The Nickerson Series: Edward J. Burling

The Nickerson Series was initially established as a lecture series that aimed to situate the Driehaus Museum and the historic Nickerson Mansion in the wider context of America’s Gilded Age culture and the design philosophies of the period. That intention is extended now to this blog series which brings you the story of the Nickerson Mansion as told through the eyes of the individuals who played the most significant roles in its creation and design, reflecting on the legacies they have left us.

Original Published on June 28, 2013
As [Speaking of Architecture] The Life and Work of Edward J. Burling

Edward J. Burling was, arguably, the first great architect in Chicago – a city of great architects.

In 1844, he became only the second architect to set up a practice in the nascent metropolis. In the 1850s and '60s Burling formed prominent peaks on Chicago’s very first skyline, designing buildings like the first Chicago Chamber of Commerce, Tribune Building, Holy Name Cathedral, US Post Office and Customs House, Marine Bank Building, and Music Hall. Beyond these major cultural, municipal, corporate, and ecclesiastical buildings, he also built Chicago—the Stacker of Wheat—its first grain elevator, and a number of important private Victorian-style residences.

Of course, our favorite Burling building is our own. His 1868 design of the First National Bank of Chicago (image below) — where Samuel M. Nickerson was president — must have caught Nickerson’s eye, and in 1879 Nickerson commissioned Burling and his partner at the time, Francis M. Whitehouse, to build a private residence on practically as grand a scale as the former fine bank.


Edward J. Burling was born April 24, 1819, to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Burling in Newburgh, New York, a bustling village located along the Hudson River between New York City and Albany. He was never formally trained nor completed his education, but began a carpentry apprenticeship as a teenager, heading up the design and construction of a few homes himself after gaining experience.

At 24 years old, Burling undertook the long journey from Newburgh to Chicago by water. The trip took weeks, as he first sailed or steamed north on the Hudson to Albany, down the slim Erie Barge Canal to Tonawanda (Buffalo), and across Lake Erie to Detroit; trained west across Michigan to New Buffalo; and, finally, by boat again across Lake Michigan to arrive in the City of Big Shoulders itself.

Chicago, a rural outpost just a few years before, was absolutely exploding. Burling arrived in 1843, and the city was about to make a 500% leap in population within one decade. (There were less than 5,000 settlers in Chicago in 1840, and by 1850 there were approximately 30,000. By the time of Burling’s death, in 1892, Chicago’s population would be about 1.1 million.)

The building industry at that time, to put it lightly, was boisterous. Chicago must have looked like paradise to a young carpenter hoping to make a name and good life for himself. Burling was there just a few months before he took that long journey back East again, married Elizabeth G. Proctor in his hometown Newburgh, and then took her back with him to settle in Chicago for good in 1844.

Burling’s first important commission came in 1845, when he was hired to build a Greek Revival home (image below) for Eli B. Williams, one of Chicago’s earliest settlers and real estate developers. On a wooded estate not far from the lakefront, on the corner of Monroe and Wabash, Doric columns surrounded the residence. It was here the young Burling set a tone he wouldn’t stray far from in his career: a stately, classical style that lent itself well to churches, government buildings, and grand homes.



After that, the real estate mogul William B. Ogden, who had been Chicago’s first mayor in 1837, hired Burling to work for his firm, Ogden, Jones & Co., as general superintendent of all its buildings. For the next decade, this provided steady work for Burling as he and Eliza had six children together. Soon, however, Burling went back to work for himself, forming a partnership with Frederick H. Baumann in 1852 and creating the firm Edward Burling & Co. in 1855. The work poured in - one record shows that Burling had, at one point, construction moving forward on one church, one residence, one public building, three hotels, and twelve commercial buildings, plus five jobs outside of Chicago.

Burling was a soaring success during these early years and embodied the gusto and panache that defined early Chicago life. But unfortunately for Burling’s legacy, nearly all his early work was consumed by the Great Fire in 1871, a blaze that practically wiped Chicago’s slate clean. Despite Burling being a very early advocate of fireproofing, his Tribune Building—the first supposedly fireproof building in the city—saw its iron beams melt into liquid rivers in the blasting heat, and its stone baked and crumbled to dust. Still, a stone-walled survivor of Burling’s early work stands next to the Driehaus Museum today: St. James Cathedral, which he built in 1857 and rebuilt in 1875.

