tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12619629215596704952024-03-05T09:04:09.724-08:00Historic Architecture of OhioChris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-42531263795097478292018-10-13T14:16:00.006-07:002019-09-30T16:11:38.324-07:00Woodland: Would Latrobe Approve?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Kentucky's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_region">Bluegrass</a> is an exceptional place. Truly, it is. Whereas the state, as a whole, tends to suffer from both poverty and architectural impoverishment (like <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/12512663894">much of the South</a>), the triangle of fertile farmland lying between Louisville, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maysville,_Kentucky">Maysville</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford,_Kentucky">Stanford</a> shelters what <i>may</i> be the finest concentration of antebellum buildings west of the Appalachians. Like quasi-Jeffersonian villas? You'll find them here. Multi-pen log structures? Ditto. Greek Revival temples? Likewise. Sprawling Italianate mansions? Yep. The region's incredible agricultural prosperity produced an incredible building stock — and one (seemingly) little-blunted by the Civil War and Reconstruction.</div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessamine_County,_Kentucky">Jessamine County</a> sits at the southern edge of the so-called Inner Bluegrass, the central and most wealthy portion of the broader Bluegrass area. (Here lies Lexington, the "Athens of the West.") Not terribly far from the Lexington city boundary exists the <a href="https://www.golfadvisor.com/courses/16275-golf-club-of-the-bluegrass">Golf Club of the Bluegrass</a>, which occupies a rural estate once known as Woodland. Woodland, along with many other Jessamine County farms, is listed on the National Register — but it's not well-publicized, in spite of its excellence. The centerpiece of Woodland is an 1889 mansion, commissioned by John Steele (1845–1918) and built in a transitional Italianate–Romanesque style. The round-arched portal, entrance tower, rusticated voussoirs, and semicircular balcony are all features more befitting <i>public</i> buildings than private ones — but then, this is the Bluegrass, where such a thing was possible.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Steele's residence (1889), now a golf-course clubhouse.</td></tr>
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Who built Woodland? I haven't a clue. The National Register nomination is disappointingly terse, giving only the most rudimentary information about the property's history. (One quirk: a child's handprint pressed into a brick sandwiched between two tower windows.) But there are <i>two</i> homes at Woodland — and this fact is what tips the property from the great to the exceptional.</div>
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Tucked behind Steele's residence is a low brick structure (quite a contrast to its neighbor's buoyant upward thrust) no less interesting. Like the main house, it seems both to embrace and to smash the architectural norms of its era. It's clearly a Federal-period building, perhaps constructed about the time the British and the Americans <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812">fought their last battle</a>, or even shortly before. It diverges from almost all other Jessamine County Federal homes, though, in its studiedness. It <i>doesn't</i> make use of the panoply of traditional floor plans available to early Kentuckians (i.e., central- and side-passage arrangements, or the <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/telescope_house">telescopic configuration</a> pioneered in the Chesapeake). Rather, its five main rooms form an H-shaped footprint, with a service ell jutting to the side. Chimneys are placed between the front and back rooms. The partly enclosed areas formed by the H's hyphen function as porches.</div>
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The house's finish is equally unusual. The facade features tripartite windows (<i>very</i> common in the Bluegrass) set within segmental-arched recesses (<i>not</i> common in the Bluegrass). The entry consists of two four-panel doors flanked by sidelights and a fanlight (typical enough), but the porch area is <i>plastered</i> as if an interior room. (This treatment reminds me of the Latrobe-designed Pope Villa's <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/43806441555">entrance</a>.) The cornice has a usual Federal profile.<br />
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Unfortunately, the building has fallen into terrible disrepair. ('Twas long thus — as early as 1977, it served as a storage space.) Both porch's roofs and floors are failing spectacularly, interior plaster is falling from the ceilings and walls, several windows are entirely nonexistent, the foundation appears to be sinking, and much woodwork is missing. (<i>No</i> trim remains in the northeastern room.) A glance through the windows reveals jumbled heaps of furniture, planks, plaster dust, and golf balls.<br />
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Who designed it? And for whom? Again, mostly silence. The nomination form attributes its initial ownership to a Mason Singleton. My quick perusal of genealogical sites yielded a <i>bit</i> of information. A <a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Singleton-1364">Mason Singleton</a> (1804–1894) almost certainly owned the property, but he seems too young to have commissioned the home. His father, <a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Singleton-1052">Manoah Mason Singleton</a>, Jr. (1773–1833), was more likely the first owner. The Singleton family hailed from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotsylvania_County,_Virginia">Spotsylvania County</a>, Virginia — no doubt a source of many Bluegrass settlers. For a time, Manoah resided with his parents at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Station">Bryan Station</a>, a fortified encampment which stood north of Lexington (and predated the city's founding).<br />
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So, a quasi-Palladian cottage — the sort of thing a Jefferson or Latrobe might design for a less-prominent client, and a building associated with one of Jessamine County's founding families — lies moldering behind the lovingly maintained mansion which replaced it. Such is the Bluegrass. Alas, I'm not optimistic about the building's long-term survival. Restoring it would require a six-figure (or more) investment — not merely a bit of repainting and refinishing, but a complete reconstruction. Bricks would need to be relaid, woodwork replaned, and walls replastered. Is it worth the money? I hope so. But only the Golf Club of the Bluegrass can make such a judgment.<br />
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<br />Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0438 Barbaro Ln, Nicholasville, KY 40356, USA37.9484442 -84.601410312.426409699999997 -125.9100043 63.4704787 -43.2928163tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-14363415947883694162018-05-18T07:30:00.008-07:002019-01-21T13:29:06.261-08:00Ohio Architectural Profiles: Adams County<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>One of these decades, I'll summon the energy to write a book about Ohio's cultural landscape — something akin to the excellent </i><a href="https://geology.com/store/roadside-geology.shtml">Roadside Geology</a><i> series, but for buildings. It'll no doubt contain a county-by-county discussion of architectural trends. Such chapters will probably resemble this blog post.</i><br />
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Organized in summer 1797 and named for the sitting U.S. president, Adams is Ohio’s third-oldest county — and its cultural landscape betrays the fact. It is, in its natural geography, a place of variety. From west to east, the clayey and mildly broken landscape gives way to thin-soiled knobs (north of West Union), cliff-rimmed plateaus, the deep valley of Brush Creek, and the most rugged portion of Appalachian Ohio. To the south flows the Ohio River, whose fertile bottomlands supported Adams County’s earliest settlements. In the southwest, near Bentonville and in Sprigg Township, limestone outcroppings dot the rolling, sinkhole-pockmarked countryside — a rare region of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst">karst</a> topography and part of a small incursion of the Bluegrass into the Buckeye State.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adams County Courthouse, 1911; West Union.</td></tr>
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Historically, Adams County’s agricultural situation varied as much as its landscape. One early Ohio gazetteer notes that “[t]he land . . . embraces a variety of soils, from the best to the worst.” This is plainly true. Into the latter category falls the valley of the Ohio River — relatively narrow except near Sandy Springs, at Adams County’s southeastern corner. The passably fertile land surrounding Cherry Fork, Winchester, and Seaman, in the west, supported the crops common to southern Ohio. Throughout the county, pasture was (and is) common. As in nearby Brown and Clermont counties, tobacco cultivation flourished after the Civil War — particularly in the narrow eastern stream valleys, which remained sparsely populated until the nineteenth century’s closing decades.<br />
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European settlement began in Adams County well before the subdivision received its name. In 1790, Nathaniel Massie (1763–1813), a Virginia-born surveyor, crossed the Ohio River near the mouth of Isaac’s Creek and established an outpost, known first as <i>Massie’s Station</i> and soon rechristened <i>Manchester</i>. With Massie came a contingent of settlers — the first legal residents of the Virginia Military District, in which Adams County wholly lies. Not until the Treaty of Greenville (1795), though, could settlers live without fear of Native American retaliation. Between 1790 and 1795, several Manchesterites — including members of the Ellison and Edgington families — were either attacked or captured by local tribes. In the ensuing decade, Europeans trickled into the area, mostly establishing subsistence farms in the valleys of the Ohio River and Brush Creek. In 1796 and 1797, Colonel Ebenezer Zane cut the eponymous Zane’s Trace through the soon-to-be county from northeast to southwest. About this time, when the Northwest Territory’s legislature decided to establish Adams County, it selected Manchester, naturally, as the seat of government.<br />
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This decision proved fractious. Within a year, and after much bickering, the county commissioners had uprooted and repositioned themselves twice — first from Manchester to Adamsville, a comparatively remote site on the banks of Brush Creek; and thence to a two-story log courthouse in Washington, a nascent Ohio River community. In 1804, the Adams County government moved yet again, this time to West Union, a newly platted village perched on a hilltop several miles inland. For once, the choice stuck. Adamsville and Washington faded to nonexistence, while West Union prospered. By 1810, 229 souls called the community home. Future Kentucky governor Thomas Metcalfe (1780–1855), a mason by trade, built a new courthouse — a two-story stone structure of almost residential appearance, with exterior chimneys and a round-arched Federal-style entry — in 1811. West Union’s rapid growth and mid-century stagnation (its population remained almost unchanged between 1830 and 1870) left behind a well-preserved early townscape — one rich in Federal-era commercial buildings and residences, and even a smattering of log structures. Since the 1960s, though, waves of remodeling and demolition have robbed the village of most of these buildings.<br />
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As West Union’s fortunes declined, Manchester’s rose — thanks to its riverside siting, which allowed it to become a shipping point for tobacco and other agricultural goods — and its population leaped from scarcely 400 (at mid-century) to nearly 1,000 (two decades later). The 1900 census recorded a population of 2,003. Thereafter, the village’s economy suffered. Both demolition and repeated flooding have left Manchester’s cultural landscape pockmarked, with mobile homes and vacant lots in lieu of a historic housing stock. Other sizable Adams County communities — including Winchester, Seaman, and Peebles — owe their economies, if not their existence, to the Norfolk and Western Railway, which was constructed in the 1870s. Smaller communities, some unplatted, dot the Adams County landscape.<br />
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At least two distinct migration waves peopled Adams County. The first occurred between 1797 and 1820; the second spanned the 1840s. In both cases, the waves brought a relatively homogenous contingent of settlers, predominantly Presbyterians of Scots–Irish descent. The majority came from Pennsylvania (both the southeast and southwest) and northwestern Virginia, and a sizable minority immigrated directly from Northern Ireland. A few Kentuckians spilled across the Ohio River into the southern townships, and a smaller number of Germans scattered themselves across the county. In the 1870s and 1880s, a third, mostly internal migration occurred; inhabitants of southern Clermont County and Brown County, Ohio — where burley tobacco had become a staple crop — flooded into the mountain hollows surrounding Blue Creek and Wamsley, in Jefferson Township. The Adams County settlement landscape is not as diverse as those of other Ohio counties. In general, Virginians tended to dominate in the north, whereas Pennsylvanians and Kentuckians formed a majority in the south. By the end of the nineteenth century, foreign-born Scots–Irish populations were confined mostly to pockets around West Union and in Monroe Township.<br />
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Adams County retains an unusual number of early buildings — perhaps an unsurprising fact, given that it functioned as a locus of settlement during the territorial period. For the most part, these structures make use of common vernacular forms. On the banks of Brush Creek, not far from the Zane’s Trace right-of-way, stands a single-pen log house reportedly built by Peter Shoemaker (d. 1804 or 1809), who settled in Meigs Township in 1796. In appearance, the house is standard — one-and-a-half stories in height, three bays in width, and adorned only with an external brick chimney. A two-story braced-frame addition, built at an early date by a member of the Sproull family, significantly enlarges the building. Though evidence for the claim is circumstantial, Shoemaker’s home <i>may </i>be Adams County’s oldest surviving residence.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shoemaker–Sproull House, circa 1796 (?); Meigs Township.</td></tr>
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Another surviving eighteenth-century log structure is the National Register-listed Treber Inn, built by John Treber, a Pennsylvanian, along Zane’s Trace in 1798. The single-pen building — notable for both its two-story front porch (perhaps original) and its rear stone addition, appended about 1810 — functioned as a tavern for much of the nineteenth century. Thankfully, it remains more-or-less unaltered, preserved in almost museum-esque fashion by its present owners.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Treber Inn, 1798; Tiffin Township.</td></tr>
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More typologically distinct was Buckeye Station, a residence surveyor Nathaniel Massie erected on a Monroe Township bluff in 1797. The house was a one-story, two-bay braced-frame structure of L-shaped plan, its front section divided by a massive central chimney — possibly an early variant of the “saddlebag” plan. A second stone chimney, placed on the exterior, accompanied the kitchen wing. What little interior ornamentation Massie’s abode boasted disappeared during its long life as a tenant house, but the exterior remained almost unchanged. The building’s eaves may have employed a system of framing more common to the eastern seaboard than to Ohio. Alas, a half-century of neglect has reduced Buckeye Station to little more than a pile of moldering boards punctured by a pair of stone chimneys.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Historic_American_Buildings_Survey%2C_E.F._Schrand%2C_A.R._Arend%2C_Photographers%2C_December_1%2C_1936_VIEW_FROM_SOUTHEAST._-_General_Nathaniel_Massie_House%2C_Buckeye_Station_Bluff%2C_Route_HABS_OHIO%2C1-MANCH%2C1-1.tif/lossy-page1-1200px-thumbnail.tif.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Historic_American_Buildings_Survey%2C_E.F._Schrand%2C_A.R._Arend%2C_Photographers%2C_December_1%2C_1936_VIEW_FROM_SOUTHEAST._-_General_Nathaniel_Massie_House%2C_Buckeye_Station_Bluff%2C_Route_HABS_OHIO%2C1-MANCH%2C1-1.tif/lossy-page1-1200px-thumbnail.tif.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nathaniel Massie House (Buckeye Station), 1797; Monroe Township. Photo by E.F. Schrand and A.R. Arend, 1936, from the Historic American Buildings Survey collection.</td></tr>
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Adams County retains several early limestone dwellings. The oldest among these is no doubt the 1798 Andrew Ellison House, which stands in a narrow hollow northeast of West Union and scarcely a mile from Zane’s Trace. Ellison, born in County Tyrone, Ireland, was among the early residents of Manchester. With its single-pen form, wide-based exterior chimneys, and primitive appearance, the one-and-a-half-story home betrays its pre-statehood origin. Its low-pitched roof and relatively lengthy side walls give it an appearance like that of other stone dwellings in nearby northern Kentucky — <span style="font-family: inherit;">evidence of a regional trend, perhaps. A slightly smaller, slightly later (1805) stone farmhouse stands in Liberty Township on land homesteaded by Thomas Kirker (1760–1837), another Tyrone native who later served as Ohio’s second governor. Like the Ellison House, Kirker’s residence is of essentially hall-and-parlor plan, albeit with a central (rather than a gable-end) chimney. In the 1850s, Kirker’s descendants enlarged the home with a two-story frame addition of “I-house” form. Two other Adams County stone homes survived into recent decades — a small, single-pen farmhouse in Scott Township, and a two-story stone-and-frame tavern built by one Isaac Aerl before 1810, just north of Peebles. Aerl’s tavern is noteworthy for its crude Flemish-bond stonework.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIZ4Grgugh38Dv-B4ij5PeTxVWZIg7eKv9REkicpyij7uXWvF43fx7-hDyqnyXUAYtWmOKTsNaEmeE9Jj6Bvwe22M4McPxTEuDZLj8qT0lMHC5aWZKsU59rvz0RKwQhI_M-WmLiC3jHoHh/w706-h407-no/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="706" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIZ4Grgugh38Dv-B4ij5PeTxVWZIg7eKv9REkicpyij7uXWvF43fx7-hDyqnyXUAYtWmOKTsNaEmeE9Jj6Bvwe22M4McPxTEuDZLj8qT0lMHC5aWZKsU59rvz0RKwQhI_M-WmLiC3jHoHh/w706-h407-no/" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrew Ellison House, 1798; Tiffin Township.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isaac Aerl House, circa 1809; Meigs Township.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because of Adams County’s
isolation and relative poverty, log construction remained popular in the area
well into the nineteenth century. (Indeed, a few log homes date from the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">twentieth</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> century.) By far, the majority
of the county’s surviving log buildings are one-and-a-half- and two-story
single-pen residences; double-pen structures and outbuildings are considerably
rarer. If preliminary surveys are any indication, the number of log homes
surviving in Adams County exceeds 100. A WPA survey of farm residences,
conducted in 1934, located 250 log homes — about 11 percent of Adams County’s
total. No features distinguish the county’s log houses, in general, from those
elsewhere, but overhanging plates and exterior chimneys seem to have been common.
