Thomas Forsyth House
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Thomas Forsyth House | |
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| Location | 111 N. Toquerville Blvd., Toquerville, Utah |
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| Coordinates | 37°15′10.5″N 113°17′05.9″W / 37.252917°N 113.284972°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | c. 1868 |
| Built by | Thomas Forsyth |
| NRHP reference No. | 82004184[1] |
| Added to NRHP | February 11, 1982 |
The Thomas Forsyth House is the historic home of an early settler of Toquerville, Utah. One of the Mormon pioneers, Thomas Forsyth (or Forsythe) built the house circa 1868 and lived there until his death in 1898. He operated mills, dried fruit and stocked the cellar with wine he made himself, while his wife Mary Browett Holmes ran a glove shop. The simple 1½-story fieldstone construction, a hall-and-parlor house extended with a lean-to, is representative of the pioneer period.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 1982, for its historical and architectural connection to "the first effective settlement of Utah's Dixie."[2]
The 1+1⁄2-story house, with a rock basement (a former wine cellar), is made of 1.5-foot (46 cm) uncoursed rubble with cut-stone quoins on each corner. Each floor has four rooms; the hall-and-parlor plan on the front is hidden by a symmetrical, minimally-decorated facade, with an attic door set in a gable to allow large items to be brought up. Two large stone fireplaces remain in the front rooms. The building is extended by an original one-story lean-to on the rear, which served as the kitchen and hosts the staircase to the upper floor.[2][3]
The double-hung sash windows have been removed, along with the third kitchen fireplace, and (around 1915) a porch and balcony that used to run the length of the building. A new window was added in the south wall of the lean-to, and a modern bathroom added to the back of the house. However, the house "retains its historic character."[2]
