4 hours Ago By Thomas Weber
Unfortunately, Charles Cudworth Willson, a prominent Rochester attorney, is probably best known today for the spectacular fire that engulfed his hilltop mansion on April Fool’s Day, 1918. The home, located at the top of College Street (today’s Fourth Street Southwest), was for decades regarded as one of the city’s finest residences. Willson and his family called the place Red Oaks, for the trees that surrounded the house.
But locals knew it best as “Willson’s Castle.” More than a few trudged up the hill on Sunday afternoons to get a close-up view of the property. ADVERTISEMENT It may be that Willson liked the notoriety that went with living in one of Rochester’s landmarks.
But for Willson, his wife, Annie, and their nine children, the castle was simply their family home. And for all the attention the house garnered, Red Oaks was just one piece of C.C.
Willson’s legacy. He was one of the primary movers and shakers of Rochester’s early decades, accumulating significant property, training future prominent lawyers Frank Kellogg and Charles Start, donating land for Saint Marys Hospital, and helping to found Calvary Episcopal, the city’s most historic church. Willson was born in 1829 in Cattaraugus County, in western New York state.
At the age of 16, he began studying law and was admitted to the bar on Sept. 3, 1851, ironically in Rochester, New Yor. After practicing law in Geneseo, New York, for several years, Willson’s head was turned by opportunities in the West.
In 1856, he visited Rochester to see the lay of the land, so to speak. “He invested in some lots on College Street, which he helped clear of the brush that then covered most of the townsite,” according to J.A.
Leonard’s “History of Olmsted County, Minnesota” Two years later, at age 28, Willson came to Rochester to settle for good. He set about acquiring real estate, including a 1,500-acre farm in Haverhill Township. Meanwhile, Willson was courting Annie Rosebrugh, a native of Canada.
After they were married in February 1862, he began building Red Oaks for her. Soon, there were children romping around the 25-acre grounds. After Willson’s Haverhill farm was destroyed by the 1883 tornado, Red Oaks was his major landholding.
ADVERTISEMENT In 1910, according to Leonard’s history of the county, Willson was the dean of the local legal profession. “He has an extensive and high-class practice,” Leonard wrote. Willson’s law office was located on the upper floor of the Union Bank building, at what is today South Broadway and Third Street Southwest.
In the next year, though, Willson’s world began to deflate. Annie died at age 71 in 1911, and a daughter, Olive, died at age 42 in 1917. A son, John, had died at age 17.
Willson moved in with family members at the College Apartments, down the hill from Red Oaks. Then came the fire, which began, according to historian Ken Allsen, when a lightning strike ignited a pile of dried leaves. The fire department was called and firefighters ran up the hill.
But when they hooked their hoses to a nearby hydrant, “only a small trickle of water came out,” wrote Allsen. “The main city water tank, just across the street, was lower than the burning house.” Willson died on Nov.
1, 1922. By then, the property occupied by the ruins of Red Oaks had been sold off to developers. All physical traces of Willson’s grand mansion on the hill soon disappeared.
Thomas Weber is a former Post Bulletin reporter who enjoys writing about local history..