One double-pen home of “saddlebag” form, exceedingly rare in Ohio, stands in
Sprigg Township. Another double-pen farmhouse once sat north of West Union, in Tiffin
Township. Though its configuration — two one-and-a-half-story pens separated by a
wide stair hall — suggested an early construction date, the building’s placement
in an agriculturally marginal area makes this conjecture less likely. Whatever
its origin, the house was a stellar example of early-nineteenth-century construction
practices, with interior and exterior chimneys, rake boards, wide clapboard
siding, and an integral rear porch tucked between enclosed corner rooms. This
building, owned in the 1880s by a member of the Cluxton family, survived into
the mid-1990s.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2913/14223092414_2b5cf58d93_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="800" height="301" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2913/14223092414_2b5cf58d93_k.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniel Collier House, 1802; Tiffin Township. Razed. Photo by Rita or Leland Puttcamp, from <i>Historic Landmarks in Ohio: Volume III</i>, compiled by several chapters of the United States Daughters of 1812 in 1955.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7524/15851722117_95d2030df2_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="800" height="287" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7524/15851722117_95d2030df2_k.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cluxton Log House; Tiffin Township. Razed. Photo by Stephen Kelley, 1977, from the collection of Donald and Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">Like other Ohio River counties, Adams County contains a few examples of plank construction—an uncommon variant of the usual notched-log system which uses narrow, sawed boards instead of hewed timbers. In two cases, such plank structures were mere additions to more traditional log houses. In another case, notched planks constituted the entire single-pen home. Only one of these three buildings remains standing — on U.S. Highway 52, just southwest of Manchester.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">As is the case elsewhere in Appalachia, wood is, by far, the most common construction material among Adams County structures. Some homes use hewed logs; at least one, round logs. Most surviving pre-World War II residences, though, employ one of the two systems of framing common in America — braced framing, with its mortise-and-tenon joinery; and balloon framing, which reached Adams County after the Civil War. The county retains fewer than half a dozen stone structures, all ancient by state standards. Brick buildings — mostly built between the 1820s and 1850s — tend to cluster in the northwest (around Seaman), and in the upland valley which shelters Peebles. The county’s oldest brick structure, the 1801 Wickerham Inn — a low two-story, three-bay Flemish-bond structure, slightly altered — stands along the old Zane’s Trace between Peebles and Locust Grove.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Wickerham_Inn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Wickerham_Inn.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wickerham Inn, 1801; Franklin Township. Photo from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wickerham_Inn.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, courtesy of Nyttend.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">Typologically, Adams County’s buildings fall firmly into the architectural tradition of the greater Upper South. Single-pen and hall-and-parlor homes, typically one-and-a-half stories in height, abound. Two-story residences of linear plan — so-called “I-houses” — constitute more than a third of the county’s surviving farm dwellings. Also common are one-and-a-half-story, double-pile homes of a type seemingly common to areas settled by the Scots–Irish. These buildings often consist of four rooms arranged around a central hallway, with chimneys (generally four, and sometimes two) placed at the periphery. The upper half-story invariably lacks a knee wall. Such homes, it seems, were constructed in great numbers about the time of the Civil War, and many feature (or featured) simplified Gothic Revival ornamentation — centered gables, lancet-arched windows, and bargeboards. In a few cases, the gable is front-facing. Of the homes depicted in Caldwell’s 1880 <i>Illustrated Historical Atlas of Adams County, Ohio</i>, more than a dozen fall into this category. Common late-nineteenth-century building-types also make an appearance — “gabled ell” cottages, cube-shaped dwellings, and whatnot.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Few Adams County homes merit stylistic classification. Ornamentation tends to be vernacular, and not high-style, in nature. Among frame buildings, clapboard siding and simple frieze boards are omnipresent. The Federal mode, for the most part, is evident only in interior woodwork and the occasional use of Flemish-bond masonry. Nods to the later Greek Revival style are only slightly more common. In Bratton Township, not far from the Highland County border, stands a five-bay frame “I-house” marked by a pedimented two-story porch with paired columns. Identical doorways, each surrounded by sidelights and a transom, open onto both of this porch’s levels. Members of the Gore family, who built the dwelling, hailed from northern Virginia, where such porches are commonplace. Similar porches adorn farmhouses in the townships of Bratton, Franklin, Green, Scott, and Tiffin. Also taking its inspiration from ancient Hellas is Liberty Township’s Gibboney House, a one-story, four-bay, L-shaped frame cottage with a pedimented porch and sidelight-flanked doorway.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKudrGcxpPuozZnZNQh0eniQIudX55rzP2Yq8BRSHFVMd8eQB5BHFovBg0FwM3ooqRLrXduo85PkNFVvwvqQWa9UsMiEyqde6QsypW-2GYUIg1Ax_LvCPHXllkMNPyloSdGOigGWCu0aUL/w368-h237-no/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="368" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKudrGcxpPuozZnZNQh0eniQIudX55rzP2Yq8BRSHFVMd8eQB5BHFovBg0FwM3ooqRLrXduo85PkNFVvwvqQWa9UsMiEyqde6QsypW-2GYUIg1Ax_LvCPHXllkMNPyloSdGOigGWCu0aUL/w368-h237-no/" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gore House, circa 1845; Bratton Township.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzNeqTDPOwj9Dteg9vipwco4aIwSNN2bMhAgdd6qKmmOBjNCtCB1A6k0dq0cyGodb64YHcoAzdsA0SkvKwnZWL1dhsFXHpzcG-JS7JcUUhpN8Ndo-VDXhsr1mOoW-drdNQi9wkHLV5K5N8/w596-h349-no/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="596" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzNeqTDPOwj9Dteg9vipwco4aIwSNN2bMhAgdd6qKmmOBjNCtCB1A6k0dq0cyGodb64YHcoAzdsA0SkvKwnZWL1dhsFXHpzcG-JS7JcUUhpN8Ndo-VDXhsr1mOoW-drdNQi9wkHLV5K5N8/w596-h349-no/" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gibboney House, circa 1850; Liberty Township.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
By far, the most inventive of rural Adams County’s abodes is the Oliver Tompkins House — known informally as the “Counterfeit House” — in Monroe Township. A counterfeiter by trade, Tompkins purchased a farm on Gift Ridge (not far from Buckeye Station) in 1840, then erected a home designed to conceal his moneymaking operation. In form, the structure is unique enough. It employs the usual center-hall plan, but its roof is hipped (rather than gabled), and its windows are framed by paneling and wide, crossette-endowed trim. The chimneys’ stacks are turned 45 degrees from the perpendicular, and the central hallway terminates at a recessed, trabeated doorway (with sidelights and a transom). Tompkins outfitted his home with features intended to hide his scheme: deceptively locked doorknobs, a slot where patrons could insert cash, and a concealed second-floor room where the actual counterfeiting occurred. For decades, the Tompkins House doubled as a private residence and an impromptu museum. But now, alas, the building stands abandoned, overgrown, and tornado-damaged.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/AdamsCountyOhioCounterfeitHouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/AdamsCountyOhioCounterfeitHouse.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Tompkins House ("Counterfeit House"), 1840; Monroe Township. Photo from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AdamsCountyOhioCounterfeitHouse.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>, courtesy of Aesopposea.</td></tr>
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Outside West Union and Manchester, high-style Italianate structures are as rare as Greek Revival ones. A few Adams County builders applied minor Italianate detailing — bracketed cornices and hip roofs, usually — to the common “I-house” form. One farmhouse, built by the Grimes family amid Ohio River bottomland (not far from the site of Washington), managed to capture the irregularity that typifies the Italianate mode. This home, built of brick and restrained in its ornamentation, disappeared during construction of the Killen Generating Station. For the most part, the Italianate (and the Gothic) made an appearance only at the periphery — in minor details and porches, which often featured scrollwork, spandrels, and brackets.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4853/32193311538_cd88904c57_h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="800" height="236" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4853/32193311538_cd88904c57_h.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italianate farmhouse, circa 1885; Scott Township.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">In rural Adams County, at least, most late-nineteenth-century homes are firmly astylistic. Elements associated with the greater “folk Victorian” vocabulary — exterior strapwork and shingling, stylized window trim, bargeboards and gable-end trusses, and spindlework—appear occasionally and in small numbers. A vacant balloon-frame farmhouse on State Route 136, in Liberty Township, employs most of these tropes. After about 1900, residual classical ornamentation again gained popularity. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of notable Adams County buildings date from the nineteenth — and not the twentieth—century.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX-ewD88L8GBR-C-2ZmBUoWVKXeot4QPialgOEzzzUcyWYu6sIBolsReq9g_FWbUBMHdxCB9hAzcXvsMNJ8Jwmhj853T9HTMn74ekOLKTFGjWgZsdNCkK7u8hvxo6tequTi_UwoExUE_71/w590-h387-no/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="590" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX-ewD88L8GBR-C-2ZmBUoWVKXeot4QPialgOEzzzUcyWYu6sIBolsReq9g_FWbUBMHdxCB9hAzcXvsMNJ8Jwmhj853T9HTMn74ekOLKTFGjWgZsdNCkK7u8hvxo6tequTi_UwoExUE_71/w590-h387-no/" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned farmhouse, circa 1890s; Liberty Township.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-71483963649582367152018-04-14T09:00:00.001-07:002018-10-29T19:21:52.949-07:00A Note About Rake BoardsIn the United States, most homes' <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gable_roof">gable roofs</a> overhang the walls on which they rest. The majority of gable roofs form distinct <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaves">eaves</a>, and these eaves often adorn all four elevations equally. But not <i>every</i> building is constructed this way. In Ohio, the absence of distinct eaves is a trait peculiar to Federal-era structures — those edifices built between the territorial era and the dawn of the Greek Revival period. (In a few places, even Greek Revival homes eschew eaves.)<br />
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Ubiquitous to such early, eaveless buildings is the <a href="https://sunshinecontractingcorp.com/blog/2013/03/22/what-is-rake-board/">rake board</a>, the side elevation's equivalent of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia_(architecture)">fascia</a>, more or less. In the absence of a roof overhang, rake boards protect the junction between a building's roof and its side walls from water infiltration. Though most common to masonry buildings (1), rake boards aren't unique to a particular construction method — log, frame, brick, and stone structures alike make use of them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3848/14278926467_92ff9aba90_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="572" height="400" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3848/14278926467_92ff9aba90_o.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Knoles House; Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. A stupendous example of early-nineteenth-century construction practices. Note the rake boards, vertical proportions, and steeple-notched logs.</td></tr>
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On masonry structures, rake boards tend to coexist, almost by necessity, with flush chimneys. Among higher-style Federal buildings, they occasionally feature dentils or scalloped carvings, and they often terminate, on the facade, at proper cornices.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5071/14305212571_6db615cfbc_h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="518" height="400" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5071/14305212571_6db615cfbc_h.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Travelers' Rest (1812); Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1629/26106587826_a011d156c7_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="800" height="271" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1629/26106587826_a011d156c7_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early house; Clifton, Greene County, Ohio. This dwelling — bizarrely vertical, and almost tower-like, in its proportions — features the usual flush chimney and rake boards.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jacob Coy House; Beaver Creek Township, Greene County, Ohio. Coy, a Pennsylvanian, built this enormous log house in 1824. In its proportions (and its use of the site's terrain), it falls neatly into the Pennsylvania German tradition. The rake boards, attic windows, and box cornice (barely visible) are typical. Photo by Sandra Shapiro, 1989, from the collection of Donald and Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitchen wing, John Knott House (1828); Miami Township, Greene County, Ohio. The rake boards may this home's <i>least</i> noteworthy feature. Most fascinating are the two-story porch and divided ("Dutch") door.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8K37_eaQglnlI389iFJIK4zZoZMkc-4kNR01uY8vBZ_veIH1WKErWaOrZLwaIa5whTwcWiqfgUacPFPIqh97aZRXAorABY43im4mSZog0OyBQIDstjAPn1eQez20SiZxjWmj9jISbDsAt/s1600/Elizabethtown+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="1600" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8K37_eaQglnlI389iFJIK4zZoZMkc-4kNR01uY8vBZ_veIH1WKErWaOrZLwaIa5whTwcWiqfgUacPFPIqh97aZRXAorABY43im4mSZog0OyBQIDstjAPn1eQez20SiZxjWmj9jISbDsAt/s400/Elizabethtown+House.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned "saltbox" house; Elizabethtown, Hamilton County, Ohio. Razed. Photo from the Miami Purchase Association collection; digitized by <a href="https://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/mediadb/browse">DAAPSpace</a>.</td></tr>
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1) Why? Largely because early masonry buildings were more likely to outlast frame and log ones.Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-3273873764861142822018-04-05T07:31:00.001-07:002018-04-05T07:31:36.901-07:00Commonplace Classicism in a Michigan CityA few days ago, I spent an afternoon walking the streets of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale,_Michigan">Hillsdale, Michigan</a> — my adopted (and soon-to-be former) hometown. Like a great many small Midwestern cities, Hillsdale has endured its share of economic and cultural oscillations. The community, platted in the 1830s, enjoyed moderate prosperity in the nineteenth century (thanks, largely, to its status as county seat), then entered a full-fledged boom about the turn-of-the-century, when the railroad industry reached its zenith. The city suffered little in the postwar years, but more recent decades have brought stagnation (albeit stagnation of a moderate sort). Thankfully, the presence of <a href="https://www.hillsdale.edu/">Hillsdale College</a> guarantees the community a modicum of vigor.<br />
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Hillsdale retains an unusually fine housing stock — a smattering of Greek Revival <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/24476929240">holdouts</a>, a few <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/24144667024">examples</a> of the Gothic picturesque, and a <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/25549572547">bounty</a> of Italianates. (If my experience is any indication, Michigan cities, in general, tend to be architectural treasure troves.) A majority of the town's homes, though, date from the thirty-year period spanning the presidencies of Cleveland and Coolidge — the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s, when American cities underwent something of a building boom. Stylistically, this era was marked by a return to the classical. Already, by the 1890s, architects at the cutting edge of American design (to use a cliché) were eschewing Romanesque massiveness and ornate scrollwork for entablatures, pediments, dentils, and volutes. The turn-of-the-century popularity of classical forms is evident in Hillsdale, and evident, moreover, in the homes lining one of Hillsdale's streets.<br />
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Once upon a time, Howell Street served as Hillsdale's primary north–south thoroughfare. It formed the focal point of the city's commercial activity, constituted one border of the <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9198448,-84.6320813,3a,86y,28.47h,93.85t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s_Umuc6iyjXXYoVAyxc2z-A!2e0?force=lite">courthouse square</a>, and connected the community to Ohio and points farther south. It also witnessed quite a transformation during classicism's reintroduction.<br />
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Some of Howell Street's homes only <i>flirt</i> with classicism. A few date from the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, when the Italianate style dominated. 99 Howell Street is a typical example—a one-and-a-half-story home of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upright_and_Wing">upright-and-wing</a>" form (so popular among the New Yorkers who dominated early Michigan), originally built in a vernacular Greek Revival–Italianate mode and updated, about 1900, with a vaguely <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionic_order">Ionic</a> porch. The porch's columns are disproportionately slender, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volute">volutes</a> jut from the capitals at a 45-degree angle—a feature <i>exclusive</i> to the corner columns of Greek antecedents.<br />
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65 Howell Street — occupied, in 1894, by members of the Prideaux family — is a more developed building. An irregularly shaped frame dwelling of side-passage plan, it combines Italianate and Classical Revival details in a way that makes determining a construction date difficult. A bracket-supported cornice crowns each of the home's windows, many of which feature <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Came_glasswork">leaded glass</a>. More interesting, perhaps, is the way the eaves are treated — chunky scroll brackets, pierced and paired at the corners; a divided frieze; and an abundance of smaller brackets which rather resemble classical dentils or modillions.<br />
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The house's two-door entry is sheltered by a well-proportioned porch — a porch with a full three-part entablature, small eave brackets (similar to the ones adorning the windows and roofline), and fluted columns topped by simplified Corinthian capitals. (This capital design, it seems, was inspired by the Athenian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds">Tower of the Winds</a>.)<br />
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Other homes in the vicinity were <i>born</i> in a state of classicism. In general, the earliest turn-of-the-century-era Classical Revival residences combined neoclassical ornamentation and irregular, picturesque late-Victorian forms. (The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-American-Houses-Revised/dp/0375710825">McAlesters</a> classify such houses as the "free classic" subset of the Queen Anne style.) 93 Howell Street exemplifies this turn. In proper late-Victorian fashion, it's well-supplied with turrets and towers, but it lacks much extraneous adornment. Beyond the turret and the narrow frieze board running beneath its eaves, its only claim to a stylistic identity is its stumpy Ionic porch.<br />
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In a similar — albeit later — vein is 75 Howell Street, another balloon-frame dwelling with an Ionic porch and an asymmetrical plan. This house seems to anticipate the Craftsman movement, with its purlin-esuqe modillions and double-slope roof.<br />
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96 Howell Street is one of the neighborhood's grander Classical Revival abodes. The omnipresent Ionic columns (and pilasters) may be awkwardly scaled, but the home's irregularity, entablature, modillions, elliptical (and keystone-surrounded) attic window, and two-story porches lend it an air of respectability.<br />
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Near Howell Street's southern terminus lie a few gambrel-roofed homes. Though predominantly astylistic, they <i>approach</i> the classical.<br />
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By far, the crowning classical jewel in the neighborhood's crown is 147 Howell Street. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.<br />
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<br />Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-58654303954168858702018-02-23T04:45:00.002-08:002018-02-23T04:52:30.143-08:00Clermont County's Collins FarmReservoir-building is necessarily destructive. Foliage must be cleared, and topography graded, before water floods the site in question. Fields and fences drown, and entire landscapes disappear under muddy water. Worst of all (if I may flaunt my bias), the construction of dams tends to disproportionately affect <i>historic buildings</i>. Why? Because — in southwestern Ohio, especially — any locale's earliest settlements tended to cluster around its watercourses. Valleys often shelter a particular community's oldest homes and wealthiest farms. Inevitably, dam construction involves the obliteration of these things. One such casualty was a cluster of homes in southeastern Batavia Township, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clermont_County,_Ohio">Clermont County</a>, in and around the now-submerged hamlet of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Lick,_Ohio">Elk Lick</a>. <a href="http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/eastfork">William H. Harsha Lake</a>, created in 1978, now covers the site of Elk Lick, itself commemorated only by an <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0618274,-84.1782082,3a,31.1y,161.63h,85.44t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1smAHaux_NINQ8hs_a7Mu_Lg!2e0?force=lite">eponymous local road</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/shared/media/b1d9aa7397d4103513e7d2aca730f20b/origweb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="800" height="273" src="https://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/shared/media/b1d9aa7397d4103513e7d2aca730f20b/origweb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Richard Collins House's front (east) facade, viewed from Elk Lick Road.</td></tr>
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I discovered the Collins Farm by accident, one day, while browsing the University of Cincinnati's <a href="https://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/mediadb/">DAAPSpace media library</a>. (In the 1990s, the university acquired the defunct <a href="http://cincinnatipreservation.org/our-history-50-years-of-saving-buildings/">Miami Purchase Association for Historic Preservation</a>'s collection, which it has partly digitized.) Among photos of familiar Clermont County structures, I found an intriguing cluster of images labeled "McGrath Complex." A bit of digging confirmed my suspicion — the buildings were long ago razed. Oddly enough, they receive no mention in the Ohio Historical Society's 1970 "Southwest Ohio Survey" <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2BTWtgAACAAJ&dq=survey+of+historical+features+southwestern+ohio&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjp2sXagLvZAhUGRK0KHWh_A68Q6AEIKTAA">report</a> (which includes <a href="https://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/shared/media/2038b8693e68ab6f4ea003d2a2df0f26/origweb.jpg">one Elk Lick house</a>). More useful, but no less perplexing, is the error-laden East Fork <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=n-A0AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=environmental+impact+east+fork&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimh9qPgbvZAhUBDKwKHVxaAzQQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">Environmental Impact Statement</a></i> issued by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1974. According to the report, the homes within the "McGrath Complex" were "[r]emoved from the site according to standard real estate procedures," with some hope for future preservation. This, alas, is nonsense. In reality, they were unceremoniously bulldozed.<br />
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The houses in question stood on a terrace overlooking the East Fork of the Miami River, just south of Elk Lick proper. Both were constructed by members of the Collins family, whose progenitor, John, relocated to Ohio from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_County,_New_Jersey">Gloucester County, New Jersey</a>, in 1802. <a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/nj/county/capemay/Migration2.htm">John Collins</a> (1769–1845) was born to Quaker parents, but converted to Methodism well before his arrival in the Buckeye State. (I wonder whether he had something to do with Clermont County's <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/27591353781/in/album-72157669560604246/">preponderance of New Jerseyans</a>.)<br />
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A few years after moving to Ohio — in either 1803 or 1805 — John funded the construction of a two-story stone residence. The structure was strikingly <i>ancient</i>-looking, with its two-bay facade and single-pen plan, and it scarcely differed, in form, from the log homes built by less-wealthy Ohioans of the same generation. Like a few other stone buildings in Clermont County, the John Collins House featured a massive interior-end chimney, a narrow frieze board, and rather skimpy boards which, as far as I can tell, simulated <a href="http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2013/12/13/eave-returns-interpreting-gyhr-details/">cornice returns</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The John Collins House (circa 1805). Despite what local lore claims, this was <i>not</i> Ohio's oldest stone building.</td></tr>
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A stone's throw (no pun intended) from John Collins's statehood-era dwelling stood a much larger, grandiose residence — reportedly commissioned by <a href="https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=garyscottcollins&id=I112549723">Richard Collins</a> (1797–1855), John's son, who acquired the family farm in 1853 after a storied career. (The younger Collins practiced law in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsboro,_Ohio">Hillsboro, Ohio</a>; represented <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_County,_Ohio">Highland County</a> in Ohio's government; and operated a dry-goods store in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maysville,_Kentucky">Maysville, Kentucky</a>.) Assuming the linked obituary's chronology is correct, Collins built his home in 1853, 1854, or 1855 — all believable construction dates, given the building's appearance.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Collins's grand Grecian edifice.</td></tr>
