Time Machine: The Decker House

GALENA - A young hardware and leather dealer from Galena, Ill., often traveled to Maquoketa on business, according to an often-told tale.

Ulysses S. Grant liked to stay at the original Decker House, the frame building that preceded the brick one erected in 1876. He frequented the hotel barroom with his friend, William Swigart, publisher of the Jackson Sentinel.

James Decker and E.R. Woley, of Watertown, N.Y., began building the original hotel in 1856, finishing it in 1857. Decker hired New York architect W.W. Tucker to design the new hotel and began excavation in 1876 on property next door to the old one. Made of only the best materials, the commercial Italianate, three-story hotel was completed in the fall of 1877 and was considered one of the finest in the area.

Mott Watson, a frugal bachelor from New York, moved to Maquoketa in the early 1860s. Watson always lived in hotels and was a resident of the Decker House in 1868 when Mary Jones was a hotel maid. Newspaper accounts said she 'was in the habit of visiting the rooms of Watson on errands other than her duties as a domestic ...” She became pregnant and in the fall of 1869, Watson tried to convince several Maquoketa families to take Jones into their homes. They all refused. On Dec. 26, 1869, she gave birth to a boy at the Jackson County poor house. When Jones was released in May 1870, she returned to the Decker House for a little more than a week before she left alone, leaving no trace.

The baby was adopted by the Decker House's managers, Mr. and Mrs. George Niles. Watson allegedly gave the Nileses written confirmation of his parentage and an agreement to provide for the child, keeping copies of the documents for himself. Watson saw the child every day until the Nileses moved to Plum Creek, Neb., in 1873 and to Abilene, Kan., more than a year later.

Mrs. Niles became ill and died when the boy was 18. During her illness, she became delirious and destroyed all the family's valuable papers, including those relating to young George. When his adopted father remarried, George enlisted in the cavalry.

Watson was 66 when he died on Aug. 26, 1895, without leaving a will. Several of his relatives were said to have opened his safe and removed documents.

A few weeks later a handsome, 26-year-old George Niles-Watson, honorably discharged from the service, appeared to pursue his claim to the fortune, igniting a long fight with Watson's 30 nieces and nephews for the bachelor's fortune. If he could prove that Mott Watson had acknowledged him as his son, Niles-Watson stood to inherit the $300,000 estate.

The case was fought from the lower courts through the Iowa Supreme Court three times. First the nephews won, then Niles-Watson. After the second verdict, Niles-Watson returned to Kansas and re-enlisted, distinguishing himself in battle in the Philippines and attaining a captaincy in a Kansas regiment. When Niles-Watson failed to show up for the third round of court proceedings, the judge ruled in favor of the cousins. An immediate appeal by Niles-Watson's lawyers was dismissed. That was the last anyone in Maquoketa heard of George Niles-Watson.

Leonard W. Decker, James' son, was the hotel's proprietor for many years. His good business sense and hard work made the Decker House a popular place. His daughter, Lenora, married F.C. Sears against her family's wishes. After a few unhappy years, she divorced him and lived a quiet life at home until her father died in 1900. A few months after his funeral, Lenora, now worth $100,000, secretly married a plumber and left for Denver on her honeymoon.

The Decker House Hotel at 128 N. Main St. was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Owner Clayton Kuhlman had run the Decker House Inn for 13 years and was ready to retire when he put it on the auction block in 1990. It had 8 apartments and 12 bed-and-breakfast rooms. It was sold in February 1991 to RaeAnn and Troy Thede of Denver, Colo. The restaurant opened first during the three years they spent restoring the old inn. By summer of 1991, the lounge on the basement level was open. When the restoration was done, there were 18 rooms and suites. The Thedes' 1,300 square foot apartment took up the rear of the third floor.

After the Thedes opened a new Comfort Inn and moved to a house, they sold the Decker Hotel and Restaurant to Lisa and Matt Millin in 2010.

The current owner, Chris Quilty of Davenport, bought it from a Dubuque credit union in 2013 to keep it from being salvaged. Now called the Decker Hotel 1875, the historical gem is still in service in Maquoketa.