5622 N Newark Ave
Chicago, IL 60631, USA

Noble-Seymour-Crippen House (Norwood Park Historical Society Museum) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Noble-Seymour-Crippen House meets National Register Criteria A and B in the area of Exploration/Settlement for the role played by Mark Noble. Sr.in cons1ructing the house and occupying it from 1833 to 1839 while playing a significant role as an early settler and entrepreneur in the creation of a permanent community. The pan of the house built by Noble is the oldest house within the present city limits of Chicago. The property is also significant under Criterion B for the role played by Thomas Seymour in creating. developing and leading the picturesque suburban community of Norwood Park during hit residency from 1868 to his death in 191S. The house is also significant under Criterion B for the social contributions made to the community by Stuart and Charlotte Crippen and their family from the time they acquired the property in 1916 until 1920. The Crippen’s owned and operated the L.B. Allen Company, which produced industrial and commercial solders and glues and was an important employer in the community.

MARK NOBLE Family
Mark Noble and his small family arrived in Chicago in 1831 from England via the Great Lakes route. His elder son John preceded him in a two—year long investigation that took him up the Mississippi Valley from New Orleans co St. Louis to Springfield and back to England to collect the family for emigration to Morgan Country in central Illinois. Mark Noble, Sr. arrived in Chicago with his wife. son Mark, Jr. and two daughters and decided to settle there. The Nobles lodged with John Kinzie during the winter of 1831-32. but in spring. 1832. Mark Sr. bought four acres of land bordered by State Street on the west and Madison Street on the south. Lake Michigan on the east and the Chicago River on the north. land which is now a substantial portion or the Chicago Loop. The bawdy and undisciplined lifestyle of the early frontier settlement offended Noble' s ardent Methodism. His discouragement with unsuccessful attempts to organized church meetings also prompted him to sell his land and and relocate in August 1833.
Moving further north and west he purchased the 160-acre claim of Jean Miranda and soon assembled almost 600 acres between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River. He erected the frame dwelling in 1833 (and completed in 1834) that was to become the Noble-Seymour-Crippen House. The land between the rivers is an Oak ridge upon which several sharper sandy ridges occur. Noble built his house at the top of one of these ridges 10 take advantage of breezes and to provide a commanding view of all the land to the east.

Noble was not a subsistence farmer. lie apparently arrived in the United States with enough capital to acquire a substantial landholding and launch several entrepreneurial activities. Tile family most likely cultivated a garden for home consumption and may have planted fruit trees along the sandy ridge. but the mixed hardwood trees and scrub on his property offered more opportunity for pasturage and raw material for a saw mill than it did for crop farming. Thus, did Noble make his living through stock raising, land sales and part ownership in a saw mill, which was located on the Des Plaines River near Lake Street in the present town of River Forest. Noble's occupation of the site can be seen more
as the nucleus of a settlement rather than the escablish1nent of one of a few scattered early farms. His economic activities were more metropolitan than rural as evidenced by his listing in Fergus' 1839 Chicago directory as a real estate agent. Noble was not among those on the leading edge of settlement who dwelt temporarily on their claim and then moved on. Nor was his establishment on the ridge between the rivers a simple subsistence farm. Rather, he was the first of those who came to stay and build a durable community bound together with ties of economic and social institutions.
Noble was one of the earliest permanent settlers in what was then Jefferson Township. He arrived only after the John Kinzie Clark family. By 1835 there were still only six families dwelling in the township but by 1838 that number jumped to approximately twenty-five families.