Historic Fisher House in Weiser

Memories of Tony Edmondson – 2022

598 Pioneer Road

James Marchbank Fisher

Our story begins long before the construction of our home. While the Fisher Family History is well documented by their descendants, I’m sharing a less formal, mostly from memory, and hopefully shorter version here.  It starts with James Marchbank Fisher, who was born in 1848 in Scotland and emigrated to the U.S. in 1867.  He makes his way out west and eventually to the Little Willow Creek area where he begins a sheep operation, soon going into partnership with Scott Brundage (yes, the guy associated with the mountain in McCall).  Our guy got a less conspicuous namesake in the form of Fisher Creek which flows into upper Payette Lake.   When he’s satisfied with his success, he heads back to Scotland, where in 1897 he marries Wilhelmina Kirk (25 years his junior) and brings her home to Idaho.   

By then, he’s living on a ranch on the Weiser Flat and at age 50, the first of his 7 children (all girls) are born.  Jeanna in 1898, Catherine in 1900, and Roberta in 1902.  Sadly, tragedy struck in January 1903 when all three toddlers become ill.  Within a few days of one another, Jeanna and Catherine succumbed.  Years later they would be joined in rest near a large headstone at Hillcrest Cemetery by their parents and two sisters, Roberta and Willie.  Before her death, Roberta would tell us that what saved her was the whiskey she was given!  For years, the family attributed those deaths to a viral condition.  During a house centennial reunion, we hosted for more than 50 family descendants, they conjectured the more likely cause was botulism!  Whatever the cause, I’ve often wondered what that must have been like for Wilhelmina, losing two children within days, only a few years after moving to desolate sagebrush country with no family to support her but a husband old enough to be her father.  But that was a different world and life went on.  Roberta was soon followed by Chris(tine) in 1904, (Frances) Mary in 1907, (Wilma) “Willie” in 1911, and Bea(trice) in 1915. 

By 1907, James was a well-respected figure in the Weiser community.  It was time to retire from the ranch and move to town, so a larger and more substantial home was commissioned to local and regional architect H. W. (Herbert Weston) Bond.  Early in our ownership, we learned that Bond designed the similar looking (but larger) home to the east of ours for the Broderson family in 1915, what is now the Hartland Inn on highway 95 in New Meadows, and the now extant New Meadows Hotel which was located near the intersection of highways 55 & 95.  He likely designed others in our region as well.  More recent research I’ve done suggests Bond was only in Weiser early in the 20^th century.  He lived and worked for several years in Baker City, Or, as well as Santa Barbara, Ca, after coming out west, so he apparently had some level of success.

Christine, Wilhelmina, Mary, James, Roberta about 1909.

Construction on the house got underway in 1907 on the western outskirts of town.  Our home would soon be joined by the Leighton House to the west in 1909, and the previously referenced Broderson home in 1915.  Each were situated on generous ten acre lots which ran up to the Galloway ditch.  The original blueprints and multi-page typewritten specifications which have remained with our house, contain a handwritten note disclosing the Fishers moved into their new home on March 1, 1908.  At that time, the house was heated by a fireplace in the living room, wood stoves in the rear parlor and dining room, and the cookstove in the kitchen (which Salley Baker recalled still present in 1961).  All three chimneys still stand proudly.  There were 3 bedrooms upstairs accompanied by a rudimentary bathroom in the attic area above the kitchen, at the back of the house.  The family tells us they called the 4^th bedroom located downstairs off the kitchen, “the infirmary”.  It seems when family members got sick, they were isolated near the kitchen and downstairs bathroom until they were well.

With more kids on the way, the Fisher Family soon outgrew this house and in 1911, they raised the roof over the kitchen and “infirmary” at the back of the house, and added two more bedrooms modernized the upstairs bathroom, installed a back stairway, and added an attic stairway which led to two unfinished rooms on the third floor.  More importantly, they added a central heating system to the house.  The family told us that a trainload of hot water heating systems came through Weiser and they weren’t going to be left out!  That original boiler (converted from coal to oil, and then natural gas) and radiators were still providing faithful service when we purchased the house in 1981.  We’ve since installed a high efficiency boiler which still feeds those radiators!

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From Tony Edmonson