The House

Judge Elijah Miller, William Seward's father-in-law, built what is now Seward House in 1816-1817. Designed in the Federal architectural style, it was one of the first brick houses built in Auburn. One of the workmen on the house was Brigham Young, a sixteen year-old apprentice painter and carpenter, who in later life became one of the principal leaders of the Mormon Church and the founder of Salt Lake City.

William Seward married Frances Miller, the judge's youngest daughter in 1824. Before the marriage, Judge Miller, a widower, stipulated that the couple should live in the house with the family. Seward agreed and it was to be his home for nearly fifty years.

Originally, the building was considerably smaller that it is today. In the 1840s, the Sewards added a first floor dining room, a north tower and spacious rear wing. Although the tower was designed in the Italianate style, resembling a square Tuscan tower, it blends harmoniously with the original house. In 1866-1868, architect Edward Tuckerman Potter expanded the house, adding on the drawing room, a south tower, several bedrooms and expanding the dining room. These "new rooms" were used to host President Andrew Johnson, General Ulysses Grant and other Civil War notables during the "Swing Around the Circle" tour in the summer of 1866.

In 1877, William H. Seward, Jr., who inherited the home following his father's death, renovated the interior and added a magnificent spiral staircase to the front hall. Made of manzanita and laurel, these woods had been a gift from the Society of California Pioneers to his father in 1869. In the upper hall, 130 portraits of world leaders or family associates fill the walls. The images in the "Diplomatic Gallery" were acquired by William Seward and originally hung in the parlor of his Washington, DC, home. They provide a glimpse into the "Who was Who" of the mid-nineteenth century.