The Historic Rossetter House Museum overlooks the Indian River in Eau Gallie, Brevard County, Florida. (Resulting from a 1969 city merger, Eau Gallie is now part of the City of Melbourne.) Eau Gallie was founded in the 1850s around a variety of agricultural ventures including sugar cane, rice, and citrus groves. In 1877, commercial steamboats began to ply the Indian River, and the area began to grow. By 1893 it had become the southern end of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway attracting new visitors from the north.
The museum comprises the 1880s / 1904 James Wadsworth Rossetter House and gardens, the 1892 William P. Roesch House, and the 1865 Houston Family Memorial Cemetery. Marjory and I visited in early 2013 and again in March 2014.
Shaded with live oaks and sea grapes, this property was owned and developed by three different families. When John Carrol Houston arrived in the area, there were precious few towns. Purportedly Houston had his slaves build the first structure on the property where the Rossetter House now stands. He operated a refuge and staging area for blockade runners transporting goods from the Indian River to the St. Johns River during the Civil War. Later, he served as a hunting and fishing guide for wealthy northerners. Houston also established Brevard County’s second post office in 1871. Upon Houston’s death in 1885, the property went to his daughter, Ada Louise Houston. The back / east portion of what is now the Rossetter House was built after her marriage to William R. Roesch.
Roesch also built a new house across the street, which now serves as the Museum’s visitor center and gift shop. He went on to become Eau Gallie’s first Mayor and founder of the city’s first newspaper, The Eau Gallie Record. Sadly, five of the Roesch’s six children died between the years 1887 and 1895. They are buried in the Houston Cemetery nearby, as are John Houston and his wife Mary.
James Wadsworth Rossetter and his family (wife Ella and daughters, Caroline and Ella) arrived in 1902. The Rossetter House stands on the property Rossetter purchased in 1904, and is restored as it stood in 1908 as shown below.
The material for the front / west portion of the house is said to have come from another home across the Eau Gallie River. That house was dissembled and then reassembled here, connected to the back portion by breezeways on two levels. Of particular note in the front are the bead board walls and ceilings, sometimes in elaborate patterns. This appears to be the work of shipbuilders rather than carpenters.
Rossetter’s fish company was one of the largest consumers of gasoline in Eau Gallie, which is how he came to be the Standard Oil agent for South Brevard County.
When James W. Rossetter passed away in 1921, Caroline (Carrie), the oldest of the Rossetter children, had been working with her father for a number of years and decided to take over her father's oil agency. A female oil agent was unheard of at the time, but she persuaded the Standard Oil Company to allow her to do so. She was a success for 62 years, becoming the longest running Standard Oil agent in the country.
Carrie built some of the first gasoline stations in South Brevard and was the sole distributor of oil to the Banana River Naval Air Station's civilian air force during the Second World War. Caroline also continued her father's interests in the areas of both cattle and citrus.
In 1991, Caroline and her sister, Ella, donated their family home and collection of Victorian antiques to the Rossetter House Foundation as a monument to Eau Gallie’s past. This local house museum is an excellent representation of what life was like on the Florida coast in the early 1900s. The house’s plain wooden interior paneling held up to the moist climate, and the furniture and fixtures are well preserved. Ella's Model A Ford remains in the garage.
It is interesting to compare the Rossetter house the Henry Flagler’s home, Whitehall, in Palm Beach, Florida. Flagler was a founder of the Standard Oil Company while James Rossetter was a Standard Oil dealer. Both of their homes are linked to the inter-coastal waterway and were completed at about the same time. Both men have a connection to the Florida East Coast Railway – Flagler built it while Rossetter and Eau Gallie benefited from it. But there the similarities end. The Rossetter house would fit inside Whitehall at least 30 times.
The museum comprises the 1880s / 1904 James Wadsworth Rossetter House and gardens, the 1892 William P. Roesch House, and the 1865 Houston Family Memorial Cemetery. Marjory and I visited in early 2013 and again in March 2014.
Shaded with live oaks and sea grapes, this property was owned and developed by three different families. When John Carrol Houston arrived in the area, there were precious few towns. Purportedly Houston had his slaves build the first structure on the property where the Rossetter House now stands. He operated a refuge and staging area for blockade runners transporting goods from the Indian River to the St. Johns River during the Civil War. Later, he served as a hunting and fishing guide for wealthy northerners. Houston also established Brevard County’s second post office in 1871. Upon Houston’s death in 1885, the property went to his daughter, Ada Louise Houston. The back / east portion of what is now the Rossetter House was built after her marriage to William R. Roesch.
Roesch also built a new house across the street, which now serves as the Museum’s visitor center and gift shop. He went on to become Eau Gallie’s first Mayor and founder of the city’s first newspaper, The Eau Gallie Record. Sadly, five of the Roesch’s six children died between the years 1887 and 1895. They are buried in the Houston Cemetery nearby, as are John Houston and his wife Mary.
James Wadsworth Rossetter and his family (wife Ella and daughters, Caroline and Ella) arrived in 1902. The Rossetter House stands on the property Rossetter purchased in 1904, and is restored as it stood in 1908 as shown below.
The material for the front / west portion of the house is said to have come from another home across the Eau Gallie River. That house was dissembled and then reassembled here, connected to the back portion by breezeways on two levels. Of particular note in the front are the bead board walls and ceilings, sometimes in elaborate patterns. This appears to be the work of shipbuilders rather than carpenters.
Rossetter’s fish company was one of the largest consumers of gasoline in Eau Gallie, which is how he came to be the Standard Oil agent for South Brevard County.
When James W. Rossetter passed away in 1921, Caroline (Carrie), the oldest of the Rossetter children, had been working with her father for a number of years and decided to take over her father's oil agency. A female oil agent was unheard of at the time, but she persuaded the Standard Oil Company to allow her to do so. She was a success for 62 years, becoming the longest running Standard Oil agent in the country.
Carrie built some of the first gasoline stations in South Brevard and was the sole distributor of oil to the Banana River Naval Air Station's civilian air force during the Second World War. Caroline also continued her father's interests in the areas of both cattle and citrus.
In 1991, Caroline and her sister, Ella, donated their family home and collection of Victorian antiques to the Rossetter House Foundation as a monument to Eau Gallie’s past. This local house museum is an excellent representation of what life was like on the Florida coast in the early 1900s. The house’s plain wooden interior paneling held up to the moist climate, and the furniture and fixtures are well preserved. Ella's Model A Ford remains in the garage.
It is interesting to compare the Rossetter house the Henry Flagler’s home, Whitehall, in Palm Beach, Florida. Flagler was a founder of the Standard Oil Company while James Rossetter was a Standard Oil dealer. Both of their homes are linked to the inter-coastal waterway and were completed at about the same time. Both men have a connection to the Florida East Coast Railway – Flagler built it while Rossetter and Eau Gallie benefited from it. But there the similarities end. The Rossetter house would fit inside Whitehall at least 30 times.
30 or 50 times, which is it?
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