Home of Otis and Maria Witham on the south side of Puente Avenue in the Irwindale section of the Phillips Tract (north West Covina today), photographed Winter 1891-1892 by Edward Adams Richardson (1859-1919).1
Photo courtesy of David Bull, used with permission.
Pictured on the front porch are Otis H. Witham (1832-1917),2 his wife Maria Louisa Clough Witham (1831-1905),3 their granddaughter, Lulu Harris (1884-1972),4 and I presume one of the women standing behind Lulu is her mother, Mary Ella Witham Harris (1858-1950).5 The remaining two subjects are unknown.
A native of Maine, Mr. Witham first came to California in 1857, settling in Tuolumne county.2 In February, 1887, he purchased Lot 1 of Block 20 in the Phillips Tract,6 located adjoining the southwest corner of Azusa and Puente Avenues.
A citrus grove and a house with the same footprint can be seen still standing on the property in an aerial photo from 1954,7 however a subsequent aerial view from 19608 shows the entire lot has been cleared for redevelopment. In 1962, a Zodys department store was constructed on the former Witham orchard,9 and that commercial structure remains on the site today.
The Witham house itself is worth noting. Although I have no direct evidence, I believe the charming little Victorian cottage pictured above might be an early example of an Allison house—built either by early settler Samuel Allison or perhaps more likely by his son Clarence, a prolific early builder of Covina who would have been 29 years of age in 1891.10
A known example of a Clarence Allison house still stands at 237 South Third Avenue in Covina—said by his great-great-great-nephew, Tom Armbruster, to've been built in 1899.11
Google Maps
It shares certain design elements with the earlier Witham house, most notably the scalloped shingling on the gable, the attic window and the turning of the front porch posts. I can also imagine a similar iron cresting originally decorating the small roof ridge of the extant 1899 house.
References:
1 Personal communication with David Hull.
2 Pomona Progress, December 17, 1917, p.6.
3 Covina Argus, March 18, 1905, p.5.
4 Lulu B. Harris at FamilySearch.org.
5 Certificate of Death, Mary Ella Harris, filed August 11, 1950, Los Angeles County Recorder.
6 Los Angeles Times, February 4, 1887, p.7.
7 HistoricAerials.com
8 University of California, Santa Barbara Geospatial Collection.
9 Valley Times, September 25, 1962, p.5.
10 "Glenn Reed Remembers Vintage Covina circa 1900." Steve Reed, Sandy Reed Wulf, eds., 87pp.
11 Posting by Tom Armbruster in the "I Grew Up in Covina" Facebook group, May 25, 2021.
