Time Machine: Matsell’s Castle Farm

The palatial mansion of George Washington Matsell overlooked the Wapsipinicon River for more than a century.

Matsell, a large, amiable man, had served as New York City's first police chief for a dozen years, organizing the first uniformed police department in the United States in the 1840s. He brought about creation of the Children's Aid Society after pointing out the plight of the thousands of street children in the city.

Several stories circulated about why Chief Matsell came to Iowa in 1856. In one, Matsell was influenced by Native Americans who stopped in New York on their way to Washington. In another, he was introduced to a Jesuit priest who had just returned to New York from the West and captivated Matsell with tales of the wild and beautiful land. In a third, Matsell heard about the West from some of the criminals he had captured.

None of the stories was ever verified. What is known is that Matsell purchased large tracts of property on both sides of the Wapsipinicon and built an English-style estate. The land had been owned by Fred Kinley and Dr. Henry Schoonover and spanned Buffalo and Maine townships in Linn County.

Matsell named his estate Castle Farm and spent summers there with his wife, Ellen, and their four children, George Jr., Susan, Augustus 'Gus' and Henry, also known as 'Harry.' The farm covered about 3,000 acres.

Matsell returned to New York each winter to take care of his business interests and fulfill his civic duties as a police commissioner and president of New York City's Board of Police Commissioners.

When Matsell's friend, Mayor William Havemeyer, was defeated in the election of 1874, Matsell's influence on New York's Police Department ended. He died on July 25, 1877, in New York.

THE MANSION

The manicured Matsell estate — fashioned after George Washington's Mount Vernon home overlooking the Potomac River — seemed incongruous in the rural countryside of Iowa with its mowed lawn sloping down to the river's edge and its throng of servants inside the house.

The mansion had 25 rooms plus servants' quarters. Outbuildings included a house for hired hands, barns, corncribs, an ice house, an office building, a printing office and a summer house. Famous actors would come to the estate to perform in plays in the estate's Oak Hall Theatre.

Many famous people were entertained at Castle Farm, including Gus' friend, Theodore Roosevelt. The Matsells kept a wine cellar full of imported wines and a 50-gallon barrel of bourbon in the basement.

The Matsells were the first to raise fine stock in Iowa, fencing off parts of their land for horses, cattle and hogs. The farm itself was worked by tenants who paid rent to the Matsells. The community of family and tenants was often referred to as Matsellton.

ANNUAL PICNIC

The family hosted a yearly summer picnic in the 1880s. People from Cedar Rapids, Marion, Anamosa and the surrounding countryside arrived by train, carriages and wagons for a day of games, entertainment and food.

The Matsells had a sense of humor. In 1887, they published a six-column sheet called the Wapsie Index. They announced it was the first edition of a paper to be published every 100 years. Perhaps it was a nod to their father, who purchased and published the Police Gazette in New York.

FAMILY TREASURES

Harry, the youngest of the Matsell brothers, died in 1895 at age 48 of 'paralysis.' Shy and reclusive, he nonetheless was the farm's manager for more than 520 decades.

After their mother died in 1897, the remaining Matsell siblings made Castle Farm their primary home.

George and Gus formed the company, Matsell Bros., and applied the most modern and scientific principles to their operation.

In 1904, George, Susan and Gus invited some Gazette staffers to their home. The visitors were amazed at the treasures — two mahogany chairs that once belonged to George Washington, a broom that Commodore Matthew Perry brought from Japan, Daniel Webster's double-barreled duck gun and a shirt that belonged to President Franklin Pierce. Pierce had been caught in a rainstorm in New York and took refuge in the Matsell home there, exchanging his wet shirt for a dry one.

The Matsells also had fragments from a stone, in front of the Treasury Building in New York City, on which George Washington stood to take the oath of office as the first president of the United States.

CASTLE FARM SOLD

In 1914, ads began to appear in local papers offering the Matsell farm for sale: 'One of the finest stock farms. Picturesque location — five miles of frontage on both banks of the Wapsipinicon River. Apply by letter to Matsell Bros., Stone City, Iowa.'

While some of the property was sold, 1,100 acres remained on the north side of the river.

Susan, after being ill for several months, died in Anamosa on Dec. 28, 1915. She was 76. Susan, described as a refined and intelligent woman, had taken care of the home while her brothers handled the business.

George and Gus took their sister's remains to New York to be buried with her parents and brother Harry. When they returned, they both came down with colds. George's illness turned into pneumonia, and he died at Castle Farm in 1916. His remains were placed in a vault in Stone City while Gus recovered from his illness. In April, Gus accompanied his brother's remains to New York to be buried in the family vault.

Alone on the estate, Gus decided to move in with his friend and neighbor, George Finn, and sell the remaining farm to the Mayer brothers of Iowa in 1918. But the land was deeded back to Gus four years later.

In 1926, Gus sold the farm to Col. C.B. Robbins, the assistant secretary of war under President Calvin Coolidge. Robbins built his Trail's End Cabin on a bluff 90 feet above the Wapsi, while the mansion was occupied by Robbins' partner, John Eiben, who managed the farm's herds of Scotch shorthorns and Shropshire sheep.

When Gus died in 1929, the Matsell family name ended. None of the siblings married or had children.

In 1946, Fred Witousek of Cedar Rapids bought the farm, planning to restore it. He renamed it Witousek Manor.

Witousek's widow sold the land to the Linn County Conservation Board for $100 an acre in 1967. It became the Matsell Bridge Natural Area. All of the original buildings, which had fallen into disrepair, were demolished. Only the icehouse and the stone pillars of the entrance gate remain today.

The Matsells' furniture was used to decorate a Matsell room at the historic home on Second Ave SE in Cedar Rapids that housed the Turner Mortuary. The building is the new home of The History Center.

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