Although that magnificent early body of work could never be recovered, Burling worked harder than ever after the Fire, gaining more commissions than before. It was later said of Burling that he was “a splendid specimen of the best type of self-made men,” the highest compliment one could offer in that enterprising age. He formed a firm with the great architect Dankmar Adler, and the pair were said to have reconstructed four linear miles’ worth of streetscape in the single year after the fire, more than 100 buildings in all. Some were rebuilds—including the second Tribune Building and Marine Bank Building—while others were new, important commissions, including the Chicago Post Office and Customs House and Methodist Church Block, a religious denomination with which Burling was strongly affiliated. He also took on some simpler, more practical buildings, including the 1872 commercial lofts surviving on Lake and Franklin Streets and a number of 1875 brick Italianate row houses, which have also survived and are designated historic districts on North Burling and North Fremont Streets.

Burling and Adler parted ways in 1878, Burling continuing his favored Italianate style as Adler modernized. Then he formed his final firm with Francis Whitehouse, with whom he built the Samuel M. Nickerson House; Charles T. Yerkes residence; John M. Loomis mansion; Harlow N. Higinbotham estate; John Cudahy residence; the Richardsonian Romanesque Church of the Epiphany on Ashland Boulevard (image below); and more.



Burling and Whitehouse’s design for the Nickerson Mansion was marveled upon in 1879 for its use of innovative technologies and materials and was even written about in a Chicago Daily Tribune that same year. Because their first house was destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871, the Nickerson’s requested a fire-proof structure for their new home. Looking to improve upon past fireproofing techniques, the architects designed immensely thick brick walls that support iron vaulted ceilings which serve as the structural skeleton of the house, and they completely rejected the use of plaster throughout. Instead, the surface of the walls are covered in marble, tile, ornamental wood, lincrusta, and textile wall-fill. In addition to the fireproofing, the house was designed with personal bathrooms and walk-in closets off every bedroom, a forced-air system, and electricity. Furthermore, a spacious courtyard, large stable, carriage-porch, and projecting conservatory off the dining room were completed with the house, but none these elements survive today.



Burling and Whitehouse continued working together until Burling’s death in February 1892. Their final project was en medias res, and a monumental one Burling never saw to completion: the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. He was one of the ten architects brought together to plan the fair’s architecture. He and Whitehouse were given the design of all the building entrances, as well as the Casino, described in a contemporary guidebook as “Venice in the waters of Lake Michigan.”

The Casino consisted of nine pavilions poised at the end of a long pier, built on piles. Fairgoers traveled between the pavilions on gondolas and little bridges, inspired by Venetian modes of travel. At night, the harbor was lit by “incandescent lamps sunk beneath the surface of the water,” and gave visitors a place to enjoy the cool lake breeze, music, and a view of the entire White City back on the land.

Burling died before the fair was opened to the public. But if we think of the design of the World’s Columbian Exposition as the peak of Chicago’s post-Fire, Gilded Age-era spunk—and in many ways, it was—Burling had seen the city through its most fascinating, phoenix-like phase, playing an integral role in Chicago’s rise, first from the prairie soil, and then from literal ashes.

Image credits (from top to bottom):
First National Bank Building (N. State and W. Washington Streets). Built 1868, Edward Burling & Co. The Ryerson & Burnham Archives Archival Image Collection.
The Eli B. Williams residence (Monroe Street and Wabash Avenue). Built in 1845, Edward J. Burling. Historic photograph printed in Images of America: Chicago’s Mansions, by John Graf.
Church of the Epiphany (201 S. Ashland Boulevard). Built 1885, Burling & Whitehouse. Historic image courtesy of Andrew Jameson.
Elevation Drawing of the Samuel M. Nickerson House. Completed in 1883, Burling and Whitehouse. The Richard H. Driehaus Museum Archives.