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The house's builder made use of a plan common enough in southwestern Ohio — four rooms arranged around a central hallway, with chimneys placed at the periphery (and, thus, a fireplace in each major room). Here, though, the mundaneness stops. Rather than being two stories in height, the Richard Collins House squeezed an additional half-story, lit by low windows, under its bizarrely shallow gable roof. The home's dominant feature was, of course, its massive Ionic portico, which sheltered first- and second-floor doorways ornamented in typical Greek Revival fashion, with sidelights, transoms, pilasters, and entablatures. The second-floor entrance led onto a small, iron-balustraded balcony structurally independent from the portico itself — not an uncommon arrangement among grander classically inspired homes. Brickwork underneath the eaves simulated an denticulate entablature.<br />
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As a work of <i>art</i>, the Richard Collins House was, I think, less successful than a great many Greek Revival homes in northeastern Ohio. (In general, the New Englanders who inhabited the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve">Western Reserve</a> built more faithfully in the Greek idiom than did their southern-Ohio counterparts.) Its size made it ponderous, and its sparsely adorned eaves (i.e., the absence of a proper entablature) rendered it bottom-heavy. Still, it overshadowed almost every building in the vicinity, and its ambitious design placed it among the great Greek Revival homes of the Cincinnati region.<br />
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Both John's and Richard's houses were <i>well</i> worth preserving, as even the Army Corps of Engineers noted, but their destruction isn't surprising. <a href="https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ask-toh/moving-brick-house">Relocating a masonry building</a> is a <i>bloody difficult</i> task; I've heard stories of brick homes crumbling to pieces despite movers' best efforts.<br />
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What replaced the dwellings of John and Richard Collins? Have a look.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7EU6nWaIDYBUXx5iv8Zwk-OUBF7cmINo6dQQF4iEpFAYlYH4uXa0GbM_2y3wSg7lHdVBtOAQNcZdiltNyAOc8lpca6sVToEhznm-5Pmc6J855eNeSy4h9YvJQx3xtRPt3otY2H9UiX5Qf/s1600/Beach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="696" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7EU6nWaIDYBUXx5iv8Zwk-OUBF7cmINo6dQQF4iEpFAYlYH4uXa0GbM_2y3wSg7lHdVBtOAQNcZdiltNyAOc8lpca6sVToEhznm-5Pmc6J855eNeSy4h9YvJQx3xtRPt3otY2H9UiX5Qf/s400/Beach.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William H. Harsha Lake (looking north), seen from the East Fork State Park Beach. Photo sourced from Google Maps. The Collins family's farm occupied land near the center of the image.</td></tr>
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<br />Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-9592658387869668692018-02-04T18:24:00.001-08:002018-02-04T18:31:00.305-08:00The Limits of Grecian Grandeur; or, When Entablatures Metastasize<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgis,_Michigan">Sturgis, Michigan</a>, is a peculiar city — it's county-seat-sized, with an appropriately healthy economy and a splendid stock of nineteenth-century buildings, but it lies at the corner of its county, rather far from the usual sources of vitality. (More than likely, the community's survival is a consequence of its proximity to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Toll_Road">Indiana Toll Road</a>.) Just south of the business district, on a charming brick-paved street, stands an equally head-scratching home.<br />
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They say that the Greek Revival is a masculine style. (1) If so, this is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Greco-American homes, with a great rippling, bulging bicep of an entablature. Now, most Greek Revival homes — whether or not their builders adhered rigidly to classical models — possess <i>some </i>grace; but others collapse (metaphorically, of course) under the weight of their ponderous entablatures. This house, it seems, falls into the latter category (though I'm rather partial to the doorway).</div>
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The standard Doric <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_order#/media/File:DoricParthenon.jpg" rel="nofollow">Doric entablature">entablature</a> consists of three parts: cornice, frieze, and architrave. The adventurous carpenter who constructed <i>this </i>home eschewed the last two, and instead stacked cornice molding atop cornice molding atop cornice molding, creating, in effect, the architectural equivalent of a multi-tiered wedding cake. The result is . . . interesting. It makes <i>me</i> chuckle with delight. Any well-trained classicist or Athenian architect, though, would surely retch in disgust. (I can hear the great <a href="http://case.edu/ech/articles/f/frary-ihna-thayer/">I.T. Frary</a> writhing in his grave.)</div>
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The doorway is also a purist's nightmare. The columns are too slender, their capitals are too large, and the engaged, semicircular pilasters slam awkwardly into the flat pilasters supporting the entablature.</div>
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What do I know about the house's history? Relatively little. In <a href="http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/16506/St.+Joseph+County+1893/">1893</a>, it belonged to a "Mrs. H. Church." Mrs. Church may have been <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139026087/emma-church">Emma</a> (1834–1912), wife of <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139026070/henry-seymour-church">Henry Seymour Church</a> (1831–1910), a native of upstate New York (America's Greek Revival capital, if I may say so). At the time of the 1880 census, the Churches lived alone, and Henry worked as a grocer. In all likelihood, Henry was too young to have commissioned this home, (2) so the identity of its builder remains a mystery. Kathryn Eckert's excellent <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buildings-Michigan-United-States/dp/0813931576">Buildings of Michigan</a></i> neglects to mention it, and I have no access to the Michigan Historic Preservation Office's archives. So, as with so many blog posts, I'll end with a shrug of bewilderment.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) I can't <i>entirely</i> agree with this assertion. The Greek Revival mode indeed emphasizes massiveness and stolidity — at least, more than, say, the Gothic and late Victorian styles do. But <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Jackson_Davis">Davis</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Eastlake">Eastlake</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Norman_Shaw">Shaw</a> would surely object to our labeling their work <i>unmanly</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) I'd estimate a construction date in the 1840s (at the earliest) or the early 1850s (more likely). Given that Henry Church reached adulthood about 1850, it's <i>conceivable</i> — but, again, <i>unlikely </i>— that he bore responsibility for erecting the house.</span></div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-7210527447912266572018-01-12T14:59:00.000-08:002018-10-29T19:16:17.792-07:00The Cluxton Log HouseUnlike Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states south of the Ohio River and west of the Appalachians, Ohio boasts relatively few double-pen log buildings. (For those unversed in the arcane art of log-divining, a double-pen building is one which contains two structurally independent units, or pens.*) One of the Buckeye State's finest double-pen dwellings stood, appropriately enough, in one of its most "Southern" counties (geographically and culturally) — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_County,_Ohio">Adams</a> — just north of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Union,_Ohio">West Union</a>, the county seat. Nestled among billowing pastureland within an agriculturally deficient region known, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9ai_AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=west+union+white+oak+barrens+ohio&source=bl&ots=txHKdJHzp9&sig=uO917c3gpGPKddUmBZ7Z4nHsKy0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGrN34n9PYAhUBhuAKHbVMCFUQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q=west%20union%20white%20oak%20barrens%20ohio&f=false">historically</a>, as the "white oak barrens," the house languished in obscurity and decrepitude until <a href="http://www.highlandcountypress.com/Content/Opinions/Opinion/Article/A-great-loss-for-Adams-County/4/22/9252">Stephen Kelley</a>, president of the Adams County Historical Society, photographed it in 1977. Kelley's images found their way into Donald Hutslar's hands, and thence into two books (<a href="http://www.ohiohistorystore.com/How-to-Complete-the-Ohio-Historic-Inventory-P7424.aspx">this</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Migration-Construction-Country-1750-1850/dp/0821407333">this</a>). It's scarcely surprising, then, that state and national surveys of historic buildings neglected to include it — and shall <i>always</i> neglect to include it, since the house disappeared in the 1990s.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The house's front (northwest) elevation. Image by Stephen Kelley, 1977, from the collection of Donald and Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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The home was an utterly classic double-pen structure — precisely the sort of building I'd expect to find within the earlier-settled portions of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upland_South">Upland South</a>. It made use of two one-and-a-half-story pens, each constructed of steeple-notched logs and adorned with a single window opening. It featured two massive rubble-stone chimneys — one exterior, and one interior (with an exposed firebox). In all likelihood, the passage between the pens was <i>always</i> enclosed (unlike in the case of the archetypal "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtrot_house">dogtrot</a>" house), and the braced-frame rear rooms, which lent the structure a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltbox">saltbox</a>" roofline, <i>might</i> have been planned at the time of construction.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rear (southeast) and side elevations. Note the square attic windows, rake boards, and cantilevered porch framing. I must say, I'm a bit baffled by the pole-mounted hoop. Was it a DIY television antenna? A massive <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcatcher">dream-catcher</a>? A homing device for extraterrestrial spacecraft?</td></tr>
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Kelley, it seems, failed to photograph the interior, but he <i>did</i> have the foresight to sketch a <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/15789630881/in/album-72157649766486962/">floor plan</a>, which I've adapted into a proper CAD rendering.<br />
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In some ways, the house's oddest feature was its staircase. More often than not, early inhabitants of Ohio's southern half jammed their stairways into the space between the fireplace and exterior wall. This house's builder, by contrast, placed the staircase within the "breezeway," but left it accessible <i>only</i> from the home's rear room. This suggests two possibilities — that (a) the building underwent a massive interior remodeling sometime in the nineteenth century, or that (b) the frame rear portion and the log pens were contemporaneous. Either possibility seems perfectly likely.<br />
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Dating the house is a tricky affair. Given its existence in Adams County, site of some of Ohio's earliest permanent settlements, it <i>could</i> have been a statehood-era structure. Then again, its placement on less-than-desirable land may mark it as a late survival of archaic building techniques. Tracing its ownership, alas, provides few answers. In 1880, it belonged to one S.P. Cluxton — perhaps Samuel Page Cluxton (b. 1838), a middle-aged farmer of Scots-Irish descent. It's unlikely that Samuel built or inherited the house; if mid-century census data is any indication, members of the Cluxton family lived exclusively in nearby <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Township,_Adams_County,_Ohio">Liberty Township</a>, and their first place of settlement was the Brush Creek valley, several miles distant. (<a href="https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=clugston">Apparently</a>, <i>Cluxton</i> is a variant of <i>Clugston</i>, a "habitational name from the barony of Clugston in Wigtownshire," Scotland.)<br />
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So, the house's origin will remain a mystery — at least, until someone pays a visit to Adams County's courthouse and slogs through nineteenth-century tax records. I'll end my post with a rendering of how the house <i>may</i> have appeared in better days.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The house reconstructed in SketchUp, from the floor plan pictured above.</td></tr>
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* Like all definitions, this one is subject to exception. Some of Ohio's seeming double-pen buildings — Brown County's <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thumann_Log_House_located_in_northern_Brown_County,_Ohio.jpg">Erastus Atkins House</a>, for instance — are, in reality, <i>unified</i> structures whose rooms are divided by interlocked log walls.Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-70455019985494428272017-12-21T12:30:00.000-08:002017-12-21T15:26:45.283-08:00A Warren County Puzzle<div>
Perched on a hillside northeast of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waynesville,_Ohio">Waynesville</a>, in Warren County, is a curious brick farmhouse. It's obviously an ancient structure (by Ohio's standards), with its flush chimneys and rake boards, and it fronts an early thoroughfare connecting Waynesville and cities farther north. Like a few other homes in the vicinity, it makes <i>stupendous </i>use of its sloping site; the basement is at once a first floor, a quirk which allowed the builder to attach a two-story gallery to what seems, from one angle, a single-story structure.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My lone, woefully inadequate photo of the building.</td></tr>
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Alas, someone, at some time (perhaps in the finest decade for tasteful design — the 1970s), thought it wise to seal half the window and door openings, then reface the <i>entire</i> building, including its porch's columns (!), with stones of varied size and shape. The result looks, to my jaundiced eye, like the architectural equivalent of type-I neurofibromatosis (or some other tumor-inducing disease). Thankfully, staff from the Ohio Historical Society photographed the house in 1969 or 1970, well before the remodeling. At the time, the building retained its original six-over-nine windows.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image, 1969 or 1970, from the "Southwest Ohio Survey" collection; held by the Ohio Historical Society.</td></tr>
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Obviously, the house is early and noteworthy, but researching its history proved more difficult than I anticipated. The <a href="http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1638448/Warren+County+1856/Warren+County+1856/Ohio/">earliest digitized map</a> of Warren County land ownership, published in 1856, lists "J. Parkhill" as owner of the 204-acre tract where this home stands. As is so often the case, Parkhill seemingly left no literary footprint — he receives no mention in county histories, and grave records are equally scanty. (The closest match in Find A Grave's database is <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/177059153/james-parkhill">James Parkhill</a> (d. 1896), interred in Deerfield Township's Rose Hill Cemetery.) The 1850 census, though, records a Joseph Parkhill, born about 1815 in Ohio, as a resident of Wayne Township. Parkhill had a large family, and he provided room and board for at least <i>three</i> non-family-members — evidence, perhaps, that local tradition has correctly identified the building as an inn or tavern.<br />
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Some time between 1856 and 1874, Parkhill's property passed to <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohwarren/Beers/V/way/0849_harris-israel-hopkins.htm">Israel Hopkins Harris</a> (1823–1897), a Waynesville banker and member of a locally prominent family. If the postcard pictured below is any indication, Harris's name — and not Parkhill's — became attached to the house, no doubt because of the Harris family's considerable cachet.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Postcard, undated, from the collection of Donald and Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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Assuming the building <i>did</i> function as a "wayside inn," it did so during Parkhill's occupancy (or earlier), and not Harris's. But Parkhill was reasonably young in 1850, and it's unlikely that <i>he</i> commissioned or built the structure. (Given that Waynesville itself was platted in 1796, and that Warren County comprises one of Ohio's wealthiest, earliest-settled regions, a construction date in the 1810s or 1820s seems perfectly believable.) But, alack, tracing Warren County property ownership beyond <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce">Franklin Pierce</a>'s presidency requires (a) good literary sources or (b) a trip to the county courthouse, so, for now, the Parkhill–Harris residence's ultimate identity will remain a mystery.<br />
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A slightly later (?) photo gives an even <i>finer</i> glimpse of the house's two-story porch, its twin entrances, and its most distinctive feature — a semicircular stone staircase, which partly provides ground-level access to the gallery's upper story.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J0q2D2UEYjLQJlFrDwg0vtARwBjkV8UTdKk3czeEhyI_M_SWaDIHwkFQ75nwAWJWAQ1IPggqoee8rlPzodq9Kwp9WssL3XewrN1Qpjzp2lwpELeD6xok4ZINWlW5_NyebHHqqbaB10cR/s1600/Harris+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="897" data-original-width="1200" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J0q2D2UEYjLQJlFrDwg0vtARwBjkV8UTdKk3czeEhyI_M_SWaDIHwkFQ75nwAWJWAQ1IPggqoee8rlPzodq9Kwp9WssL3XewrN1Qpjzp2lwpELeD6xok4ZINWlW5_NyebHHqqbaB10cR/s400/Harris+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image, undated, from the collection of Donald and Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-3195988343974593192017-12-17T06:56:00.000-08:002018-10-29T19:23:16.374-07:00Christian Sipe's Log HouseOnce again, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greene_County,_Ohio">Greene County</a> provides fodder for a post — albeit a brief one.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pDG-LXFgla-26QA9oyO4NpMhtFFunWcOBWVf3fpSI2t0RS9fyUNI6uq4BlFsSmKWTdSKUl6eiTR5rw4VGfE5yuL1GUkCSGvWG-ttUBqGylF_GgymXKq-xzv4sMuJr6Yx46T1QP9xuqVz/s1600/Yellow+Springs-Fairfield+Rd+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="792" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pDG-LXFgla-26QA9oyO4NpMhtFFunWcOBWVf3fpSI2t0RS9fyUNI6uq4BlFsSmKWTdSKUl6eiTR5rw4VGfE5yuL1GUkCSGvWG-ttUBqGylF_GgymXKq-xzv4sMuJr6Yx46T1QP9xuqVz/s400/Yellow+Springs-Fairfield+Rd+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've known about the above abode for a few years, and I long ago included it in my list of <i>likely</i> log buildings. (If houses could talk, this one would holler, "Look at me! Look at my thick walls! Look at my boxy proportions! I'm <i>log</i>! For Pete's sake, I'm <i>log</i>!") Remodeling has spoiled its purity, but it remains a splendid example of early-nineteenth-century building practices in southwestern Ohio; the box cornice, <a href="https://sunshinecontractingcorp.com/blog/2013/03/22/what-is-rake-board/">rake boards</a>, and asymmetrical facade are all traits peculiar to the period.<br />
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Yesterday, I decided to research its history. I must say, I <i>expected</i> to find little — perhaps the name of its owner at mid-century, and whatever information I could glean from census records and <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/">Find A Grave'</a>s ever-handy database. But I struck gold. First, I turned to an 1855 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2012591127/">map of Greene County</a>, which clearly labels the house with the name "N. Sipe." A quick Google Books search revealed this passage (in G.F. Robinson's 1902 <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hYINAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA488&dq=noah+sipe&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYlc2IopHYAhWBOyYKHfr2DnMQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=noah%20sipe&f=false">History of Greene County, Ohio</a></i>):<br />
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In 1856, Mr. [Noah] Sipe erected a brick house upon the old home farm, where he now resides. There was but one other house anywhere in the locality at the time the old home had been erected. The first structure was a log cabin, which was succeeded by a fine log house built when Mr. Sipe was a young lad, and is still standing, one of the mute reminders of pioneer days . . .</blockquote>
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Eureka! Not only does Robinson <i>mention</i> Sipe's log house (a rarity in county histories), but he also gives a construction date (Sipe was born in 1820) and, more importantly, <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/01/cabins-and-houses.html">draws a distinction</a> between the Sipe family's first-generation <i>cabin</i> and its better-finished, second-generation <i>log house</i>. Examples of this distinction are numerous in nineteenth-century writings, but I can't recall <i>ever</i> finding such a description of an <i>extant</i> building.<br />
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Christian Sipe (d. 1855), Noah's father and (I presume) the log house's builder, emigrated from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockingham_County,_Virginia">Rockingham County, Virginia</a>, in 1814. Sipe spent two years with family in Clark County, Ohio, then purchased his Bath Township tract and cobbled together a cabin. Sipe spent anywhere from, say, five to ten years in this cabin, then contented himself, for the remainder of his years, with his "fine" two-story log house.Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-80152824625564970662017-12-15T16:07:00.002-08:002017-12-15T16:07:44.955-08:00The Hartsook House and the Trustworthiness of Atlas IllustrationsIn Ohio, the overwhelming majority of nineteenth-century log houses followed a simple plan — a single log pen, divided into one or two first-floor rooms and a loft, with minimal ornamentation (save, perhaps, for a mantel and the omnipresent enclosed staircase) and as many window and door openings as were <i>absolutely</i> necessary. Of course, homes often accreted additions, wings, and lean-tos, all of which lent a bit of variety to the architectural landscape; but, for the most part, one log house looked — to the untrained eye, at least — very much like another. But every rule has its exception, (1) and I relish finding them.<br />
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One of Ohio's more inventive variants of the single-pen log dwelling stood at the southern periphery of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greene_County,_Ohio">Greene County</a>, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarscreek_Township,_Greene_County,_Ohio">Caesar's Creek Township</a> (2). The home belonged to <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14067936/james-frederick-hartsook#">James Frederick Hartsook</a> (1831–1912) in the 1870s, and it stood, in almost unaltered condition, well into the 1970s. Donald Hutslar describes (and illustrates) it in his <i>Architecture of Migration</i>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7237/7226726458_ec845bf657_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="800" height="272" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7237/7226726458_ec845bf657_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Donald Hutslar, 1971, published in <i>The Architecture of Migration</i>.</td></tr>
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The house's distinctive features were numerous: <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/03/minutiae-of-log-architecture.html">overhanging plates</a>, a centered second-floor tripartite window, a twelve-over-eight sash pattern, scalloped rake boards (barely visible in the photo above), a partly enclosed storage area adjoining the house proper, and, most notably, <i>two</i> front entries. Now, such paired doorways are a common sight in Ohio — particularly in regions settled by Pennsylvanians and Germans — but they tend <i>not</i> to adorn log buildings (no doubt because of the interior divisions they presuppose). As its fenestration suggests, the house was divided into two rooms, albeit <i>not</i> by the usual board or frame partition; instead, the builder opted for a central <i>log</i> wall. This wall, of course, terminated at the upper floor, just below the window. I'd love to know how the second floor was arranged, but, alas, Hutslar's description falls just short. I <i>can</i> say that the interior contained an enclosed staircase, placed against the central log wall. The six-panel doors are standard Federal-era fare.<br />
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Much to my surprise, researching the house's history was a breeze. An 1855 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4083g.la000629/">map</a> of Greene County lists "E.B. Hartsook" as the property's owner. "E.B." was no doubt <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18739171/elijah-benjamin-hartsook">Elijah Benjamin Hartsook</a> (1798–1863), father of James (mentioned above), who must have inherited the farm after Elijah's death. The Hartsooks hailed from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagerstown,_Maryland">Hagerstown</a>, Maryland (though they seem to have tarried in eastern West Virginia), and their family farmhouse <i>appears</i> to have Mid-Atlantic antecedents. Attached to Elijah's <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18739171/elijah-benjamin-hartsook">Find A Grave</a> page is this helpful note:<br />
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Eleazer United Methodist Church, 1765 E. Spring Valley-Paintersville Road — Elijah Hartsook bought land in Caesars Creek Township in 1834 to build a home. He donated a plot of land for the church and cemetery. The church was probably finished around 1846, at a cost of $600.</blockquote>
This corroborates nicely with Hutslar's estimated construction date of 1833. Elijah Hartsook, then, built or commissioned the house in 1833 or 1834, in a style amenable to his central-Maryland origin. There. Simple. Case closed.<br />
