One roof, two legacies. The one-armed general who championed the newly freed and helped found the university bearing his name also gave the orders that sent the Army 1,100 miles after Chief Joseph's Nez Perce. His stay in this 1879 Italianate — called the finest dwelling house north of the Columbia when new — lasted barely a year. It now houses The Historic Trust, its rose garden open to wanderers.
You are standing before the O.O. Howard House, praised when it was new as the finest dwelling house north of the Columbia. This Italianate home was built in eighteen seventy-nine for General Oliver Otis Howard, who lived here barely a year — and this house holds two truths about one man. Howard was the one-armed Civil War general who led the Freedmen's Bureau and helped found Howard University, a champion of the newly freed. And in eighteen seventy-seven, from these grounds, he directed the eleven-hundred-mile pursuit of Chief Joseph's Nez Perce — a people who are still here today, and some of whom were held prisoner at this post. Today the house is headquarters of The Historic Trust. The porch and rose garden are open anytime, and the lobby welcomes visitors when open.