New Shop Rejuvenates Historic House
Godfrey, IL – The village’s new shop, Harrisons Gifts, brought a new look to an old house with the shop’s trademark colors that adorn Harrison’s 12-year-old Grafton shop.
In case it seems like the house built in 1836 just appeared on the corner at 6404 Godfrey Road, it did after Sharon and Steve Harrison cleared brush and cut down trees that hid the structure to passers-by. They did enough work, painting and overhauling to quietly open the Godfrey shop last week. A grand opening is planned for spring.
The Harrisons’ Godfrey location is in one of the oldest houses in the village and named for the man who built the house, John Pattison. Thus the structure is known as the Pattison House, which Pattison purportedly built after Capt. Benjamin Godfrey, for whom the village is named, gave Pattison the land and building materials. He gave the property to Pattison, a stone mason, for his construction work on Monticello Female Seminary also built in 1836 and founded by Godfrey. The only institution of higher education for females west of the Allegheny Mountains later became Monticello College and then Lewis and Clark Community College when it bought the campus around 1972.