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Like a few dozen other Greene County landowners, James Hartsook enjoyed the honor of his residence's inclusion in the<i> <a href="http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/9554/Greene+County+1874/">Combination Atlas–Map of Greene County, Ohio</a></i> (1874). The lithographer tasked with capturing the Hartsook farm's likeness did much justice to reality (and equal injustice to perspective). The illustration faithfully reproduces all that made Hartsook's abode distinctive: its second-floor window, its overhanging plates, and even its scalloped trim.<br />
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This raises an interesting point. Instinct and cynicism inform me that I ought to treat such illustrations with skepticism. After all, citizens <i>paid</i> for these engravings, and what homeowner <i>wouldn't</i> forgive a bit of artistic license, provided that it flattered him? Evidence and experience, though, suggest that the hundreds of illustrations adorning <a href="http://www.historicmapworks.com/Browse/United_States/Ohio/">Ohio's nineteenth-century atlases</a> <i>are</i>, for the most part, accurate depictions of reality. And we architectural historians ought to study them.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) Does the rule that every rule has an exception <i>itself</i> have an exception?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) No other Ohio township name is so inconsistently spelled. Some nineteenth- and twentieth-century documents use <i>Caesar Creek</i> (without a possessive), whereas others add that lovely English <a href="http://www.grammar.cl/rules/genitive-case.htm">vestigial genitive</a>, but omit the conventional apostrophe (making <i>Caesars Creek</i>). Wikipedia smashes together the two words in horrifying (but oddly trendy) fashion — hence <i>Caesarscreek.</i> (Gesundheit!) I'd throw my support behind the one variant that seems <i>not</i> to appear in print: <i>Caesar's Creek.</i></span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-83491565478919229492017-10-11T17:38:00.002-07:002017-10-11T17:38:39.275-07:00Another Regional Quirk: Southwestern Ohio's Conspicuous Built-In GuttersAs I've said <i>ad nauseum</i>, every locale has its own architectural <i>flavor</i> (if you will), and that flavor tends to be a function of certain circumstances — when the community happened to develop, where its inhabitants originated, and so on. Often, clusters of distinctively similar structures betray the influence of a particular builder or carpenter. Other times, though, the origin of a locally (or regionally) distinctive architectural quirk can be more difficult to trace. The <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-residences-of-rural-sandusky-county.html">"monk-bond"-brick farmhouses</a> near Bellevue, Ohio, are one such enigma; so are the myriad southwestern-Ohio homes adorned with built-in gutters.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjESOuy4XBOzpP7nWhm0ETVa6CE9ickSHmrkRsGN_3emUkDDSyWhgwqe1VG1hA7QXugim1nacYQfSsxihz1FAuxn14BGFK7-VNthxFeozp2B3_mxsG7lGiTyeTeE6pqWgnv1ycTUGgT9oS3/s1600/Gutter+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="510" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjESOuy4XBOzpP7nWhm0ETVa6CE9ickSHmrkRsGN_3emUkDDSyWhgwqe1VG1hA7QXugim1nacYQfSsxihz1FAuxn14BGFK7-VNthxFeozp2B3_mxsG7lGiTyeTeE6pqWgnv1ycTUGgT9oS3/s400/Gutter+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gutter, <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2235939,-84.3216004,3a,91.5y,133.79h,93.02t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sFU5_c9p12reqiixY9VE5Gg!2e0?force=lite&hl=en-US">John Elliott House</a> (1802); Symmes Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. This NRHP-listed stone dwelling was built within a year of Ohio's statehood. The frieze board, cornice, and gutter likely date from mid-century.</td></tr>
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Describing these gutters — and what differentiates them from their counterparts elsewhere — is a bit of a challenge. They're scattered widely across Ohio's southwestern counties (historically, the state's wealthiest region), from Preble and Darke (in the northwest) to Clermont and Brown (in the southeast), with the densest concentration in the Cincinnati orbit; occasionally, though, examples appear farther north. They're formed when a cornice reaches its wall's plane, then juts out horizontally, creating a distinctive "kick." As far as I can tell, they seem to be a mid-nineteenth-century innovation — most common to Italianate-era structures, but sufficiently abundant in other contexts to leave me scratching my head.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8698/28008221310_0170a99a9e_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="800" height="267" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8698/28008221310_0170a99a9e_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">House; Eaton, Preble County, Ohio. This building's cornice is more developed than the John Elliott House's, but the integral gutter remains equally striking.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO-hDCKLvnbXARLsmy2_yQV33JB3WyiEmOT3aIsZfsIyOH3erlI7Y8Bjg2AMBcaVgIm4TzELVoTCEjjRg4cgNbww8YRn6B35rfp1QDV_X3airF6wk9dRDZGMOnUGG7_dtdw5xsDghya2uQ/s1600/Gutter+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="473" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO-hDCKLvnbXARLsmy2_yQV33JB3WyiEmOT3aIsZfsIyOH3erlI7Y8Bjg2AMBcaVgIm4TzELVoTCEjjRg4cgNbww8YRn6B35rfp1QDV_X3airF6wk9dRDZGMOnUGG7_dtdw5xsDghya2uQ/s400/Gutter+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South gable, Van Ausdal House; Eaton, Preble County, Ohio.</td></tr>
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Lest anyone think I'm <i>inventing</i> my assertion, I searched my <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/06/another-project.html">database</a> of historic rural residences; the distribution of built-in gutters is striking: 48 examples in Warren County, 17 in Butler, at least a dozen in Hamilton,* 10 in Clermont, and nine in Preble; but three in Greene and Montgomery, one in Brown, and <i>none </i>in Clinton and Adams.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8781/28663467196_63d8c55625_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8781/28663467196_63d8c55625_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Workers' cottages in Columbus's German Village neighborhood — well outside the integral gutter's core region of popularity. Compare the foreground home's eaves with those of its neighbors.</td></tr>
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Now, whenever I happen upon such a localized — nay, <i>regionalized </i>— quirk of architecture, I begin wondering about the origin (regional or ethnic) of those who employed it. (Of course, in this case, the method seems less useful, given the great temporal gap between the element's appearance and the settlement of the region in question.) The built-in gutter <i>seems </i>to correlate with concentrations of New Jerseyans, who flocked to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmes_Purchase">Symmes Purchase</a> and surrounding lands. But such gutters <i>aren't </i>common in Ohio's <i>other </i>significant region of New Jersey settlement — the southwestern portion of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Military_District">U.S. Military District</a>. And, obviously, plenty of non-New Jerseyans employed the method, too. (It appears in Columbus's <i>German Village</i>, for goodness' sake!)<br />
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So, <i>why </i>are built-in gutters concentrated in Cincinnati and bordering counties? I don't know. A bit of meticulous research — tracing particular buildings' owners' immigration and combing through other states' NRHP listings — might reveal something, but I'll leave that research for the future.</div>
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* As of October 11, 2017, I've finished only part of my Hamilton County survey.</div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-13887805110040215132017-07-19T08:58:00.001-07:002017-12-21T12:34:38.490-08:00The Albert J. Ewing Collection: Glimpses of a Long-Lost Landscape<i>Cross-posted from the Ohio History Connection's <a href="https://www.ohiohistory.org/learn/collections/history/history-blog">blog</a>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>In 2017, it's not difficult to document the world. Storage space is cheap, and opportunity cost is practically nonexistent. Cameras and computers allow geographers and architectural historians — amateur and professional alike — to capture, store, and edit a thousand images of whatever strikes their fancy. Thanks to Google and Bing, a person needn't <i>visit</i> a place to understand its atmosphere, to sample its <i>je ne sais quoi</i>.<br />
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But finding visual documentation from <i>before </i>the era of abundant information remains an ordeal. Everyone who owns a historic home <i>dreams </i>of discovering some glorious daguerreotype showing the structure as built, but few succeed. In the nineteenth century, portrait photography outshone landscape photography. Then, as now, people tended to overlook the ordinary. In far-flung places — rural Appalachia, for instance — the problem was particularly acute. The Ohio History Connection, though, holds one <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16007coll19">collection</a> unmatched in its ability to give a glimpse of the turn-of-the-century landscape: a store of more than 5,000 plate-glass negatives, gloriously detailed, captured by the wandering photographer Albert Ewing.<br />
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Albert J. Ewing (1870–1934) spent his early years near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marietta,_Ohio">Marietta</a>, the first permanent settlement within the Northwest Territory, founded by the Massachusetts-based Ohio Company of Associates in 1788. The fertile valleys of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskingum_River">Ohio River</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskingum_River">Muskingum River</a> attracted plenty of early settlement, but the rugged, stream-dissected <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Plateau">Allegheny Plateau</a> remained sparsely populated until the nineteenth century’s closing decades. For the most part, the land of southeastern Ohio and central-western West Virginia allowed only subsistence agriculture. Homesteaders lived in relative squalor and farmed sloping plots within isolated mountain hollows. But turn-of-the-century oil exploration brought prosperity to the region and, in turn, triggered a building boom. It is <i>this </i>landscape — a landscape newly transformed by mineral wealth, dotted with derricks and oddly exuberant dwellings — that Ewing’s images allow us to glimpse in unparalleled detail.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26ta3EOAOVBzfNAh6vOMxcgxPrCG-jciQYDwc_8v7MPRvnO2vnf-AocvM0g-jTWTwCJFDevoD02fIuf3NJ0dfWVU0Yvqu2jf24ykwy0m6lA1sAB3_rbpGXBNeXeEIRG1oQMeg8JhOxd2Y/s1600/Ewing+28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/797/rec/149" border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1600" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26ta3EOAOVBzfNAh6vOMxcgxPrCG-jciQYDwc_8v7MPRvnO2vnf-AocvM0g-jTWTwCJFDevoD02fIuf3NJ0dfWVU0Yvqu2jf24ykwy0m6lA1sAB3_rbpGXBNeXeEIRG1oQMeg8JhOxd2Y/s400/Ewing+28.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A newly constructed farmhouse of standard turn-of-the-century appearance. Location unknown. Despite its hilliness, the land surrounding the house is largely cleared for agriculture; today, the same spot is probably densely forested.</td></tr>
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Some of the houses in Ewing’s photos seem strikingly <i>new </i>— coated with unblemished paint, constructed of unweathered wood, and adorned with unbroken scrollwork, spandrels, and medallions. This is hardly surprising. Many of them <i>are</i> (or were) new. They tend to display the hallmarks of turn-of-the-century domestic architecture: an affinity for traditional forms, liberal use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodturning">lathe-turned</a> woodwork, and a repetition of certain types of ornamentation. Ewing’s camera even captured some buildings <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/679/rec/357">during construction</a>, and one pair of plates depicts the same home <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/611/rec/593">before</a> and <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/686/rec/582">after</a> a renovation.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWDdAuvEOEV8yp9i53lZgz5FxtcnZp3eJWTugEZ2DMEI36R0uAS1gq6jDkA2JlKYMvrxCSeZPt6rc5j9TrcUXQWwZrtPz7uS7HKqI6XEOVouy-irq3gG9CC9k_OsHTkMs58xO0Lscz5xa/s1600/Ewing+38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/611/rec/593" border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="1600" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWDdAuvEOEV8yp9i53lZgz5FxtcnZp3eJWTugEZ2DMEI36R0uAS1gq6jDkA2JlKYMvrxCSeZPt6rc5j9TrcUXQWwZrtPz7uS7HKqI6XEOVouy-irq3gG9CC9k_OsHTkMs58xO0Lscz5xa/s400/Ewing+38.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A plain farmhouse of "saltbox" form — likely a frame building, but possibly log. Location unknown.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh559LriA57uMpGfVniJXx-FOi6OPUr6-N_0irTvtbBGG43vpyukdwVNeUNogLIxfWTHDPsBwUrN-4lldSdlDmhzwQQVMLIDVzX-FTbLpPPQKVQQldAXuB-73NU80micgtA9WG9YXFffAAA/s1600/Ewing+37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/686/rec/582" border="0" data-original-height="1252" data-original-width="1600" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh559LriA57uMpGfVniJXx-FOi6OPUr6-N_0irTvtbBGG43vpyukdwVNeUNogLIxfWTHDPsBwUrN-4lldSdlDmhzwQQVMLIDVzX-FTbLpPPQKVQQldAXuB-73NU80micgtA9WG9YXFffAAA/s400/Ewing+37.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The same house — a decade or two later, and after a reroofing and the addition of a two-story porch.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Other photos show the poverty for which Appalachia is (rightly or wrongly) famous. Ewing's images of log buildings, in particular, are among his collection's most valuable. One — labeled "rural life," perhaps ironically — depicts a small log house and its accompanying log outbuilding. The outbuildings's roof is supported by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purlin">purlins</a> — a construction method common to Ohio's earliest cabins. (Yes, there <i>is </i>a difference between a log <i>cabin </i>and a log <i>house</i>, but that's a subject for another post.) In another image, the log house stands, encircled by a picket fence, among unkempt-looking fields. Additions obscure two of the log pen's four sides, the roof is clad with wood shingles, and the house's <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/03/minutiae-of-log-architecture.html">plates overhang the walls</a>. Had Ewing jumped into H.G. Wells's time machine and emerged in the year 1830, he might <i>still</i> have returned with (almost) identical-looking images.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGP1l_n0WcwpydbQ0UaSqAUCn8j-VrxlB-eQvKPhl0-H_I168WjCpfg0OkRLMfW1Q5mOEJNlDSghkBquPE_5MmACaNcou-R7wH_GmpfHob6fdm1su0BiGg2VB2s84YTsze-mV_-gLSEsyU/s1600/Ewing+47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/1124/rec/2" border="0" data-original-height="944" data-original-width="1600" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGP1l_n0WcwpydbQ0UaSqAUCn8j-VrxlB-eQvKPhl0-H_I168WjCpfg0OkRLMfW1Q5mOEJNlDSghkBquPE_5MmACaNcou-R7wH_GmpfHob6fdm1su0BiGg2VB2s84YTsze-mV_-gLSEsyU/s400/Ewing+47.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Qz1H65G6_2ABqKaXtqG3rZ8ZIRwfJ6McAnxpAx9G-1qRrHr8bqEaeEgyg2vrH0F6kj3ZBwwWJFP4U7XJR4-xyoHYfJkUK7bMvqmCSfGhp6y8XXGdmW5nfMZp-X6e38H8Q-rt81O5DdlR/s1600/Ewing+41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/663/rec/166" border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1600" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Qz1H65G6_2ABqKaXtqG3rZ8ZIRwfJ6McAnxpAx9G-1qRrHr8bqEaeEgyg2vrH0F6kj3ZBwwWJFP4U7XJR4-xyoHYfJkUK7bMvqmCSfGhp6y8XXGdmW5nfMZp-X6e38H8Q-rt81O5DdlR/s400/Ewing+41.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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Still other photos depict buildings within a broader context. In one, the farm complex, rimmed by sloping pastureland and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-rail_fence">split-rail fences</a>, straddles a small stream; in the other, the house and outbuildings stand on a level upland. One farmhouse is rather crudely constructed and sided with <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-board-and-batten-177663">boards and battens</a> (and, thus, might be a remodeled log building); the other, a balloon-frame structure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-house">"I" form</a>, was likely built within a few years of Ewing's visit. (The second-floor entries suggest that the owner <i>planned </i>to grace his abode with a two-story porch.) In both cases, the homes' chimneys send forth puffs of smoke — not surprising, for Ewing captured a great many of his images in the autumn, winter, and early spring.<br />
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The two photos, like all within the collection, are deliciously detailed, and they permit the curious to see the long-dead accoutrements of Appalachian agricultural life: carts, carriages, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millstone">millstones</a>, chickens, cattle, orchards, dirt lanes, split-rail fences, and sloping fields — and, of course, the owners themselves, often proudly standing by those marks of civilization they helped wrench from nature.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3yNCFCCNe2l-6aQkBVrXbCQihf6ZZyXY6bmDBzJfnHByKXnzNoW42Q8MdUIGX6tJkR-iEuPIq21kTzDV7OrGlhaJCO4vZMt1cSCC1l9iVA45fTFJlOtwYcd84mFcIUsY5ZuHcpXqGCzl/s1600/Ewing+29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/818/rec/165" border="0" data-original-height="1127" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3yNCFCCNe2l-6aQkBVrXbCQihf6ZZyXY6bmDBzJfnHByKXnzNoW42Q8MdUIGX6tJkR-iEuPIq21kTzDV7OrGlhaJCO4vZMt1cSCC1l9iVA45fTFJlOtwYcd84mFcIUsY5ZuHcpXqGCzl/s400/Ewing+29.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTyuo5XKPIxeSpl1IvGBXg9Ja-d9HmDvQYsEIPqUGnSmBbYjHSFRy0OBTEoYC-WUL5hcbuZ9hVT3BiWYTOtRF9jAkSGj5thRha3TGQgI2HGzMFTDr1c8rzurijvqMqB7_hXCzchcgGBr6B/s1600/Ewing+20B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16007coll19/id/639/rec/166" border="0" data-original-height="1039" data-original-width="1600" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTyuo5XKPIxeSpl1IvGBXg9Ja-d9HmDvQYsEIPqUGnSmBbYjHSFRy0OBTEoYC-WUL5hcbuZ9hVT3BiWYTOtRF9jAkSGj5thRha3TGQgI2HGzMFTDr1c8rzurijvqMqB7_hXCzchcgGBr6B/s400/Ewing+20B.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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But enough rambling. 1,435 of Ewing's 5,055 negatives are available, in 5,000-by-4,000-pixel glory, <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16007coll19">via Ohio Memory</a>. As the old saw says, a picture is worth a thousand words. <i>Do </i>take a look!Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-66422647395955060302017-07-14T10:02:00.000-07:002017-07-14T10:02:37.599-07:00Brick Columns in Warren CountyIt's not difficult to spot similarities between, say, the boxy braced-frame (and log) <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7949002,-81.7980579,3a,32.9y,214.27h,93.03t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sBVvPcQVF3o-hBK2UqJg2sg!2e0?force=lite">farmhouses</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_County,_Ohio">Wayne County</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0186751,-76.200739,3a,71.7y,205h,92.19t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1skSzOOYDl4cxRLZ4ASntgOQ!2e0?force=lite">dwellings</a> in southeastern Pennsylvania's Amish heartland, but finding <i>direct </i>connections between Ohio buildings and their East-Coast antecedents is a more arduous task. Still, some have managed it. Frary traces floral woodwork in one Western Reserve farmhouse to a home in rural Maine, and Asher Benjamin's designs are duplicated in countless structures — residential, commercial, and public alike. I suspect that most comparisons between individual <i>buildings</i> are, in all likelihood, mistaken, but the temptation remains.<br />
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In suburbanizing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Township,_Warren_County,_Ohio">Hamilton Township</a>, Warren County (one of Ohio's finest counties, if I may say so), are two Federal-era residences with peculiar similarities to at least one Virginia plantation home. One stands on Schlottman Road, just north of the township's southern boundary and a stone's throw from Benjamin Butterworth's hillside <a href="http://www.gregorydavisdds.com/blog/2015/01/28/the-butterworth-stop-on-the-154492">farmhouse</a> (1815); the other sits on a sloping, stream-side lot, south of Maineville (a community founded, as its name suggests, by ex-citizens of New England's northeasternmost state).<br />
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The Schlottman Road house was owned, during the nineteenth century's second quarter, by members of the Hill family, but its exact history is murky. The building's facade is standard transitional Federal–Grecian fare — five bays in width, with a narrow frieze board, trabeated doorway, and rectangular stone lintels and sills. What lies <i>behind </i>the facade is a bit odder. Unlike most "I" houses (dwellings multiple rooms in width, but only one in depth), the Hill House features an additional row of rooms, which allow for extra fireplaces and a two-story inset porch (now enclosed), and which lend the house a "saltbox" roofline.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFJth4QwKt1HbCiPR183k0JqhxLDwouJTAsXXuhzoGAgpo75Q-GFbgnuh9saBRLFp1gZgKbhDzX1XgK4ad-jpCWvcFV6i7z2e7918xhVIOVwKcrph6fsDSdxewccdKLOFEfh0RO2iv9jw/s1600/Schlottman+Rd+-+10638.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFJth4QwKt1HbCiPR183k0JqhxLDwouJTAsXXuhzoGAgpo75Q-GFbgnuh9saBRLFp1gZgKbhDzX1XgK4ad-jpCWvcFV6i7z2e7918xhVIOVwKcrph6fsDSdxewccdKLOFEfh0RO2iv9jw/s400/Schlottman+Rd+-+10638.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hill House (WAR-631-11), supposedly constructed in 1817; expanded circa 1845. Photo from the Warren County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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At the home's rear, though, is its <i>truly</i> intriguing feature. Extending from the two-story section is a one-and-a-half-story wing (not an oddity in itself), constructed of Flemish-bond brick. According to local lore, this wing predates the "I" portion by several decades — a claim I'm more than willing to believe. A two-bay section of this wing is recessed, and the resulting porch is supported by polygonal brick columns with blocky capitals and plinths. Clunky though they may be, these columns <i>are </i>distinctive. Ohio has a plethora of recessed porches, but few — if any — use <i>brick </i>as a supporting material (though I know of two arcaded porches in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_County,_Ohio">Lawrence County</a>).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfp-KfRBIWkvx9kO_soR4WmzfQOW1PuXxOZOuaf2sdUY71b61oCnO5nRYxGb-r53pMeio-QHDsu5PBNqECTGY4FGKxKT6ZokcEifyxBSohSNZD69mqcFvjSrPJ02Q8RZGFU7ThpqIEWIA/s1600/Schlottman+Rd+-+10638+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfp-KfRBIWkvx9kO_soR4WmzfQOW1PuXxOZOuaf2sdUY71b61oCnO5nRYxGb-r53pMeio-QHDsu5PBNqECTGY4FGKxKT6ZokcEifyxBSohSNZD69mqcFvjSrPJ02Q8RZGFU7ThpqIEWIA/s400/Schlottman+Rd+-+10638+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The home's rear (more interesting, I think, than its facade). The 1817 section lies to the right. Note the fieldstone springhouse. Photo from the Warren County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_County,_Virginia">Campbell County</a>, Virginia's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Hill_(Long_Island,_Virginia)">Green Hill Plantation</a>, built about 1800, features a similar porch. As might be expected, Green Hill's columns are more sensitively handled; they're round, rather than polygonal, and they're topped with more typologically accurate capitals and plinths. Unfortunately, some of the <a href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.va0274/photos.160021p">many outbuildings and dependencies</a> which once encircled Green Hill have disappeared, but the house remains, thank goodness.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/habshaer/va/va0200/va0274/photos/160025pv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/habshaer/va/va0200/va0274/photos/160025pv.jpg" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="800" height="290" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Porch, Green Hill (circa 1800); Long Island vicinity, Campbell County, Virginia. Photo from the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0274/">Historic American Buildings Survey</a> collection. Photographer and date unknown.</td></tr>
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A few miles northeast of the Hill House; in Warren County, Ohio; stands a <i>second </i>dwelling — this one omitted from the Ohio History Inventory — with a brick-columned porch. In this case, the porch is two stories in height, and, instead of being tucked into a rear wing, it boldly graces the facade. The columns are circular (rather than polygonal), but their capitals are no more elegant than the Hill House's. An 1875 property atlas lists a J.E. Murdock as the farm's owner. Murdock's family lent its name to a <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.292203,-84.2057521,17z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">crossroads community</a> just south of the residence.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwbKtVKFVZ6az5slNVjQ8Mwiaw0xV7LisWVlKCO2WaSfPEBhX2YF4wmwtYPkIBPrvLAHHWFLJRi7FFXZCuLjzkOBK7O93CCThU4lcRDjk3qYOhhyphenhyphenMha3nxixA67tNqn_JkVTrszmi5UZ3/s1600/SR+48+-+9187.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwbKtVKFVZ6az5slNVjQ8Mwiaw0xV7LisWVlKCO2WaSfPEBhX2YF4wmwtYPkIBPrvLAHHWFLJRi7FFXZCuLjzkOBK7O93CCThU4lcRDjk3qYOhhyphenhyphenMha3nxixA67tNqn_JkVTrszmi5UZ3/s400/SR+48+-+9187.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murdock House; circa 1835 (?). Photo from the Warren County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<br />Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-42940162205293620732017-07-02T11:41:00.005-07:002017-07-02T16:26:56.729-07:00The Residences of Rural Sandusky County, OhioLast week, I finished my <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/06/another-project.html">survey</a> of rural Sandusky County, Ohio. Rather than <i>merely </i>silently posting a link to the Fusion Table on the usual page, I'll also <i>write </i>about what I've discovered. For those who care not to read, here's the map:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://fusiontables.google.com/embedviz?q=select+col2+from+1HqAFsWm4HuIN4L3Qp8NpGvytgR15F1sKVJx0vZ5U&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.371881861894956&lng=-83.13183142637251&t=3&z=10&l=col2&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE" width="500"></iframe><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
A Slapdash History</div>
