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Missouri’s Garth Mansion will host a ‘Hallowine’ celebration

By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

HANNIBAL, Mo. — While many are celebrating Halloween for this Oct. 31, John and Julie Rolsen, owners of the Garth Woodside Bed & Breakfast located outside historic Hannibal, are offering something different.

“We are offering a ‘Hallowine’ Festival, with wines like Vampire, Toadstool and more,” Julie said. “We have a big hayride with the farm across the way. We will roast marshmallows and have something nice on a spit.”

If the weather is too cool, they will retreat to the glassed-in restaurant area for dinner. “It is so much fun to have people come,” Julie said, adding that for her and John, it is the people that make running a country bed-and-breakfast worthwhile. “By the time a guest leaves, they are our friend.”

Guests at this B&B vary but recently, the Rolsens entertained the Oak Ridge Boys, who had come to Hannibal to perform. “They travel on a bus all the time. We thought maybe they would like to stay here,” she said.

One look at the house and grounds and it is easy to see why they, or anyone else for that matter, would be delighted to put up their feet and enjoy the serenity of the wooded acres. The three-storied mansion’s Second Empire Italianate style attracts many comments. “It has a mansard roof and is from the Napoleonic era,” John said.
Rated as one of the top five B&Bs in the county, like many other Hannibal locations, Garth Mansion has a Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens connection. John said, “Samuel Clemens’ childhood friends John and Helen Kercheval Garth built the Garth Woodside Mansion. They entertained Clemens on visits to Hannibal and corresponded with him many times.”

The wooded area and fertile soil serve the Rolsens well. They use their garden and the produce for many of Julie’s creations, as well as the blackberries and raspberries that grow on-site.

“I make raspberry jam from our berries and those grown on the farm across the way, we co-op. Then I make raspberry butter from the jam,” she said.

Besides the special butter and her famous quiche, every day she also makes chocolate chip cookies for her guests. This has been a mixed blessing because guests expect those cookies when they check in, and will “have a fit” if they are not there.

“That is the biggest mistake. If I ever quit, I’m in trouble,” Julie noted.

While the couple are carrying on a farming tradition in their garden, the mansion has agricultural roots that were set long before the Rolsens. The Garth family operated a tobacco business and cigar manufacturing in Hannibal. Following the death of John Garth, his older brother, David, ran the tobacco business under the name of D. T. Garth & Co.

John Garth had left Hannibal to attend the University of Missouri, then returned to Hannibal as a junior partner in the tobacco business with his brother. John wed Helen – the daughter of William Kercheval, a local tailor – who, Twain wrote, was “one of the prettiest of the schoolgirls.” They married Oct. 18, 1860, and had two children.

Sometime after the Civil War began, John moved his family to New York City. They returned to Hannibal in 1871, and he started a successful business career. He purchased a farm southwest of Hannibal and constructed a large summer home, which he named “Woodside.”

John Rolsen said, “On the farm, John Garth raised and bred shorthorn and Jersey cattle. As a businessman Garth entered many ventures.”

One of these ventures was president of the Garth Lumber Co. in Delta, Mich.

“He was a lumber baron and originally owned 650 acres,” John Rolsen said. “He had acres and shorthorn cattle. What is amazing is that this acreage was the same size as Hannibal was then – one square mile.”

In May 1882, Twain traveled the Mississippi River, refreshing his memory while writing Life on the Mississippi. When he reached Hannibal, he spent his first night at the Park hotel, but quickly became a guest of the Garths. He wrote to his wife Olivia, “I spent my night with John and Helen Garth three miles from town, in their spacious and beautiful house.”

Set on 39 idyllic acres guests have a private oasis, the mansion boasts eight rooms with private baths along with two cottages and the dowager house, which offers luxury accommodations for two. Although guests are welcome anytime, the holidays – whether the Hallowine Festival or Thanksgiving, or Christmas – are great times to come to this country inn.

Winter offers its own beauty. “Visitors can see the woods and sit in our glassed-in dining area and see the deer and wild turkey,” Julie said.

For more information about the Hallowine Festival or Garth Woodside Mansion, call 888-427-8409 or log onto www.garthmansion.com – Julie’s kitchen has a webcam and visitors all over the world can watch her at work.

Garth Woodside is located at 11069 New London Road, Hannibal, MO 63401.

Published on SEpt. 30, 2009

10/14/2009