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 The roots of Brackett House reach back to 17th-century Massachusetts.
In 1630, Captain Richard Brackett, a prominent Puritan with the Massachusetts
Bay Company, emigrated from England to the Boston area.
His great-great-great-great-grandson, William A. Brackett, was born January
14, 1825, in Pittstown, New York. He migrated to Iowa as a carpenter to
help in the construction of bridges for the railroad. His family soon
followed and settled in Mount Venon in the fall of 1860. William Brackett
continued to live in Mount Vernon until his death on June 15, 1891.
All three of Brackett's children were graduated from Cornell College.
In 1877, when his daughter Clara was 18, William Brackett built the house
that now bears his name. He never lived in the house but apparently intended
it for Clara, then a student at Cornell. She lived there until her death
in 1927, when the house passed to her daughter Elizabeth.
In 1952, Cornell College gained possession of the house according to the
terms of Elizabeth's will. In 1977, Bess H. Medary, a 1915 Cornell graduate
and classmate of Elizabeth, made a major gift to Cornell. This money,
along with funds contributed by other alumni and friends, financed a major
renovation of Brackett House in 1978.
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