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In 1820, Sandusky County was carved — along with a dozen other northwestern-Ohio counties — from ex-Shawnee territory <a href="http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Shawnee_Indians">confiscated</a> by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Meigs">Treaty of Fort Meigs</a> (1817). At the time, a mere 852 souls called the county home. The area remained sparsely populated until two waves of migration — the first in the 1830s, the second between 1850 and 1860 — sent settlers into its lands. The earliest settlement occurred along certain streams: the Sandusky River (which bisects the county), the Portage River, and other, smaller waterways. Modern-day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_20_in_Ohio">US Highway 20</a>, an <a href="http://www.horizonview.net/~ihs/Transportation/Transp-Story-M&WRrd.html">early road</a> connecting Perrysburg and the Western Reserve, also functioned as an artery of settlement. Like most northwestern-Ohio counties, Sandusky encompassed much waterlogged land, and its landscape reached a stable state of development only during the nineteenth century's closing decades. The second migration wave contained a great many Germans — from a variety of principalities, including Baden and Bavaria — as well as a slew of Swiss.<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont,_Ohio">Fremont</a> (no, <i>not </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandusky,_Ohio">Sandusky</a>), once a frontier outpost adjoining <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Stephenson">Fort Stephenson</a>, has always served as the county seat. Before and after the county's formation, the city was (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Sandusky,_Ohio">rather confusingly</a>) known as Lower Sandusky, no doubt because of its location near the Sandusky River's mouth. In 1849, the village's residents chose to rechristen their home in honor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Fr%C3%A9mont">John C. Frémont</a> (1813–1890), then known as an explorer and military man (and <i>not </i>the Republican Party's first candidate). The first Sandusky County courthouse — perhaps Ohio's only log civic building <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbustapeck/6647748611/in/photolist-b8rs4n">for which plans survive</a> — served between 1826 and 1843. In 1844, a Greek Revival edifice replaced the log structure.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5487/11735395134_3d41d52e6f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="800" height="256" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5487/11735395134_3d41d52e6f_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandusky County's current courthouse — built in 1844, and expanded, with unusual sensitivity, in 1936.</td></tr>
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Survey Results</div>
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During my survey, I discovered 273 rural homes worthy of note — a higher number than I'd expected, though not terribly surprising, given Sandusky County's predominantly Germanic settlement geography.* A fair number of buildings are already included in the Ohio Historic Inventory and National Register, mostly because of a 1984 survey conducted by <a href="http://agulliford.com/">Andrew Gulliford</a>. Still, the OHI and NRHP include only 63 homes, about 23 percent of my total. The overwhelming majority of rural Sandusky County's buildings (perhaps 80 percent) postdate the Civil War. As always, my survey favors brick structures, which — thanks, again, to the county's <i>Germanitas </i>— exist in abundance. Many rural homes adhere to familiar formulas; the terms "upright-and-wing" and "gabled ell" appear, by the dozens, in my table. The Italianate style, too, was popular among nineteenth-century Sanduskyites. This isn't surprising. The county's greatest period of development happened to coincide with the style's peak in national popularity (outside the cities, between 1865 and 1885).</div>
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I can (crudely) divide Sandusky County into three architectural regions. The first comprises the easternmost townships — Townsend and York, as well as portions of Riley and Green Creek; the second stretches, in an "L" shape, from the county's center to its northwestern corner, near Woodville; the last covers the southwestern quadrant.</div>
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The East</div>
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In Townsend and York townships, Yankee, Pennsylvanian, and Germanic architectural traditions collided in interesting ways. This region, populated by the aforementioned 1830s wave, contained many of Sandusky County's wealthiest and oldest farms. (It was also the least swampy.) Remodeled braced-frame buildings, some with frieze windows and vestigial Greek Revival flourishes, are scattered, willy-nilly, across the area's farms. A few limestone houses stand near the Huron County–Erie County border, due south and north of Bellevue. In eastern Sandusky County, the so-called "upright-and-wing" house-type — so popular in the Western Reserve — is a common sight. A number of "upright-and-wing" homes in York Township display Gothic Revival quirks: gabled wall-dormers, lancet-arched windows, scrollwork, and bargeboards.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFuNqH1lqfzERtpaqvm934rEi_ep0lEX8s4qU6Fzr_3Rd7kUSOcnyovwo67kThCDki2GZmwMKPn9M1uukgXUgbEWR72rpzNShFNnm30r4ZDAOlLqw2-aiVyymF0MYQR2EgGor6Mo74fh9c/s1600/Billman+Rd+-+6710.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFuNqH1lqfzERtpaqvm934rEi_ep0lEX8s4qU6Fzr_3Rd7kUSOcnyovwo67kThCDki2GZmwMKPn9M1uukgXUgbEWR72rpzNShFNnm30r4ZDAOlLqw2-aiVyymF0MYQR2EgGor6Mo74fh9c/s320/Billman+Rd+-+6710.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smith House, York Township. 6710 Billman Road. Note the "upright-and-wing" form, wall dormers, and lancet-arched windows. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJk_9u4bEdAY8aUOPrwLIpozgEuyucus21sjdYsa6TpAQ_5781CxkSY9QXstf4rfp8c5Fa13HJ3rUJxikh7TXwA0wp2lZTihSBdSHMqK9QQ3JXxEhvrasDcF5MRadnDE31nTwYv2y-9F0/s1600/Flat+Rock+Rd+-+2895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJk_9u4bEdAY8aUOPrwLIpozgEuyucus21sjdYsa6TpAQ_5781CxkSY9QXstf4rfp8c5Fa13HJ3rUJxikh7TXwA0wp2lZTihSBdSHMqK9QQ3JXxEhvrasDcF5MRadnDE31nTwYv2y-9F0/s400/Flat+Rock+Rd+-+2895.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deyo House (SAN-448-12), York Township. 2895 Flat Rock Road. One of the county's few stone buildings. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6mb26JFPDCoH-P_gGw022wMyKXanfCCi1_vQA9_UhSmuRhZh2t2au9bO1MwdqcwePCeeS1k7mJCS2ZLT_AT9qGivmxKUxsxgKXt-VTgYZy5yERsDG5d9G9BIRNyP3Nh9p5fx5tkEnrTS/s1600/US+Highway+6+-+6201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6mb26JFPDCoH-P_gGw022wMyKXanfCCi1_vQA9_UhSmuRhZh2t2au9bO1MwdqcwePCeeS1k7mJCS2ZLT_AT9qGivmxKUxsxgKXt-VTgYZy5yERsDG5d9G9BIRNyP3Nh9p5fx5tkEnrTS/s400/US+Highway+6+-+6201.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winters House, Townsend Township. 6201 US Highway 6. A Gothic–Grecian fusion <i>par excellence</i>. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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Perhaps eastern Sandusky County's most interesting dwellings are those which use an odd form of brickwork called, variously, "double Flemish bond" and "monk bond." Oddly enough, this method of construction seemed to be popular among New Englanders <i>and </i>Germans in the vicinity of Bellevue; examples exist in Erie, Huron, Sandusky, and Seneca counties. The homes are too numerous to be the products of a single builder.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPIEAWT1EtqVvJ5Ek6WeuyzEEZAUAdce43UW37DQiDoU2DYZrwxvCB2naNtJsVu_Yrd4fA8M3UYb8FP1tgGim1m1yWRGwkzAoWfJg9dI9V7nDQlSSXPlkOm_qXGQbCZeahHHuramft6Fr/s1600/State+Route+101+-+5821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="800" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPIEAWT1EtqVvJ5Ek6WeuyzEEZAUAdce43UW37DQiDoU2DYZrwxvCB2naNtJsVu_Yrd4fA8M3UYb8FP1tgGim1m1yWRGwkzAoWfJg9dI9V7nDQlSSXPlkOm_qXGQbCZeahHHuramft6Fr/s400/State+Route+101+-+5821.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sparks House, York Township. 5821 State Route 101. The brickwork is exceptional. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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The Middle (and Northwest)</div>
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Sandusky County's vast midsection — the lands bordering the Sandusky River; much of Ballville, Sandusky, Rice, and Riley townships — received the majority of its German settlers. Others purchased tracts in the county's northwestern quadrant, in Woodville and Washington townships. The area's dwellings vary in age, pretension, and appearance. Brick "gabled ell" farmhouses, often unadorned (sans the ubiquitous segmental arches), are commonplace. The region's Italianate homes tend to feature severely truncated hip roofs (almost, but not quite, mansard) and intricately carved stone window hoods. Half-circle- and quarter-circle-shaped attic vents and windows are also oddly common.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZyoaZPBPqSy-0pNG3HSc4IcI2vQ1-QWTBzCm-kALHWqQuOLXrAT92Mkzk8e6w6KiqIGt5157THSpyOCyApkpSTpYD8MoTOFTANg8-Md8ZB4eUzGU5VWrzzD6HQgfl8ybV9H0nMcLwYW4/s1600/Werth+Rd+-+3323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="800" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZyoaZPBPqSy-0pNG3HSc4IcI2vQ1-QWTBzCm-kALHWqQuOLXrAT92Mkzk8e6w6KiqIGt5157THSpyOCyApkpSTpYD8MoTOFTANg8-Md8ZB4eUzGU5VWrzzD6HQgfl8ybV9H0nMcLwYW4/s400/Werth+Rd+-+3323.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weber House, Sandusky Township. 3323 Werth Road. A well-preserved, unabashedly Germanic farmhouse. Image from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-MptJJ7GzYal0CnYFm1RTKWAzqhNyo5iwmhvSGH8HxfpEVn64EFQo-sAH3bL4SSHAgZOlZad4VgA2qgVQumB3oo91rHY2t48h1sOfMm9Yqymxi26EHects-95tvNbolE_KRx1T92mC_k/s1600/Overmyer+Rd+-+680.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="502" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-MptJJ7GzYal0CnYFm1RTKWAzqhNyo5iwmhvSGH8HxfpEVn64EFQo-sAH3bL4SSHAgZOlZad4VgA2qgVQumB3oo91rHY2t48h1sOfMm9Yqymxi26EHects-95tvNbolE_KRx1T92mC_k/s400/Overmyer+Rd+-+680.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King House, Rice Township. 680 Overmyer Road. Image from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfp38wXF2ZtXQH9rPGCcHpbP_3Zs6DQldIIcBuatk8NqCKXz3WFCyvA_V9Q1KN0EAaeriw_XL04kbIT2XTg1aKMkHLw5nBrIJrFJhXy5EsxIyDkX7hKt9MQSo1JQNk_4wJml_iOGFAmxK/s1600/Woodrich+Rd+-+331.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="800" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfp38wXF2ZtXQH9rPGCcHpbP_3Zs6DQldIIcBuatk8NqCKXz3WFCyvA_V9Q1KN0EAaeriw_XL04kbIT2XTg1aKMkHLw5nBrIJrFJhXy5EsxIyDkX7hKt9MQSo1JQNk_4wJml_iOGFAmxK/s400/Woodrich+Rd+-+331.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Batzine House, Rice Township. 331 Woodrich Road. A plain "gabled ell" with segmental-arched windows and a tall foundation. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFwtuSofyLrdxCSgOKPgKfcNkul3ijoOiQJyJPpQQQs_EcW5S6P2M7R4kqCq453PL4vA-RitBkBNiR5g063qAC3KOt6Kk2yaA2cNK61P-zOyMHNgQnoI4Qh3HtdLl9VYPMMj1qt8r5RZs/s1600/Four+Mile+House+Rd+-+2959.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFwtuSofyLrdxCSgOKPgKfcNkul3ijoOiQJyJPpQQQs_EcW5S6P2M7R4kqCq453PL4vA-RitBkBNiR5g063qAC3KOt6Kk2yaA2cNK61P-zOyMHNgQnoI4Qh3HtdLl9VYPMMj1qt8r5RZs/s320/Four+Mile+House+Rd+-+2959.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hetrick House, Rice Township. 2959 Four Mile House Road. Similar to 331 Woodrich Road, but with quarter-circle (or half-lunette) attic windows. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiciN0tnyuVt61Zr01WNbRGSjBh4UicSt_5yorj7qVtsjdCXa-hM5ooyxbDaqK61VIGuFjorp_Ly_VreTFgBqTf2eCbTECxYMkt_U7ZktAOTjeADXueItT-GYUM_gh3pRQUhJcUoBFz9S-r/s1600/SR+590+-+654.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="800" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiciN0tnyuVt61Zr01WNbRGSjBh4UicSt_5yorj7qVtsjdCXa-hM5ooyxbDaqK61VIGuFjorp_Ly_VreTFgBqTf2eCbTECxYMkt_U7ZktAOTjeADXueItT-GYUM_gh3pRQUhJcUoBFz9S-r/s400/SR+590+-+654.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philip Overmyer House (1862), Washington Township. 654 State Route 590. Luckily, this splendid home is NRHP-listed. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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In Washington Township, just south of Elmore, stand two nearby identical brick cottages, undistinguished except for a pair of peculiar elliptical windows squeezed above the porch roof.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6yejve52IoYGGAvFQ86BRuQ5QvR0rvjACBtO7KQqpamJL7-L_0Eu-pIxMJ6vUoLxLxEB_7W8x5e1PVIqiSEOAgaR6sxtnUPkhESKMpPCzbEvL_YOSPw2zP6BISF6DRjLQ99ZBqJMJQ4M/s1600/Swartzman+Rd+-+3910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="1200" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6yejve52IoYGGAvFQ86BRuQ5QvR0rvjACBtO7KQqpamJL7-L_0Eu-pIxMJ6vUoLxLxEB_7W8x5e1PVIqiSEOAgaR6sxtnUPkhESKMpPCzbEvL_YOSPw2zP6BISF6DRjLQ99ZBqJMJQ4M/s320/Swartzman+Rd+-+3910.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burgman House, Washington Township. 3910 Swartzman Road. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMxxLWx0BgiTSgaGnNZ79cVDXals7Yq28OcMHbA81LBTdapK7PhE4bM5N4pCrE5qt67LqrxbYMXgxuTTHx-bt8ovTDFxI6MJTOTj9vHa92gVnpL7rs5tBprcfP3XsS9OuKyRu218pcV72/s1600/Damschroder+Rd+-+3806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="800" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMxxLWx0BgiTSgaGnNZ79cVDXals7Yq28OcMHbA81LBTdapK7PhE4bM5N4pCrE5qt67LqrxbYMXgxuTTHx-bt8ovTDFxI6MJTOTj9vHa92gVnpL7rs5tBprcfP3XsS9OuKyRu218pcV72/s320/Damschroder+Rd+-+3806.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mellman House, Washington Township. 3806 Damschroder Road. Image from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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A few Queen Anne houses; constructed for wealthy, non-German landowners; stand on the banks of the Sandusky River, south of Fremont.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy049fMEWHthESOk-v78gVlyubD5ZvhBJ5TJjSXNqEPDQe6l69_Y-yMtFv2mbDLbnzYR9P9-56kzLFuCM8txfPtwBn_ZBJw6nukkCG7H94ZVD05613RSzah6lsGqJMQjNlO8iUzbMLgApn/s1600/Darr+Rd+-+4319.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="502" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy049fMEWHthESOk-v78gVlyubD5ZvhBJ5TJjSXNqEPDQe6l69_Y-yMtFv2mbDLbnzYR9P9-56kzLFuCM8txfPtwBn_ZBJw6nukkCG7H94ZVD05613RSzah6lsGqJMQjNlO8iUzbMLgApn/s400/Darr+Rd+-+4319.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ballville Township. 4319 Darr Road. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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One of Sandusky County's few extant log buildings stands in Rice Township.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiKdplR3a2UTRuSdnm2AbMThEXpERSumRhsgaSwSq2b5b_VASRoiwNvrK9ysM1aUsrbMepZQMKcgYpv4wxJIxDRuT-_R-Sdp49BO6QBGq4j5fCBNYqQR5W7lQ68ZtDgRipfDKnP5R6pyQ/s1600/Weickert+Rd+-+3184.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="842" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiKdplR3a2UTRuSdnm2AbMThEXpERSumRhsgaSwSq2b5b_VASRoiwNvrK9ysM1aUsrbMepZQMKcgYpv4wxJIxDRuT-_R-Sdp49BO6QBGq4j5fCBNYqQR5W7lQ68ZtDgRipfDKnP5R6pyQ/s400/Weickert+Rd+-+3184.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zitles House (?), Rice Township. 3184 Weickert Road. Removal of the porch has exposed the logs. The central chimney is a Germanic trait. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
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The Southwest</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
The lands lying south of the old Maumee and Western Reserve Road (US Highway 20) and west of the Sandusky River; near Gibsonburg, Helena, and Burgoon; harbor Sandusky County's least-pretentious buildings. Here, the architectural landscape is defined by remodeling, demolition, and abandonment. The limestone barrens running between Woodville and Fremont (part of the larger "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Openings_Region">Oak Openings</a>" microregion) are unsuitable for agriculture, and portions of Madison, Scott, and Jackson townships remained ill-drained until the late nineteenth century, when ditching and tiling efforts opened the area to settlement. Frame farmhouses, many of "gabled ell" form, predominate, though plenty of brick structures exist here, too.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYe9XBEkEUb-zh2AsTN6DdBr8_ZEd5bz731MIDwX3NQIeUITCDTmhDWUU3gWnTEkCHqe69ee2QJKpLat7j08FROYd7eOankDajXt2adGno7KdaZpH5RyR7lGl-AnWzntjoE0SpIzn8W1o3/s1600/US+6+-+4810.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="800" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYe9XBEkEUb-zh2AsTN6DdBr8_ZEd5bz731MIDwX3NQIeUITCDTmhDWUU3gWnTEkCHqe69ee2QJKpLat7j08FROYd7eOankDajXt2adGno7KdaZpH5RyR7lGl-AnWzntjoE0SpIzn8W1o3/s400/US+6+-+4810.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fairbanks House, Madison Township. 4810 US Highway 6. The quintessential Sandusky County farmhouse. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBosGoq28RWzKAG7QuXYYraQmvnDYemVOloW3iYEa0RBp1_0jVw1LQtwjfem0PNsMOR6SG07RPXRV7riLbs18isnH-KKLZT-5L8uUoAZB9VKvicV6lV4hGFLH3ZgxphX-4krUM-vgvMvx/s1600/Girton+Rd+-+5910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="800" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBosGoq28RWzKAG7QuXYYraQmvnDYemVOloW3iYEa0RBp1_0jVw1LQtwjfem0PNsMOR6SG07RPXRV7riLbs18isnH-KKLZT-5L8uUoAZB9VKvicV6lV4hGFLH3ZgxphX-4krUM-vgvMvx/s400/Girton+Rd+-+5910.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scott Township. 5910 Girton Road. Another "gabled ell" dwelling — this one clad in brick veneer, with a bit of gable ornamentation. The house dates from the turn-of-the-century. Photo from the Sandusky County Auditor's website.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'll end my post with a table listing Sandusky County's townships, the number of buildings in each township included in my survey, the estimated age of surveyed structures found in each township, and the ratings I've assigned. (I've adopted <a href="http://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/">Indiana</a>'s system. A "1" denotes a <i>superlative </i>building; a "2," a notable one; a "3," one significant enough only to appear in my survey.)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Township:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Number:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Date Range:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">3:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ballville
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">23<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1855 –
c. 1920<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">19<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Green
Creek Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">24<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1865 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">18<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Jackson
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">23<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1855 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">21<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Madison
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1860 –
c. 1900<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Rice Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1850 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">18<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Riley
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">26<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1860 –
c. 1915<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">24<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sandusky
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">24<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1855 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">21<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Scott
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">15<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1855 –
c. 1900<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">14<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Townsend
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1850 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">18<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Washington
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">32<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1840 –
c. 1920<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">7<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">21<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Woodville
Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">25<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1855 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="26">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">22<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 94.25pt;" valign="top" width="126">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">York Twp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 58.5pt;" valign="top" width="78">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">35<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.15pt;" valign="top" width="102">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">c. 1845 –
c. 1925<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .25in;" valign="top" width="24">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">27<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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* I've noticed, after much exploring, that (a) Germans preferred brick construction to frame (so long as local geography provided a suitable source of clay), and that (b) Germans tended, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, to build more pretentiously than did other cultural groups.</div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-87586036197936247832017-05-10T08:44:00.000-07:002017-05-10T08:44:41.448-07:00Pontic Vernacular ArchitectureAfter <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-selection-from-vitruvius.html">translating Vitruvius</a>, I found myself scouring Wikimedia's "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Provinces_of_Turkey">Provinces of Turkey</a>" page for evidence that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontus_(region)">Pontic</a> architectural traditions outlived their parent ethnic groups. Alas, the tower-like <i>mossunōn </i>built by the <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DH%3Aentry+group%3D3%3Aentry%3Dheptacometae-geo">Heptacometae</a> have (not surprisingly) disappeared from Turkey, but log construction remains common enough in the Heptacometae's homeland: a strip of relatively lush, rugged, forested — indeed, almost <i>alpine </i>— land bordering the Black Sea. (Pontus was roughly coterminous with today's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Black_Sea_Region_(statistical)">East Black Sea Region</a>.) The log buildings endemic to this area are, as far as I know, the <i>only </i>such structures erected outside Europe (minus those built in the United States, of course). I doubt the people of Pontus had any inkling that their abodes resembled homes elsewhere, in Germanic, Slavic, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages">Finno-Ugric</a> lands.<br />
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The residences of northern Anatolia — stone, brick, frame, and log alike — seem to share certain characteristics. Often hip-roofed and set on tall masonry foundations (and, in more mountainous locales, built into hillsides), Pontic houses tend to use a latticework of half-timbering, with stone nogging and projecting overhangs.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/52430_Budak-%C3%87ama%C5%9F-Ordu%2C_Turkey_-_panoramio.jpg/800px-52430_Budak-%C3%87ama%C5%9F-Ordu%2C_Turkey_-_panoramio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/52430_Budak-%C3%87ama%C5%9F-Ordu%2C_Turkey_-_panoramio.jpg/800px-52430_Budak-%C3%87ama%C5%9F-Ordu%2C_Turkey_-_panoramio.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half-timbered house with tile roof. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9223861,37.5540944,16z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Budak</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87ama%C5%9F">Çamaş District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordu_Province">Ordu Province</a>. Image by Yılmaz Kilim, March 2010, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordu#/media/File:52430_Budak-%C3%87ama%C5%9F-Ordu,_Turkey_-_panoramio.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/House_in_Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k_Village%2C_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere.JPG/1024px-House_in_Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k_Village%2C_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/House_in_Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k_Village%2C_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere.JPG/1024px-House_in_Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k_Village%2C_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hillside half-timbered dwelling. Note the generous second-story overhang. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7623269,38.6264423,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Tuğlacık</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere">Yağlıdere District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun_Province">Giresun Province</a>. Photo by Zeynel Cebeci, September 2015, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k,_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere#/media/File:House_in_Tu%C4%9Flac%C4%B1k_Village,_Ya%C4%9Fl%C4%B1dere.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Sahipsizlik.._-_panoramio.jpg/1024px-Sahipsizlik.._-_panoramio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Sahipsizlik.._-_panoramio.jpg/1024px-Sahipsizlik.._-_panoramio.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One-story half-timbered house. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8435819,38.3648731,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Kemaliye</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun_Province">Giresun Province</a>. Photo by Hüsamettin Alpaslan, July 2011, used courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kemaliye,_Giresun#/media/File:Sahipsizlik.._-_panoramio.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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The region's better-constructed log buildings are similar, in size and form, to their half-timbered counterparts. Many, it seems, are fashioned from closely fitted planks. (I'm aware, of course, that classifying plank construction as a subtype of log construction is problematic.) Some Pontic domiciles would look quite at-home in the Swiss Alps.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_evleri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_evleri.jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Round-log house with cantilevered upper story. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat">Şavşat District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artvin_Province">Artvin Province</a>. Artvin Province borders Georgia and harbors a significant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgians">Georgian</a> (and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laz_people">Laz</a>) population. Image by Sairzamanlar, used courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat#/media/File:%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_evleri.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>. Date unknown.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Old_house_in_Ta%C5%9F%C3%B6ren%2C_%C3%87aykara.jpg/1024px-Old_house_in_Ta%C5%9F%C3%B6ren%2C_%C3%87aykara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Old_house_in_Ta%C5%9F%C3%B6ren%2C_%C3%87aykara.jpg/1024px-Old_house_in_Ta%C5%9F%C3%B6ren%2C_%C3%87aykara.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two-story plank house. Despite its size, the building is haphazardly constructed — note the jutting floor joists, untrimmed planks, and wide roof overhang. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7453586,40.2606561,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Taşören</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87aykara">Çaykara District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabzon_Province">Trabzon Province</a>. Photo by İhsan Kılıçoğlu, July 2010, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C3%87aykara#/media/File:Old_house_in_Ta%C5%9F%C3%B6ren,_%C3%87aykara.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi%2C_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg/1024px-Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi%2C_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi%2C_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg/1024px-Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi%2C_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hillside buildings in <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5064096,38.346029,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Tamdere</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereli">Dereli District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun_Province">Giresun Province</a>. At least nine log structures are visible. Some are houses (with cantilevered porches); others, round-log barns oddly reminiscent of eastern Ohio's tobacco kilns — replete with roof <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purlin">purlins</a>. Image by Zeynel Cebeci, September 2016, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tamdere,_Dereli#/media/File:Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi,_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/P%C4%B1narlar%2C_Dereli_01-3.jpg/1280px-P%C4%B1narlar%2C_Dereli_01-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/P%C4%B1narlar%2C_Dereli_01-3.jpg/1280px-P%C4%B1narlar%2C_Dereli_01-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6298041,38.3557607,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Pınarlar</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereli">Dereli District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun_Province">Giresun Province</a>. Compare these buildings to the ones depicted above. Pınarlar lies about 12 miles north of Tamdere. Image by Zeynel Cebeci, September 2016, courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tamdere,_Dereli#/media/File:Kar%C4%B1nca_mahallesi,_Tamdere_-_Dereli_16.jpg" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Wikimedia Commons</a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">.</span></td></tr>
