Foss, Horatio G., House
19 Elm St., Auburn, METhis impressive Colonial Revival mansion was built in 1914 by Horatio Gates Foss, a highly successful Lewiston industrialist and self-made man. The land on which it stands was purchased by Foss from Samuel Pickard who inherited it from his father-in-law, Squire Edward Little, the principal founder of Lewiston-Auburn.
The son of a shoemaker, Jeremiah Foss and his wife, Elizabeth N. (Handerson), Horatio Gates Foss was born in Wayne, Maine on February 22, 1846. While being educated in the local public schools, he learned the shoemaking trade from his father and later went to Haverhill, Massachusetts to gain practical experience in larger shoe shops.
In 1875 he came to Auburn and became associated with the shoe manufacturing firm of Dingley, Strout & Co. Mr. Strout died in 1887, at which time the name was changed to Dingley, Foss & Co. since Foss had already established himself as a partner and became General Manager of this firm which employed between five and six hundred people. During his later years, he spent considerable time in Boston where he could be near the stock market in which he was very active. He died on December 2, 1928.
The couple having had no children, his widow, Ella M. (Fletcher) whom he married in 1878, upon her death in 1941, bequeathed the house to the Woman's Literary Union.
The Foss House, long an Auburn showplace, stands as yet another reminder of the rewards of success in the 19th-century industrial world.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.