leads to the house via its kitchen.
• Alterations: The annex was added to the jail in 1903. The jail was renovated by the Works Progress Administration around 1934. The Marshal's House was rehabilitated in 1959.
History/Significance: At the end of World War II, the American Legion bought the building complex. It was abandoned a few years later. In 1956, when demolition of the buildings seemed imminent, a citizen's group formed to rescue and restore the Marshal's House. Harry Truman made the first donation for its restoration. With this accomplished, the Marshal's House and the Jail Museum opened to the public in June 1959. Jackson County Historical Society presently owns and operates this complex of buildings. The Jackson County Jail and Marshal's House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Jackson County Court ordered the construction of the jail in 1859 and the Marshal's House in 1859-1860. The firm of Platt and Moore of Kansas City erected the jail and Marshal's House. John Cassell, who helped build these two structures, later reported that the stone came from a quarry on the Noland Farm on Rock Creek. Several notable individuals spent time in the Jackson County Jail. William C. Quantrill, a guerrilla leader of pre-Civil War Missouri-Kansas border wars, was imprisoned here in the winter of 1860. During the Civil War, when federal Union troops occupied the Independence area, they used the jail as a military prison; the Marshal's House served as the headquarters for federal troops. In 1862, during the first Battle of Independence, Southern sympathizers were incarcerated in the jail before being freed by William Quantrill and General John T. Hughes. Two years later, during the so-called second Battle of Independence (part of the larger Battle of Westport, nearby), federal troops used the jail to cover their rear guard. Shortly after the war, Baptist Reverend Abner Holton Deane became a prisoner in the jail, because he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, claiming that God was his highest authority and not the federal government. Many years later, Frank James, the brother of Jesse James, spent time in the jail (1884) while awaiting trial. From 1884 to 1894, Mother Mary Jerome, a Sister of Mercy, regularly visited prisoners in the jail and became well known for her acts of kindness.
From the turn of the twentieth century to around 1933, the jail was used almost exclusively by county chain gangs, which worked for meager wages to construct county roads. An annex to the jail was constructed in 1903 to accommodate larger chain gangs. After chain gangs no longer used the building, a New Deal, Depression-era program funded and supplied labor to renovate the jail in 1934 at a cost of around $10,000. At that time, a federal/state employment office occupied the first floor of the Marshal's House, women's sewing projects were carried out on the second floor, canning lessons were given in the kitchen of the house, and the old jail served as a storage place for thousands of tin cans.
The complex of buildings became a local museum in 1959 and an abandoned schoolhouse, known as the Howard Schoolhouse built in 1870, was relocated here a year later.