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Still other Pontic structures rest on stilt-like wooden supports. These may be granaries or storage sheds, elevated to prevent wildlife from devouring valuable food stores.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Giresun%2C_Ke%C5%9Fap%2C_Sancakl%C4%B1tepe_Meranda_-_panoramio.jpg/800px-Giresun%2C_Ke%C5%9Fap%2C_Sancakl%C4%B1tepe_Meranda_-_panoramio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Giresun%2C_Ke%C5%9Fap%2C_Sancakl%C4%B1tepe_Meranda_-_panoramio.jpg/800px-Giresun%2C_Ke%C5%9Fap%2C_Sancakl%C4%B1tepe_Meranda_-_panoramio.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lilliputian plank house (or shed). <a href="http://xn--sancakltepe-5zb/">Sancaklıtepe</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ke%C5%9Fap">Keşap District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun_Province">Giresun Province</a>. Photo by HuSeYiN, August 2009, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sancakl%C4%B1tepe#/media/File:Giresun,_Ke%C5%9Fap,_Sancakl%C4%B1tepe_Meranda_-_panoramio.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/CO%C5%9EANDERE-TRABZON_-_panoramio_-_HALUK_COMERTEL.jpg/800px-CO%C5%9EANDERE-TRABZON_-_panoramio_-_HALUK_COMERTEL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/CO%C5%9EANDERE-TRABZON_-_panoramio_-_HALUK_COMERTEL.jpg/800px-CO%C5%9EANDERE-TRABZON_-_panoramio_-_HALUK_COMERTEL.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Connected plank buildings of unknown use. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7623688,39.5986163,15z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite">Coşandere</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%A7ka">Maçka District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabzon_Province">Trabzon Province</a>. Photo by Haluk Comertel, April 2008, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ma%C3%A7ka#/media/File:CO%C5%9EANDERE-TRABZON_-_panoramio_-_HALUK_COMERTEL.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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If my explorations are any indication, Artvin Province, which borders Georgia, deserves the epithet "log building capital of Turkey." Atop the rocky <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%C3%A7kar_Mountains">Kaçkar highlands</a>, well above the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_line">tree line</a>, stand <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2066801,42.4840937,3a,73.8y,217.3h,84.09t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1savd2PUp0scj7k8HV1dkFGA!2e0?force=lite">clusters</a> of particularly tiny log dwellings, no doubt constructed of timber sourced from lower altitudes. Scattered across Artvin Province are innumerable chalet-esque homes; a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=artvin+province+log&client=opera&hs=JCW&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlkMDL0-XTAhWb0YMKHWp_AZMQ_AUIBigB&biw=1366&bih=660">quick Google search</a> reveals hundreds of photos of such buildings.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_yaylalar%C4%B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_yaylalar%C4%B1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crude log houses. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kocabey,_%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat">Kocabey</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat">Şavşat District</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artvin_Province">Artvin Province</a>. Photo by Sairzamanlar, October 2014, from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat#/media/File:%C5%9Eav%C5%9Fat_yaylalar%C4%B1.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
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Precisely <i>what </i>relationship connects modern Turkey's homes to classical-era Pontic abodes, I can't say. But it's likely, given the region's isolation, that its residents could trace their traditions — directly or indirectly — to the time of Strabo and Vitruvius.</div>
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Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-30643314480613289482017-05-05T11:29:00.000-07:002017-05-05T11:29:40.536-07:00A Selection from VitruviusI've written a few posts about the fearsome and enigmatic Heptacometae (or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossynoeci">Mosynoeci</a>), who lived along the Black Sea in today's Turkey and Georgia (and who <i>may </i>be related to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laz_people">Kartvelian-speaking ethnic groups</a>). The Heptacometae constructed tall log homes, and Greek and Roman accounts of their abodes constitute the world's oldest surviving descriptions of stacked-log construction. Of these accounts, Vitruvius's — part of his <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_architectura">De Architectura</a> </i>— is certainly the finest.<br />
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Having spent a few semesters studying Latin, I thought I'd try to translate Vitruvius's text — with the help of a dictionary, of course. After all, the best way (and arguably the only <i>true </i>way) to understand an author is to read <i>his </i>writing. Perhaps Vitruvius himself mentions something his translators miss . . . or vice versa. Here's the Latin (from <a href="http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vitruvius.html">The Latin Library</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Apud nationem Colchorum in Ponto propter silvarum abundantium arboribus perpetuis planis dextra ac sinistra in terra positis, spatio inter eas relicto quanto arborum longitudines patiuntur, conlocantur in extremis partibus earum supra alterae transversae, quae circumcludunt medium spatium habitationis. Tum insuper alternis trabibus ex quattuor partibus angulos iugumentantes et ita parietes arboribus statuentes ad perpendiculum imarum educunt ad altitudinem turres, intervallaque, quae relinquuntur propter crassitudinem materiae, schidiis et luto obstruunt. Item tecta, recidentes ad extremos transtra, traiciunt gradatim contrahentes, et ita ex quattuor partibus ad altitudinem educunt medio metas, quas fronde et luto tegentes efficiunt barbarico more testudinata turrium tecta.</blockquote>
After several hours of slogging, I managed to produce this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Within the nation of Colchis, in Pontus, of abounding woods, uncut trees are put down, level, on the earth, on the right and left, with such an area left between them as the lengths of the trees allow; the others, which enclose the middle area of a dwelling, are arranged side-to-side, extending beyond the walls. Next, on top, successive trunks are fastened together at the four corners, and thus walls of trees are built up, each perpendicular to the last. The Colchians bring these up to tower-height, and the spaces, which are always left equal to the thickness of the wood, they stop up with wood-chips and mud. They place their roofs likewise, drawing them together step-by-step, the crossbeams stepping back to the walls; and thus, from the four walls, they build up their homes in the middle to the height of pyramids, which they cover with leaves and mud; and in this foreign land, by this custom, they create the vaulted roofs of their towers.</blockquote>
It's earthy, literal, and a bit stilted. Compare it to Joseph Gwilt's 1826 <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/vitruvius/home.html">translation</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The woods of the Colchi, in Pontus, furnish such abundance of timber, that they build in the following manner. Two trees are laid level on the earth, right and left, at such distance from each other as will suit the length of the trees which are to cross and connect them. On the extreme ends of these two trees are laid two other trees transversely: the space which the house will inclose is thus marked out. The four sides being thus set out, towers are raised, whose walls consist of trees laid horizontally but kept perpendicularly over each other, the alternate layers yoking the angles. The level interstices which the thickness of the trees alternately leave, is filled in with chips and mud. On a similar principle they form their roofs, except that gradually reducing the length of the trees which traverse from angle to angle, they assume a pyramidal form. They are covered with boughs and smeared over with clay; and thus after a rude fashion of vaulting, their quadrilateral roofs are formed.</blockquote>
And Morris Morgan's 1914 <a href="http://academics.triton.edu/faculty/fheitzman/Vitruvius__the_Ten_Books_on_Architecture.pdf">interpretation</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Among the Colchians in Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build up high towers. The interstices, which are left on account of the thickness of the building material, are stopped up with chips and mud. As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the crossbeams and making them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring them up to the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid. They cover it with leaves and mud, and thus construct the roofs of their towers in a rude form of the 'tortoise' style.</blockquote>
I made no great discoveries, alas. (And interpreting <i>barbarico more</i> as "in the foreign land, by this custom" — rather than "by a barbaric custom" — was probably a mistake.) Still, it's a start.<br />
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(For those interested, I created a sloppy interlinear translation, available <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B84COYPjAsqwMDNwNE9XNF9OM1k/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.)Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-4831245995452706502017-04-27T11:04:00.008-07:002017-04-27T11:05:08.565-07:00The Garden of Eden<i>Just as Petrarch sought to revive </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanitas">Romanitas</a><i>, so I must resurrect this blog. I might as well begin with what'll </i>hopefully <i>become a recurring feature: a piece about the architectural and geographical peculiarities of a particular place.</i><br />
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Every locale — every nation, every region, and every community — has its own <i>je ne sais quoi</i>, formed by the melding of its people, landscape, and buildings. These local characters vary in distinctness. Some scarcely distinguish one community from its neighbors; others impart state-level significance. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Township,_Wyandot_County,_Ohio">Eden Township, Wyandot County, Ohio</a>, exists one such cluster of sublime individuality. In summer 1985, David Scott — perhaps one of the students who completed much of the Ohio Historical Society's pre-1990 survey work — combed Eden Township and discovered a grouping of board-and-batten-sided homes. Though associated with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Jackson_Davis">Davis</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson_Downing">Downing</a>'s Gothic experimentation, board-and-batten siding enjoyed only middling popularity in Ohio, even within regions where Gothic Revival buildings abound. Of course, today's distribution differs, no doubt, from its nineteenth-century equivalent. If <a href="http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16007coll19">Albert Ewing's photos</a> are any indication, board-and-batten siding was common in Appalachia. But it's rare enough elsewhere. (The difficulty of attaching boards and battens to a vertically oriented frame might also explain the method's scarcity.)<br />
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Eden Township, home to 1,026 souls (about 275 of whom reside in the border-spanning village of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada,_Ohio">Nevada</a>), straddles the eastern edge of Ohio's former <a href="http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Wyandot_Indians">Wyandot reservation</a>. Until 1843, when the U.S. government resettled the remaining tribesmen in Kansas, a sizable tract surrounding <a href="http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Upper_Sandusky,_Ohio">Upper Sandusky</a> remained under Wyandot ownership. By the time of their relocation, most of the reservation's inhabitants, it seems, had adopted certain Western customs, and many lived in log houses and managed subsistence farms. (1) After 1843, the region witnessed explosive population growth. In 1880, Eden Township could boast a population of 1,793, composed largely of native Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, and Germans. It's impossible to determine <i>precisely </i>where Eden Township's settlers originated, but the area's surviving buildings suggest a diverse population. (Some Edenites may have been New Englanders, or else natives of the culturally English region encompassing New England, New York, and northern Pennsylvania.)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Eden_Wyandot.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Eden_Wyandot.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wyandot County, with Eden Township highlighted. Map sourced from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Township,_Wyandot_County,_Ohio#/media/File:Eden_Wyandot.PNG">Wikimedia Commons</a>; created by Frank12.</td></tr>
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The homes in question vary in form and age. The earliest, likely erected in the 1850s or 1860s, have the boxiness and rectangularity typical of antebellum American abodes. Other, later buildings make use of standard late-nineteenth-century vernacular forms — "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upright_and_Wing">upright-and-wing</a>," "<a href="https://housesandbooks.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/architecture-of-southern-indiana-the-gable-ell/">gabled ell</a>," and the like.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_VRnvBSHvJwDQnt7NVwH0VufL6Q_smVOLWAdeN0zIc2hoyGPJ-oT0UXSIqIsdV5EaExsJyKoRoLLRX3tXovAyGrPAu9Q-SGwPmI7ne3TdG-MYlrPIvYwjSXF9wsP8XsSLvzG2Hn6bQRRV/s1600/WYA-571-9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_VRnvBSHvJwDQnt7NVwH0VufL6Q_smVOLWAdeN0zIc2hoyGPJ-oT0UXSIqIsdV5EaExsJyKoRoLLRX3tXovAyGrPAu9Q-SGwPmI7ne3TdG-MYlrPIvYwjSXF9wsP8XsSLvzG2Hn6bQRRV/s400/WYA-571-9.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gregg House. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8304939,-83.1483075,18z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Extant</a>. Note the twin entries and window "dripstone" moldings — an undeniable nod to the Gothic Revival. Photo by David Scott, August 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-571-9).</td></tr>
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<i>Why </i>these houses exist, I can only speculate. Perhaps a local carpenter preferred the method and used it to mark his handiwork. Perhaps a building boom occurred at precisely the "right time" — that is, during a national surge in board-and-batten siding's popularity. Perhaps one Eden Township resident employed the technique, and his neighbors, smitten by the odd verticality it lends, followed suit.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcUhoq6AOwVRSK2-Z8n8kXt-mGH3hyVKWcHzI974mKMHNwzN3Q1iZuHR_NKnNPRIMGuB03HXLx_ARfKJNGjNZm6JKEcrZ9hA47jCuaMYCV1T-X3JR8qIw8uNEAfL3tjBvOF1yGYvLTMqWd/s1600/WYA-558-9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcUhoq6AOwVRSK2-Z8n8kXt-mGH3hyVKWcHzI974mKMHNwzN3Q1iZuHR_NKnNPRIMGuB03HXLx_ARfKJNGjNZm6JKEcrZ9hA47jCuaMYCV1T-X3JR8qIw8uNEAfL3tjBvOF1yGYvLTMqWd/s400/WYA-558-9.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Samuel Storm House. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9056833,-83.1891589,18z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Demolished</a>. Perhaps the earliest of Eden Township's board-and-batten-clad houses, this building <i>may </i>have been of log or braced-frame construction. Photo by David Scott, August 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-558-9).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmh-Hkg4WSjXVqZAupANBb9GwpFz9zkkEFuygQeI_oKZF_5R6FhutS4J0kszLFQ4AJ75S8sd5sUWBccWW2-2u6blSKaoEDt_vDfx8M08zNxeUSGekuJoK8Xjc84r1i7tYjBcr9VP0ws8-b/s1600/WYA-538-9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmh-Hkg4WSjXVqZAupANBb9GwpFz9zkkEFuygQeI_oKZF_5R6FhutS4J0kszLFQ4AJ75S8sd5sUWBccWW2-2u6blSKaoEDt_vDfx8M08zNxeUSGekuJoK8Xjc84r1i7tYjBcr9VP0ws8-b/s400/WYA-538-9.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Case House. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8918585,-83.1782584,19z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Extant</a>. Set into the west elevation's frieze board (not visible) are three lacy <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/fret">frets</a> (or grilles) of a <a href="http://library.syr.edu/digital/collections/g/GreekRevivalInSyracuse/64-2.jpg">type</a> common to ostentatious Greek Revival-era buildings. The dwelling's rear is covered with conventional beveled siding. Image by David Scott, August 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-538-9).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZI1FrvIU0GnD777iH1iEIB5VTJ4rot5BoMFrO2HbpZet3iLbOgHx_KrarLDVti6hIat6LhalgtLe9NkM2x4aAA0uVXRCt_Oe2OaYnIKk1NKFolqSa82NsuKqeXA0jHeMElaLcWCRTrVk/s1600/WYA-539-9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZI1FrvIU0GnD777iH1iEIB5VTJ4rot5BoMFrO2HbpZet3iLbOgHx_KrarLDVti6hIat6LhalgtLe9NkM2x4aAA0uVXRCt_Oe2OaYnIKk1NKFolqSa82NsuKqeXA0jHeMElaLcWCRTrVk/s400/WYA-539-9.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conger House. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8768423,-83.1294073,19z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Razed</a>. Photo by David Scott, August 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-539-9).</td></tr>
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The <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8908729,-83.2080818,19z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">finest</a> of the township's board-and-batten-sided houses belonged to John Walton, an Ohio native whose parents hailed from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Walton's residence, a cube-shaped structure of side-passage plan, borrows liberally from Downing's and Davis's designs. The fully functional shutters (a few of which cover door-height windows) are a rare relic, as is the decorative frieze board, which sweeps down, at the corners, to meet narrow corner boards. (These boards evoke <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilaster">pilasters</a>.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZzXY4RYT-h38LnnI0xAXZVbSfXYpk9Yupj5XNCLTx0a9AOzGnfB0J2XSgrGnL_vbW2_XKfEHCPBVpaYYX7Z4oBPmmy94id84y70VUGveFJaE_vJkqG5H8nEwpena_JYPRRthxPSN1wHd/s1600/WYA-589-9+A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZzXY4RYT-h38LnnI0xAXZVbSfXYpk9Yupj5XNCLTx0a9AOzGnfB0J2XSgrGnL_vbW2_XKfEHCPBVpaYYX7Z4oBPmmy94id84y70VUGveFJaE_vJkqG5H8nEwpena_JYPRRthxPSN1wHd/s400/WYA-589-9+A.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Walton House. Image by David Scott, August 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-589-9).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cDqGT_NC5FrGmLOkgcfdVaOJv6G2eScCeCEaPe0_4PdDf1RLg6pSjwNlCDLlLtGbbqr4LokXZ6wMyWX5Fv2nejKeyPcDitSwAaSFopBHV7lMMdKNLI25YFCT13KyY580NgZpkk-2geU1/s1600/WYA-589-9+B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cDqGT_NC5FrGmLOkgcfdVaOJv6G2eScCeCEaPe0_4PdDf1RLg6pSjwNlCDLlLtGbbqr4LokXZ6wMyWX5Fv2nejKeyPcDitSwAaSFopBHV7lMMdKNLI25YFCT13KyY580NgZpkk-2geU1/s400/WYA-589-9+B.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The John Walton House's distinctive frieze.</td></tr>
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In nearby <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Township,_Wyandot_County,_Ohio">Sycamore Township</a>, due south of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore,_Ohio">Sycamore</a> village, stands another Gothic Revival-era house of exceptionally fine design. The siding isn't of the board-and-batten variety, but the house shares other features with buildings in the Eden Township cluster — most notably, intricate grilles similar to those adorning the William Case House (see above). J.A. Van Gundy, the dwelling's first owner, apparently bred <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merino">Merino sheep</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMlsSYqs_zH34Q1gIvV6bZohqk6zqkptT3jn1Sn6ezNP5MCuc_xr6Qh4r9rwuDh1Jb3Zx41CeFMxRDRs3p-y4xV8uuJupstvUaj25ZSrGRLppu_vxYcVbWdMoV5JSQL6XdJf3BXNnQq8hb/s1600/WYA-306-4+A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMlsSYqs_zH34Q1gIvV6bZohqk6zqkptT3jn1Sn6ezNP5MCuc_xr6Qh4r9rwuDh1Jb3Zx41CeFMxRDRs3p-y4xV8uuJupstvUaj25ZSrGRLppu_vxYcVbWdMoV5JSQL6XdJf3BXNnQq8hb/s400/WYA-306-4+A.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J.A. Van Gundy House. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9385092,-83.1695412,19z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Extant</a>. The exterior wainscoting is unusual (though not unheard-of). Photo courtesy of Google Maps.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMsIJglvTU8xNlec3JBgVg5eke-3_Epe9RTsDbvZLbbEoxLky1UYbUUu_ZQfAXHjaGx8mczo-03vLIrVtCAs84-EaDAl8Zh0D85AqJtGlow9vbKdeyS2bxaUqqXvrz6JOvMlLvsXUZ5wo/s1600/WYA-306-4+B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMsIJglvTU8xNlec3JBgVg5eke-3_Epe9RTsDbvZLbbEoxLky1UYbUUu_ZQfAXHjaGx8mczo-03vLIrVtCAs84-EaDAl8Zh0D85AqJtGlow9vbKdeyS2bxaUqqXvrz6JOvMlLvsXUZ5wo/s400/WYA-306-4+B.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grille, Van Gundy House. Image by David Scott, July 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-306-4).</td></tr>
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I know of two other Wyandot County homes garbed with board-and-batten siding, though they stand (or stood) outside the Eden Township grouping (and may be wholly unrelated to it).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBXBJGwx2_Kbu-s4yPq0S86bNsT-QCAmjiPM3KOAW_9UejdtrGoZMnDV3q23Vbdv-PcNxRhR9kCoL3dNcGKCaV16_3uIaeFrv6Spwp1Vj_tBKL2t9f93FAexrdkXMzioerHva9uZLss3D/s1600/WYA-368-5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBXBJGwx2_Kbu-s4yPq0S86bNsT-QCAmjiPM3KOAW_9UejdtrGoZMnDV3q23Vbdv-PcNxRhR9kCoL3dNcGKCaV16_3uIaeFrv6Spwp1Vj_tBKL2t9f93FAexrdkXMzioerHva9uZLss3D/s400/WYA-368-5.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charles Passett House, Richland Township. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8509052,-83.4370687,19z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Demolished</a>. An early, comparatively crude "settlement" home. Note the pent roof and central chimney. Image by David Scott, June 1985, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form (WYA-368-5).</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEUG3j7zSgAQIx7P8iYO6YHRIPkEc6s0C3gDCqsZbH7DXl-mJ6Cfp4rYzsgGyhHWK4nEfKTU7oOiZYqA4owBCJWDz97Q3oKcf08PXShT_zDQ6JaS14vnVx61mRQb16ucuPBM8wWYcluT6/s1600/Adam+Keller.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEUG3j7zSgAQIx7P8iYO6YHRIPkEc6s0C3gDCqsZbH7DXl-mJ6Cfp4rYzsgGyhHWK4nEfKTU7oOiZYqA4owBCJWDz97Q3oKcf08PXShT_zDQ6JaS14vnVx61mRQb16ucuPBM8wWYcluT6/s400/Adam+Keller.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adam Keller House, Crane Township. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8809276,-83.2766592,18z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite&hl=en-US">Extant</a>. The structure is similar, in some ways, to the John Walton House. Photo taken from Google Maps.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Crawford County and Seneca County — which border Wyandot County to the west and north, respectively — are also well-endowed with architecturally romantic buildings, though neither shelters such a dense cluster of boarded-and-battened houses.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) Donald Hutslar's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Migration-Construction-Country-1750-1850/dp/0821407333">The Architecture of Migration</a></i> describes (and quotes) a few of the documents cataloging the Wyandots' possessions. In these, log buildings are often mentioned.</span></div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-29551538904798790072016-12-17T05:48:00.003-08:002017-03-12T12:17:42.098-07:00Log Buildings and the FenniIn my <a href="https://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/11/strabo-lost-in-translation.html">last foray into Greco-Roman geography</a>, I ended with speculation — that, "[h]ad a globetrotting Greek wandered into the forests of Finland, perhaps he . . . would have returned with reports of 'houses made from trees.'" Whether or not any Greeks (traders or otherwise) possessed knowledge of the lands which today comprise Scandinavia is an open question. In the fourth century BC, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas">Pytheas</a> explored portions of northern Europe (including the British Isles and Baltic coast); alas, none of his writing survives, and his precise route will forever remain a mystery. The Romans, though, certainly <i>could </i>claim an awareness, dim though it may have been, of today's Scandinavia.<br />
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About AD 98, slightly more than a century after Strabo wrote his <i>Geographica</i>, historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus">Publius Cornelius Tacitus</a> published <i><a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,1351,002:1">Germania</a></i>, one of the classical world's best-known ethnographic works. <i>Germania's </i>final chapter covers tribes living to the Germans' northeast — the Peucini, Veneti, and Fenni. This last group (whose name bears an obvious similarity to the exonym "Finn"), Tacitus considers uniquely barbaric. His (brief) description may be the earliest account of Uralic (1) construction methods:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Fenni are strangely beast-like and squalidly poor; neither arms nor homes have they; their food is herbs, their clothing skins, their bed the earth. . . . The little children have no shelter from wild beasts and storms <b>but a covering of interlaced boughs</b>. Such are the homes of the young, such the resting place of the old. (2)</blockquote>
At a glance, the text seems to support my contention. But, as usual, the Latin is too vague to reveal much about its subject. The relevant line, "ramorum nexu contegantur," could be translated as "a covering of interlaced boughs," but it might also mean "a roof of connected branches" or "a shelter of fastened twigs." Then again, had Tacitus intended to describe <i>log houses</i>, he surely would've employed <i>truncus</i> or <i>trabes</i>, the two Latin words often applied to trunks and timbers.<br />
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It's likely, then, that the Finns adopted log construction well <i>after </i>the first and second centuries AD. But who (if anyone) introduced the practice to them? When did the shift from branch hovels to log <i>houses</i> occur? Alas, I can't say. No doubt, the westernmost Uralic-speaking populations interacted with southern Scandinavia's Germanic peoples, who preferred to build timber long-houses (a practice which <a href="http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/longhouse.htm">survived</a> into the Viking Age). The pastoral Sami constructed tents and pole (or earthen) huts — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goahti">goahti</a> — into the twentieth century. In some ways, these habitations resemble the "covering of interlaced boughs" described by Tacitus.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Sami_family_1870s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Sami_family_1870s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Sami family outside their goahti. Photo, 1870s, from the <a href="http://www.bassenge.com/bassenge/de/default.asp">Galerie Bassenge</a> collection; taken from Wikipedia.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Whatever its origin, log architecture had, by the early modern period, become entrenched in Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. Log dwellings, storehouses, barns, and (especially) <a href="http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/45/v45i01p011-020.pdf">saunas</a> dotted the Finnish landscape, and peculiarities of construction acquired distinctive names — <i>hammasnurkka</i>, <i>lukko</i>, and whatnot. At Helsinki's <a href="http://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/seurasaari-openairmuseum">Seurasaari Museum</a>, 87 buildings, the majority log, testify to the popularity of timber construction.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Seurasaari_Stable.JPG/1024px-Seurasaari_Stable.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Seurasaari_Stable.JPG/1024px-Seurasaari_Stable.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Niemelä stable, now housed at the Seurasaari Museum. Photo by Jani Patokallio, 2009, from Wikimedia Commons.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In the seventeenth century, Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden">brought their architectural traditions to North America</a>, and thus (in conjunction with the Germans) engendered the practice which defined frontier architecture in the United States.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) I've assumed, of course, that Tacitus's Fenni <i>were</i>, in fact, the ancestors of today's Finns, Estonians, Livonians, Karelians, Ingrians, and Vepsians. But such an identification is a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297154?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">matter of controversy</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) From the Church, Brodribb, and Cerrato translation (1942); transcribed by <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0083%3Achapter%3D1">Perseus</a>.</span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-84052046884557507862016-11-17T10:02:00.011-08:002017-04-01T06:49:04.068-07:00Strabo: Lost in Translation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A <a href="https://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-first-log-buildings.html">few months ago</a>, I sought an answer to the perennial question, "Who built the first log buildings?" I managed to overlook an equally interesting (and no less answerable) inquiry: "What's the earliest <i>mention </i>of log buildings?" Most literature about the subject cites Vitruvius's <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm">De Architectura</a></i>, written during the Augustan age (27 BC – AD 14), as antiquity's first description of log construction. And indeed, as a description — an intricate verbal account — <i>De Architectura</i> dominates. But there exist earlier, shorter texts which <i>also </i>mention log buildings, albeit in veiled verbiage. Foremost among these, and nearly contemporary with <i>De Architectura</i>, is Strabo's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographica">Geographica</a></i>, first published in 7 BC.<br />
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When, in March, I combed <i>Geographica</i> for references to log buildings, I used the H.L. Jones translation accessible via <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html">LacusCurtius</a>. One passage struck me:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now all these peoples who live in the mountains are utterly savage, but the Heptacometae are worse than the rest. Some also live in trees or turrets; and it was on this account that the ancients called them 'Mosynoeci,' the turrets being called 'mosyni.' (1)</blockquote>
Interesting though treehouses may be, I dismissed the extract as merely tangential. After all, living <i>atop </i>a tree is quite different from living <i>in </i>a dwelling cobbled together from the trunks of trees. At the time, I scarcely noticed the word "turrets."<br />
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Last week, I found myself browsing a <i>different </i>translation of <i>Geographica</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All the inhabitants of these mountains are quite savage, but the Heptacometae are more so than all the others. Some of them live among trees, or in <b>small towers</b>, whence the ancients called them Mosynoeci, because the towers were called mosynes. (2)</blockquote>
Compare this version with the pertinent passage from Vitruvius's <i>De Architectura</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Among the Colchians in Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build up <b>high towers</b>. (3)</blockquote>
Eureka! Strabo's Heptacometae dwell in "small towers"; Vitruvius's Colchians inhabit "high towers." High or low, towers <i>are </i>towers, and I've no doubt that Strabo and Vitruvius describe the <i>same </i>ethnic group, and thus the same building tradition. (Indeed, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/">Perseus</a> translates <i>mossunōn </i>as "wooden houses.")<br />
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The Mosynoeci lived along the rugged, forested Black Sea coast, in modern Turkey and Georgia. An 1890 issue of <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VN1BAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA742&ots=CaG8nPXl1x&dq=xenophon%20mosynoeci&pg=PA742#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Athenæum</a></i> identifies "the people to the south of Kerason [now <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giresun">Giresun</a>]" as "the representatives of Xenophon's Mosynœci," who, at the time, "still [lived] in lofty wooden towers as in the days of the Greek historian." These "lofty towers," it seems, have all but disappeared from Giresun Province; modern <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8527169,38.4533298,3a,93.4y,78.03h,89.94t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sBrX0CYKRgNXqy13JhFLhkQ!2e0">masonry buildings</a> (and the odd <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/absolutecitron/294356891/in/photolist-yk3dDN-dNLV2M-nJGBPq-ctizJW-ctjfw3-CMyAP8-5gRz3R-27mNJF-s1E3P-f7zuLC-E7HvWJ-DJEyAM-nZb7Vu-k1LmCC-k68tST-DSUne3-8s9s7j-o2bZBM-53oPyz-7s1zmQ-7rWCLe-7rWCMP-7s1zfA-yZWT65-zZJeHB-zeLJid-53sTgs-53t4j9-53t2jG-JrJBh-k1Zmx2-53oNWB-53oKXM-dNLUQ4-53t3YA-53sRtG-dNLUqp-53sXW1-53oG7v-53oTaK-53sWDb-dNLUCc-53eqy8-sbvbVJ-wyBg8J-MRcKoh-vso9vk-vq5r4j-vrR2QA-vsGVxV">half-timbered home</a>) now dominate the region. Still, I managed to locate <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/flyship/2804846177">this image</a>. (Perhaps, if I spoke Turkish, I could discover more.)<br />
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In Georgia, timber construction is rarer, but distinctively <i>towering</i> dwellings continue to exist in the country's Caucasian foothills, particularly in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svan_language">Svan</a>-speaking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svaneti">Svaneti</a>. Defensive towers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestia#/media/File:Mestia.jpg">dotted</a> the regional capital of Mestia until the late 19th century, and similar structures stand in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushguli">Ushguli</a> and elsewhere. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laz_people">Laz</a>, who live in Georgia and Turkey, <i>may</i>, in fact, <i>be </i>related to the Heptacometae — the two communities' boundaries are almost identical.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Ushguli_Svaneti_Georgia.JPG/1200px-Ushguli_Svaneti_Georgia.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Ushguli_Svaneti_Georgia.JPG/1200px-Ushguli_Svaneti_Georgia.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buildings in Ushguli, Georgia. Image by Florian Pinel, 2010, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushguli#/media/File:Ushguli_Svaneti_Georgia.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Obviously, the tradition described by Strabo, Vitruvius, and Xenophon developed independently of the Scandinavian and Eastern European conventions to which we Americans owe <i>our </i>log buildings. But who knows? Had a globetrotting Greek wandered into the forests of Finland, perhaps he, too, would have returned with reports of "houses made from trees."<br />
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For thoroughness's sake, I thought <i>I'd</i> attempt to "translate" the passage from <i>Geographica</i>. Here's the Greek (transliterated, of course):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Eisi d' hapantes men hoi oreioi toutōn agrioi teleōs, huperbeblēntai de tous allous hoi Heptakōmētai: tines de kai epi dendresin ē purgiois oikousi, dio kai Mosunoikous ekaloun hoi palaioi, tōn purgōn mossunōn legomenōn. (4)</blockquote>
And, a crude and literal translation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
They are but all indeed the Oreioi of these savages perfectly, they throw over but the following another Heptakometai. [?] but and on trees or towers they inhabit, wherefore and Mosunoikous called the old (people), because towers wooden houses were called.</blockquote>
Perseus gives no proper definition for "Oreioi," but the term seems to describe a long-defunct Cretan <a href="https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/589962">city</a> (between modern Anidri and Prodromi). A few resources link the name with "people of the mountains"; perhaps Strabo used the word equivocally or metaphorically, to describe non-Cretan mountain-dwellers. Another phrase — "epi dendresin" — is a more perplexing matter. Assuming Perseus's dictionary is accurate, the preposition "epi" can mean both "on" <i>and </i>"among," and an accurate translation requires knowledge of the context.<br />
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I'll end with a more polished interpretation of the above translation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Indeed, the mountain people are all perfectly savage, but the Heptakometai surpass ["throw over"] the others. They live on trees or towers, wherefore the people of great age called them 'Mosuoikous,' because the towers were called 'mossunōn' [literally "wooden houses"].</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) From H.L. Jones's <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html">translation</a> (1917–1932); transcribed by Bill Thayer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) From W. Falconer's <a href="http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/strabo12b.htm">translation</a> (1903); transcribed by Robert Bedrosian.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3) From Morris Morgan's <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm">translation</a> (1914); hosted by Project Gutenberg.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">4) From A. Meineke's <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0197%3Abook%3D12%3Achapter%3D3%3Asection%3D18">Greek edition</a> (1877); transliterated by Tufts University's ever-useful <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/">Perseus Digital Library</a>.</span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-24646149093536983702016-08-15T06:26:00.002-07:002017-03-12T12:19:21.882-07:00Charles Dickens and the Siegfried Tavern<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A mile or two north of Delaware, Ohio, stands a weatherbeaten frame building, vacant <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/07/24/aging-landmarks-reveal-old-delaware.html">since 1985</a>, and bearing the usual marks of protracted habitation — additions, alterations, and augmented apertures. It faces busy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_23">US Highway 23</a>, which approximates the route of an early road connecting Columbus and Sandusky. The structure's situation betrays its purpose; it served as a tavern (or inn), operated by Jacob Siegfried (1788–1846), a Pennsylvanian, between 1835 and — I presume — 1846.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7241/6909038960_c0f3116a6a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7241/6909038960_c0f3116a6a_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Siegfried's tavern in 2008. (Yes, this photo is terrible; but then, a person trapped in a moving vehicle cannot expect compositional brilliance!)</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8295/27978842863_c2bf8c185b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8295/27978842863_c2bf8c185b_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And, Siegfried's tavern before its abandonment. Photo by George Cryder (?), 1969, from the Delaware County Historical Society collection.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_649996937"></span><span id="goog_649996938"></span><br />
Affixed to the building is a metal plaque, rendered unreadable (during summer months, at least) by unkempt bushes. In my many years of passing the tavern, I could decipher only one word — "tavern" itself. Imagine my surprise, then, when I browsed the Delaware County Historical Society's slide collection and found <i>this</i>:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8392/28594585435_f65b575219_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8392/28594585435_f65b575219_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The plaque. Image by George Cryder (?), 1969, from the Delaware County Historical Society collection.</td></tr>
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At first, I accepted the claim with delight. I'd long known about Dickens's 1842 excursion to America, recounted, with invaluable cynicism (1), in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Notes">American Notes for General Circulation</a></i>. But, after a moment's thought, I felt a twinge of uncertainty. Though I'd read (and reread) the portion of <i>American Notes</i> covering the Ohio leg of Dickens's journey, I could recall <i>no</i> mention of Delaware.<br />
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In the <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm#page153">fourteenth chapter</a>, Dickens describes his sole jaunt through Ohio's interior (2):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to take, I hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge to carry us [from Columbus] to Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky. This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our own for the journey. To ensure our having horses at the proper stations, and being incommoded by no strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit, and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six o’clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs . . . we went forward again, gaily. (3)</blockquote>
As I feared, not so much as a <i>mention</i> of inns, taverns, or Delaware. (I doubt even Dickens, contemptuous of America though he was, would dare to call Siegfried a "cottager.") In the following pages, Dickens describes only one stop between Columbus and Tiffin — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Sandusky,_Ohio">Upper Sandusky</a>, which lies well north of Delaware. If Dickens hired an "extra" for the sake of "being incommoded by no strangers," and dined (while sitting on a fallen tree) from his coach's supply of "savoury cold meats, and fruit, and wine," why would he stop at Siegfried's tavern? Why inconvenience himself with the company of strangers? And why avoid writing about the sojourn?<br />
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Dickens's diary provides few answers (though, unlike <i>American Notes</i>, it <i>does</i> mention that his coach changed horses several times). A folder labeled "Siegfried Tavern" — held by the Delaware County Historical Society — contains property research and biographical information about the Siegfried family, but barely mentions Dickens's supposed stay. The 1842 copies of Delaware newspapers seem to be lost.<br />
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The plaque's claim, then, is neither provable nor falsifiable. The weight of evidence may lie on the side of doubt, but mere <i>weight</i> is scarcely <i>proof</i>. I've no choice but to speculate.<br />
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Perhaps the story is merely hearsay — a local legend repeated by innumerable <a href="http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1998-9/Pipes.htm">Herodotuses</a>, and having no more credibility than the 6.2 x 10^14 similar tales about George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps "Dickens passed this tavern" mutated, as verbal accounts are wont to do, into "Dickens stopped here." Or, perhaps, Dickens gave a hearty wave from his coach; Siegfried noticed and passed the impression to his descendants, in whom it transformed into today's story. Or Dickens <i>indeed</i> paused at Siegfried's tavern, albeit briefly, and simply for a change of horses or a bit of leg-stretching.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) The best nineteenth-century descriptions of America tend to be those given by foreigners.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) Though Dickens <a href="http://charlesdickenspage.com/images/dickens_travels_1842.jpg">twice</a> visited Cincinnati, he ventured into the state proper only <i>once</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3) <i>American Notes for General Circulation</i>, Volume II (1842), 133–134.</span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-62662043686813338682016-06-27T05:37:00.002-07:002017-03-12T12:20:05.068-07:00The John Moomaw HouseI've devoted a few posts to Ross County buildings, and I could pen a thousand more. Among the most charming (though scarcely the grandest) of these structures was a Paint Township farmhouse, reportedly erected by one John Moomaw.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIN2w5yVkA3_VMrUhLDqZywviazH5-hKrh1qSA5_RLAPSk2aebkZctVmljRlKvb9oY1YnAN-B4lfSmCrYdKAgYxSNzJKYRJz0frDDqmBwjH8LY1_7Q2nhvg-7M7xMfQ0dsBauOzxO9dq0N/s1600/John+Moomaw+House+%2528P%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIN2w5yVkA3_VMrUhLDqZywviazH5-hKrh1qSA5_RLAPSk2aebkZctVmljRlKvb9oY1YnAN-B4lfSmCrYdKAgYxSNzJKYRJz0frDDqmBwjH8LY1_7Q2nhvg-7M7xMfQ0dsBauOzxO9dq0N/s400/John+Moomaw+House+%2528P%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Moomaw's residence (with requisite leaning chimney). Photo by Mrs. A.W. Geissinger or Mrs. D.N. McBride (?), from <i><a href="http://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/genealogy/id/904/rec/1">Historic Landmarks in Ohio: Volume II</a></i>, compiled by several chapters of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Daughters_of_1812">United States Daughters of 1812</a> in 1953. Scanned by <a href="http://www.columbusmemory.org/">Columbus Memory</a>.</td></tr>
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Moomaw's abode stood on sloping land in the valley of Upper Twin Creek, due west of the Paint Township-Twin Township border. To the south, beyond Farrell Hill (home to a delightful <a href="http://binged.it/28X1K6u">sandstone cottage</a>), lies the verdant Paint Valley, site of Ross County's earliest settlement. Though Moomaw's farm — which, in 1860, occupied 210 acres — contained plenty of arable land, little remains cultivated; the tract has, by and large, reverted to scrubby grassland and second-growth forest.</div>
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The Moomaw family appeared in America between 1731 and 1732, with the arrival of Jacob and Leonhard Mumma. (Many descendants anglicized their names; <a href="http://www.mumma.org/mumma.html">this</a> page mentions "at least 18 different ways to spell the surname.") Whether the Ross County branch could trace their descent from Jacob or Leonhard, alas, is difficult to determine. A 1937 <i>Scioto Gazette</i> <a href="http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/ross/rossco_moomaw.html">article</a> describes John Moomaw as an "enterprizing [<i>sic</i>] German settler" and member of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Baptist">German Baptist</a> congregation.<br />
<br />
Moomaw, apparently, relocated from Virginia (1) about 1812 and held several offices in Paint Township's fledgling government — in 1813, he worked as an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseer_of_the_poor">overseer of the poor</a>; and, in 1816, he served as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_Viewer">fence-viewer</a>. According to local legend, Moomaw's bank barn — a double-pen log structure — hosted German Baptist ("Dunkard") meetings.<br />
<br />
The precise history of the Moomaw residence is difficult to determine. Geissinger and McBride, in <i><a href="http://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/genealogy/id/904/rec/1">Historic Landmarks of Ohio: Volume II</a></i>, place its construction within the second decade of the nineteenth century:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The date of the house has not been determined, but certain architectural features lead us to believe that it is within the 1812 period.</blockquote>
Rex Hagerling, by contrast, gives the date 1838, presumably gleaned from Ross County tax records. (2) Kevin Coleman <a href="http://www.horizonview.net/~ihs/Houses/Hs_Rd_Gnr2.html">writes</a> that "[the Moomaw home] was built about 1820" and classifies the structure as "[having] genetic similarities with the Grenier form." (The "grenier" house, as Coleman <a href="http://www.horizonview.net/~ihs/Houses/Hs_Rd_Gnr.html">defines it</a>, is marked by "[a] symmetrical gabled roof around the loft [which] projects forward, creating an incised or cut-in porch which appears to be carved out of the body of the house instead of being added on." Apparently, the geographer <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291890766_Perspectives_on_Allen_G_Noble's_contributions_to_cultural_geography_in_South_Asia">Allen Noble</a> identified this building-type in 1984.)<br />
<br />
Indeed, the two-story inset porch — a distinctly Germanic trait — is (or was) the Moomaw home's outstanding feature. This porch; along with the massive sandstone (?) chimney, basement kitchen, exterior staircase, and bizarre window configuration; placed the John Moomaw House among Ross County's finest rural buildings. Its demolition (circa 2000), then, can best be described as "calamitous."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23PUuaRFX2bjDbkBXzhG6Q6reb_1tN6NP2SDNLNjcTONyyU9Q4UTu5dmbp1HNtOMTXyJLdXenYVOygfxoh6yxZP6yxAjaolpNwrdjZHcvaVTYD-OTmupjWroImLO6n_VfTAD7-ozflefB/s1600/Photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23PUuaRFX2bjDbkBXzhG6Q6reb_1tN6NP2SDNLNjcTONyyU9Q4UTu5dmbp1HNtOMTXyJLdXenYVOygfxoh6yxZP6yxAjaolpNwrdjZHcvaVTYD-OTmupjWroImLO6n_VfTAD7-ozflefB/s400/Photo+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Moomaw residence after its abandonment. Image by Rex Hagerling, May 1978, from an Ohio Historic Inventory form.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Ross County Historical Society's collection contains <a href="http://rosscounty.pastperfect-online.com/33912cgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=moomaw%20;dtype=i">other photos</a> of the Moomaw home.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) County histories also mention a Henry Moomaw (1791–1871), born in Virginia, who, like John, moved to Paint Township during the War of 1812. Henry's farm existed a few miles west of John's, near the Upper Twin Road-Fordyce Road <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2917063,-83.2825549,1298m/data=!3m1!1e3">intersection</a>. No doubt, Henry and John were related.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) In 1978, Hagerling finished an Ohio Historic Inventory form (ROS-262-11) describing Moomaw's house. In the "Sources of Information" section, he cites "Auditor's Tax Duplicates: 1836, 1837, 1838," and "Ross County Deed Records."</span></div>
</div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-44965385428845108552016-05-24T05:12:00.001-07:002017-03-12T12:21:18.408-07:00Ohio's RoadsOhio's earliest rural inhabitants, with a few exceptions, practiced <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture">subsistence agriculture</a>, and thus needed no refined road network. Scattered trails, passable by foot, horse, or ox-cart, sufficed. These rudimentary roads — exemplified, perhaps, by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zane%27s_Trace">Zane's Trace</a> — often supplanted Native American byways or deer trails and followed irregular paths. Others; blazed by the U.S. military, established by state decree, or formed by private companies as toll roads; proceeded linearly. In the Congress Lands, thoroughfares often (though not invariably) follow section lines. In the Virginia Military District, the routes seem, in some cases, truly arbitrary. (See, for instance, Greene County's serpentine <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7215732,-83.7805621,4298m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">State Route 72</a>.)<br />
<br />
By mid-century, Ohio's counties — or, at least, its <i>well-populated</i> counties — had largely acquired the ample road systems which survive today. (The frequency with which Greek Revival-era dwellings — even those fronting minor thoroughfares — align with roads is evidence of this.)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7305/26903554691_bb40d39bec_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7305/26903554691_bb40d39bec_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inter-County Highway 124 (now State Route 28), a superlative dirt road. Photo from the <a href="http://www.odotonline.org/photoarchive/">ODOT archives</a>. The background home <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3535279,-83.3265511,3a,36.2y,322.04h,89.05t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sutb65upZRIgWHGDuXAQG0w!2e0!7i3328!8i1664?hl=en">is extant</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Until the twentieth century, the Ohio traveler could expect little in the way of comfort. Indeed, a few wealthier counties had, in the preceding century, gravelled or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam">macadamized</a> their roads, but the balance of the state's routes were, by all accounts, veritable styes. In <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm">American Notes</a></i>, Charles Dickens (yes, <i>that</i> Charles Dickens) quips about an 1842 stagecoach ride from Columbus to Sandusky:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below Stormy. At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads against the roof. Now, one side was down deep in the mire, and we were holding on to the other. Now, the coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the top of an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it . . . (1)</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7380/26974208775_08523dfc31_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7380/26974208775_08523dfc31_b.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Earth-surfaced (i.e., dirt) roads in Ohio, 1915. Data sourced from <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xe89AQAAMAAJ&dq=inter-county%20ohio&pg=PP3#v=onepage&q&f=false">Names and Numbers of Inter-County Highways and Main Market Routes, and Highway Statistics of Each County</a></i>, published by the Ohio Highway Department. The darker the county's coloring, the greater its percentage of dirt roads. (Belmont County is clearly an anomaly.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Navigational Nomenclature</div>
<br />
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the state's county- and township-maintained routes lacked formal names. Open any Victorian-era <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xe89AQAAMAAJ&dq=inter-county%20ohio&pg=PP3#v=onepage&q&f=false">property atlas</a>, or glance at any prewar <a href="http://www.railsandtrails.com/Maps/">county highway map</a>: the local roads are bound to be anonymous. Only after World War II, I suspect, did township and county governments bother to <i>name </i>their vast road networks. (More than likely, this mass-christening coincided with the widespread paving of minor thoroughfares, which had hitherto been largely earth-surfaced.)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbXBVC5zP1yOF-e-u1ZafsiYblB-OwsdFhN1E98uj0LGBIlMTvCFugyfG848aSc9rxfUa20EOqE2u67reSjaVhHYQGfK7owNYZhQFo6Dfw6KhZ1QXbtXCXDLTtrMccxb3pVH80OoV1IyEj/s1600/Ohio+Road+Names.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbXBVC5zP1yOF-e-u1ZafsiYblB-OwsdFhN1E98uj0LGBIlMTvCFugyfG848aSc9rxfUa20EOqE2u67reSjaVhHYQGfK7owNYZhQFo6Dfw6KhZ1QXbtXCXDLTtrMccxb3pVH80OoV1IyEj/s400/Ohio+Road+Names.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A (rather crude) typology of Ohio road name etymologies. The colors designate each county's <i>predominant</i> method of thoroughfare-labeling. A few eastern Ohio counties assign names to only major roads; hence, in Perry County, Wilson Road (County Road 35) intersects Township Road 46, and so on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Many of Ohio's rural roads bear "connective" names designating the communities which lie at their termini, or else describe the property owners whose tracts sat at their ends. Rosedale-Plain City Road, in northern Madison County, joins unincorporated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedale,_Ohio">Rosedale</a> and more metropolitan <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_City,_Ohio">Plain City</a>, naturally. To the south, <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7802283,-83.5546357,269m/data=!3m1!1e3">Pancake-Selsor Road</a> honors members of the <a href="http://www.onlinebiographies.info/oh/madi/pancake-c.htm">Pancake</a> and <a href="http://madisonoh.ancestralsites.com/album/david-selsor.php">Selsor</a> families, prominent in southern Madison County. Rarely do given names appear in road labels. Adams County contains a few exceptions: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8208504,-83.4241891,1976m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">Starley Gustin Road</a> (which traverses fertile bottomland bordering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Brush_Creek">Ohio Brush Creek</a>), <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@38.986385,-83.4618648,1076m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">Ira Gustin Road</a> (in Bratton Township), and <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8748773,-83.540498,560m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">George C. Biely Road</a>, among others. Many more road names are sourced from natural features, as the repetition of "Hollow," "Valley," and "Run" — in Ohio's Appalachian counties — attests.<br />
<br />
All Ohio counties assign numbers to their thoroughfares, but a few (clustered mostly in the state's northwestern quadrant) lack true, or nominal, titles. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_County,_Ohio">Williams County</a>, bordering Indiana and Michigan, uses a hybrid numeric-alphabetic system, with its north-to-south-running routes receiving a number (<i>1</i> through <i>24</i>), and its east-to-west-traveling roads receiving a letter (<i>A</i> through <i>S</i>). The many routes that deviate by splitting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(United_States_land_surveying)">sections</a> combine letters and numbers. Thus, near Montpelier is County Road K-50 (a longitudinal byway situated equidistant from County Road K and County Road L). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_County,_Ohio">Logan County</a>'s numbering, on the other hand, appears to be inexplicable.<br />
<br />
Carroll County's traffic engineers seemingly selected its roads' names by flinging darts at a board or, perhaps, choosing dictionary entries at random. Bacon Road <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6207854,-81.1464933,289m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">begins</a> at Arrow Road; intersects Glacier, Glory, Jasmine, Buck, Gallo, Fisherman, and Trump; and terminates at a state highway. Elsewhere, Aurora <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6660665,-80.937718,472m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">meets</a> Apollo, and Nassau <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6735439,-80.9177975,798m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en">encounters</a> Nature. Confusingly, Lemon Road lies a few miles distant from Lumen Road. Andora Road commemorates — in misspelled form — the tiny Pyrenean nation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra">Andorra</a> (or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andora">Andora, Italy</a>), while Ming Road may memorialize the long-lived Chinese <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty">dynasty</a>.<br />
<br />
Other oddities surely exist, scattered across Ohio's 44,825 square miles.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) <i>American Notes for General Circulation</i>, Volume II (1842), 162.</span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-49805821495643386902016-05-17T12:22:00.000-07:002017-03-12T12:22:01.736-07:00Warren County: A Pulchritudinous Place (Part I)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Map_of_Warren_County_Ohio_With_Municipal_and_Township_Labels.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Map_of_Warren_County_Ohio_With_Municipal_and_Township_Labels.PNG" width="395" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Warren County's political subdivisions. Map plucked from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_County,_Ohio#/media/File:Map_of_Warren_County_Ohio_With_Municipal_and_Township_Labels.PNG">Wikipedia</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If <a href="http://ohiohistoricarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/01/ross-county-peculiar-place-part-i.html">Ross County is a candy store</a>, Warren County may be the ice cream parlor which occupies the adjoining storefront. Like Ross, Warren comprises some of Ohio's earliest-settled lands, straddles a major north-to-south-running river (in its case, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Miami_River">Little Miami</a>), and occupies a surveying boundary zone. The Little Miami River splits the county, roughly, into two regions: the Virginia Military District (east) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmes_Purchase">Symmes — or Miami — Purchase</a> (west). A few sections of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Lands">Congress Lands</a> exist in Franklin Township, at the county's northwestern corner, where the Great Miami River skirts the city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin,_Ohio">Franklin</a>. Warren County's terrain is, as Howe noted, "gently undulating" (1), though broken by the valleys of Clear Creek, Caesar's Creek, Todd's Fork, and — of course — the Little Miami River.<br />
<br />
Warren County's first permanent residents arrived in the 1790s. In November 1795, one William Bedle, a New Jerseyan, purchased Section 28 of modern Turtle Creek Township, where he erected a fortified log house, thereafter known as "Bedle's Station." (This home stood due south of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Village_Shaker_settlement">Union Village</a>.) Concurrently, a party of Marylanders — led by William Mounts (1762 – ca. 1808) — selected a <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3610872,-84.1827438,1118m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4">spot</a> on the Little Miami River's south bank, and built "Mounts' Station," a collection of log dwellings arranged in such a fashion as to dissuade attack. In 1796, less than a year later, surveyors platted Deerfield (now <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Lebanon,_Ohio">South Lebanon</a>), Franklin, and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1865954932"></span>Waynesville<span id="goog_1865954933"></span></a>. By 1803, when it was cleaved from Hamilton, Warren accommodated 854 adult males (2); and, by 1810, nearly 10,000 souls called the county home. The Irish writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ashe_(writer)">Thomas Ashe</a> visited (or <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1892561?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents"><i>claimed</i> to have visited</a>) Warren County in August 1806 and described Lebanon (and its environs) thusly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The remaining fifteen miles to Lebanon [from the Hamilton County border] were nearly the best I ever viewed, and settled considerably for so new a country. The farms were numerous, well improved, and the houses and barns on them built with great care and industry. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lebanon contains about two hundred inhabitants, dwelling in about forty neat log and frame houses. A place of worship and school-house are also erected, and the town in every respect bids fair to prosper and encrease with unprecedented success. Seated in the midst of the finest tract of land in the world, and that tract already thickly settled by a hardy and industrious people, it cannot fail to succeed[.] . . . The inhabitants, though few, are composed of several nations, who unite in forming a character of a laborious and religious cast. Their industry is manifest in the extensive improvements and comfortable abodes; all effected within the space of five years[.] (3)</blockquote>
Hyperbole notwithstanding, Ashe's anecdote is accurate enough. In the nineteenth century's opening decades, Warren County far outpaced its northern and eastern neighbors in prosperity. Yes, portions of Harlan and Washington townships — those marked by level, ill-drained, silty <a href="http://www.epa.state.oh.us/portals/27/SIP/Nonattain/F2-physiographic_regions_of_Ohio.pdf">Illinoian till</a> — remained little-populated until mid-century, but the county, <i>in toto</i>, enjoyed a prosperous existence.<br />
<br />
I'll end my bloviating here, and save a discussion of Warren County's architecture (and regional history) for the next post.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) Henry Howe, <i>Historical Collections of Ohio</i>, Volume I (1889), 740.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) This estimate, provided by Beers' 1882 <i>History of Warren County, Ohio</i>, is no doubt inaccurate, and includes residents of Clinton County's western half, which, until 1810, remained within Warren County.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3) <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/travelsinameric01ashegoog">Travels in America Performed in 1806</a></i>, Volume II (1808), 209–211.</span>Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-58417153860999689742016-05-07T16:10:00.001-07:002018-12-28T15:09:55.086-08:00Whimsy and ArchitectureFirst, I should define "whimsy":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>whimsy</i> : a playful or amusing quality : a sense of humor or playfulness (1)</blockquote>
Now, I'll let <a href="http://www.samueljohnson.com/briefbio.html">Samuel Johnson</a> and <i>Webster's Collegiate Dictionary</i> define "whimsy":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whi'msey. n.s. [Only another form of the word <i>whim</i>.] A freak; a caprice; an odd fancy; a whim. (2) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>whim'sey</b>, <b>whim<span style="background-color: white;">'sy</span></b><span style="background-color: white;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">(hw<span style="text-align: center;">īm'z</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">ī), <i>n</i>.; <i>pl</i>. . . . A whim; freak; caprice. (3)</span></blockquote>
<div>
Two (or one-and-a-half) definitions separated by 161 years, yet scarcely a change between them. Only during the twentieth century, it seems, did "whimsy" gain its now-standard meaning as a <i>species</i> of humor. For Johnson and the <i>Webster's</i> editors (who seem simply to have borrowed Johnson's definition), absurdity alone constituted whimsy. Indeed, a tragedy could be whimsical, so long as that tragedy involved the inexplicable. Thus, the nineteenth-century man might <i>stumble into</i> whimsy in a way we now cannot (whimsy having since become a form of comedy). Comedy — the art of the absurd — presupposes intention; the accidentally absurd is merely absurd. We may laugh at it, but we needn't dub it <i>comedy</i>.<br />
<br />
I'm justified, then, in calling particular structures "whimsical," because I employ the term in its original sense. Plenty of bizarre, fanciful, and arbitrarily designed buildings dot the American countryside. The carpenters who erected these oddities didn't <i>intend </i>to produce humorous works, of course. But they deviated from convention, and they thereby cursed their creations to notoriety.<br />
<br />
In Hillsdale, Michigan, stands a frame house adorned with ample Classical Revival ornamentation: cornice brackets, dentils, an attic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunette">lunette</a>, two tripartite windows (one <a href="http://architecture.about.com/od/buildingparts/g/palladian.htm">Palladian</a> in form), and a grand trabeated entrance. That the dwelling draws inspiration from classical modes is not odd; other Hillsdale homes (such as <a href="http://www.hillsdalecounty.info/history0128.asp">Frederick Stock's</a>) do, too. Rather, its peculiarity lies in its proportions. The humble "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upright_and_Wing">upright-and-wing</a>" form underlying the ornamentation is hardly <i>fitting</i> for neoclassical grandeur. In no way is the result <i>unattractive</i>, but it does tempt passersby to chuckle.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7442/26209555883_403529e936_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7442/26209555883_403529e936_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Classical Revival cottage, circa 1900; Hillsdale, Michigan.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The spoked brackets embellishing the Abram Fisk House — which stands near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldwater,_Michigan">Coldwater, Michigan</a>, about half an hour west of Hillsdale — resemble either flower petals, wagon wheels, or fan blades. (Architectural <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test">Rorschach tests</a> are always a delight.)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8823/17041234272_84515ea51e_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8823/17041234272_84515ea51e_b.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abram Fisk House (NRHP-listed), circa 1863; Coldwater Township, Branch County, Michigan.</td></tr>
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An Italianate <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60869609@N04/13651747143">house</a> — nay, mansion — in South Charleston, Ohio, features lintels incised with snowflakes. (How apropos, then, that I happened to photograph it during the <i>winter</i>.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7401/13652076154_2e933dd8d8_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7401/13652076154_2e933dd8d8_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Rankin House, 1885; South Charleston, Ohio.</td></tr>
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One <a href="http://www.henrycountyhistory.org/bartlowtwp.html">Bartlow Township</a>, Henry County barn — known locally as the "Chinese barn" for its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda">pagoda</a>-like appearance — fit my definition of "whimsical." Commissioned by George Hyslop in 1910, the building, alas, collapsed in 1984. The September 1, 1916 issue of <i>Hoard's Dairyman</i> published an <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SsxFAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA165&ots=iv8xBL1fxy&dq=hyslop%20barn%20ohio&pg=PA165#v=onepage&q&f=false">article</a> (penned by Hyslop himself) about the barn, touting it as "stall-less." Hyslop's tower-adorned home also rose to the level of whimsy, but, like his barn, disappeared in the 1980s.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1501/24046827725_212125185f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1501/24046827725_212125185f_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Hyslop residence and barn; Bartlow Township, Henry County, Ohio. Sketch by Mrs. Harry Heinzerling, 1979, from the Donald Hutslar collection; used courtesy of Jean Hutslar.</td></tr>
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The apogee of American architectural whimsy may be Orson Squire Fowler's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octagon_house">octagonal house</a>. Fowler (1809–1887), a <a href="http://med.stanford.edu/medwebtraining/shc-class/student5/treatments/phrenology-lab.html">phrenologist</a> and reformer by trade, recommended that his countrymen "apply [nature's] forms to houses" (4) and erect octagon-shaped abodes "more consonant with the predominant or governing form of Nature — the spherical" (5). Of Ohio's 55 <a href="http://www.octagon.bobanna.com/OH.html">known</a> (historic) octagonal buildings, the Gregg-Crites House, in Pickaway County, is among the finest.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/490/19431736185_fb3ab459ac_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/490/19431736185_fb3ab459ac_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gregg-Crites House, 1855 or 1856; Circleville Township, Pickaway County, Ohio.</td></tr>
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Such buildings may amuse us. Evidently, the architectural historians of another era reacted similarly. In <i>Early Homes of Ohio</i>, Frary writes:<br />
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Along with the fine craftsmanship that exists in so much of Ohio's early architecture are to be found many examples of design in which the attempts of untrained mechanics to interpret half-understood drawings verge closely on the ludicrous or the pathetic. On the other hand these interpretations often command our admiration, revealing as they do rare ingenuity in solving problems of construction, and active imagination in working out details of design with which the builders were unfamiliar.</blockquote>
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. . . </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The clumsy attempts at classic pillars, columns, moldings, and cornices often produced curious effects that would scarcely pass muster in a school of architecture or a Beaux-Arts competition. They were crude, the details often painfully misunderstood, yet in them we recognize a sincerity that wins our admiration. Those pioneer builders were creating a vernacular in architecture possessing vitality and spontaneity that is often missing in highly sophisticated creations. We may smile at the clumsy results, but we must admire the simple but direct thinking which they represent. (6)</blockquote>
We, too, smile at those buildings "clumsy" by Greco-Roman standards, but we've lost the ability to recognize them as such. But this is a subject for another post.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1) <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whimsy">Merriam-Webster</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2) Samuel Johnson, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cNrI9Y4bY_QC&dq=samuel+johnson+dictionary&source=gbs_navlinks_s">A Dictionary of the English Language</a></i> (1755), 2,269.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">3) <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=e4dDAQAAMAAJ&dq=webster+1916+dictionary&source=gbs_navlinks_s">Webster's Collegiate Dictionary</a></i> (1916), 1,090.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">4) O.S. Fowler, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jF9JAQAAIAAJ&dq=The+Octagon+House:+A+Home+for+All&source=gbs_navlinks_s">A Home for All; or, the Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building</a></i> (1854), 82.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5) <i>Ibid.</i>, 88.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">6) I.T. Frary, <i>Early Homes of Ohio</i> (1936), 215.</span></div>
Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1261962921559670495.post-37546305232002729422016-04-26T05:47:00.002-07:002016-04-28T06:53:03.446-07:00Russell Kirk and the Octagonal House<i>Once again, I stray from my blog's title, and blather about that peninsular state immediately north of mine. Ohio is not the country's only — nor, arguably, its most — architecture-rich state. Much as early Christianity <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism">syncretized</a> classical culture, I'll pluck post-worthy material from even heterodox sources. This is not a political blog; I don't intend, by quoting Kirk, to promote his philosophy (nor do I, by writing this disclaimer, seek to slight it).</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Program-Conservatives-Russell-Kirk/dp/B0014O4EEE" style="font-style: italic;">A Program for Conservatives</a> (1954), political philosopher <a href="http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/about-kirk/">Russell Kirk</a> eulogizes an octagon-shaped farmhouse:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was a very small boy, I used to lie under an oak on the hillside above the mill-pond, in the town where I was born, and look beyond the great willows in the hollow to a curious and handsome house that stood on the opposite slope, away back from the road, with three or four graceful pines pointing the way to it. This was an octagonal house, its roof crowned with a glass dome — a dignified building, for all its oddity. Well, the county planners have chopped down the willows and converted the land round about the old mill-pond into what the professional traffic-engineers and town-planners think a 'recreational area' should look like: a dull sheet of water with some dwarf evergreens to set it off. And the octagon-house was bought by a man with more money than he knew how to spend, who knocked the house down . . . and built upon its site a silly 'ranch-type' dwelling vaguely imitated from Californian styles. As Thoreau used to buy all the farms round Walden Pond in his fancy, so I had made myself, often enough, proprietor of the octagon-house in my mind's eye. But I do not care to look upon the spot now. The old genius is departed out of the town and the country about it. We do our best to assimilate every community that retains something of its peculiar character to the proletarian cosmopolis of modern mass-society.</span></span></blockquote>
Kirk, forever a Michigander, spent his childhood in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth,_Michigan">Plymouth</a>, taught at Michigan State University, and retired to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecosta,_Michigan">Mecosta</a>, an isolated village in the north-central portion of the state. The octagonal house in question, apparently, stood on Wilcox Road in Plymouth Township, Wayne County — due west of Detroit proper. The ever-useful <a href="http://www.octagon.bobanna.com/main_page.html">Octagon House Inventory</a> provides a <a href="http://www.octagon.bobanna.com/images/plymouth_mi_schoolcraft_1_protected.jpg">photograph</a> of the dwelling (for copyright's sake, I'll avoid posting the image here), and mentions a demolition date of "about 1955." Given Kirk's comments, this date seems reliable enough (though a tad late).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMq11aajhZ80mUEqXujBmIGzU_i9wRm_SWzr6p3kEQb_tusHXKnaO1PHLAgPQB4TxWzBb99k97EgHmsr5ulNbtcmIBaH1XEPr4O2Uk3UcPMZz0fmxkzimIFBAMaOGFsuRVsnj914OYuIda/s1600/Michigan+Octagon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMq11aajhZ80mUEqXujBmIGzU_i9wRm_SWzr6p3kEQb_tusHXKnaO1PHLAgPQB4TxWzBb99k97EgHmsr5ulNbtcmIBaH1XEPr4O2Uk3UcPMZz0fmxkzimIFBAMaOGFsuRVsnj914OYuIda/s320/Michigan+Octagon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The building in 1951. Photo from the USGS collection, downloaded from <a href="http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/">EarthExplorer</a>.</td></tr>
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Just as Kirk describes, the home was topped by a glass dome — a feature uncommon even to octagon-shaped dwellings — and four conifers indeed lined its driveway. The 1876 <i><a href="http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/9801/Wayne+County+1876+with+Detroit/">Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Wayne, Michigan</a></i> lists J.H. Phillips as holder of the 53-acre tract; by 1883, ownership had passed to one H. Heide. Phillips, like most of southern Michigan's early residents, hailed from New York. The octagonal house's replacement — the "ranch" dwelling Kirk decries — survived for a mere four decades before succumbing, like its predecessor, to the bulldozer. Today, a condominium complex occupies the <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3848174,-83.4542901,3a,66.8y,157.9h,91.06t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sSN1jGS_FntnK1yYRWwNU6A!2e0?hl=en">site</a>.<br />
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Phillips's eight-sided abode weathered nearly a century; its successor existed for less than half. Will the condominiums persist for only twenty years? I don't know. Only time can tell.Chris Rileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372207245172028608noreply@blogger.com1