Saving history, an update

I blogged a week or so ago that I was engaged in trying to save a very historic house here in my hometown. This entire effort has been one big roller coaster ride, good news one day, awful news the next. The biggest problem we have been experiencing is mere anecdotal evidence of its original occupants from someone who lived back around the time it was built and remembered them living there. What would seal the whole thing would be if we could find legal documents like deeds and such that would prove once and for all who built and owned this house. I do have friends researching that information for me but whether or not we can come up with it is yet another story altogether. For now, we must rely on the word of a local historian who lived in the early part of the 20th century and was alive at the time this house was constructed and remembered the family who lived there, the daughter and son-in-law of the man whose family would eventually give this town its name. This house's ties to the the founding family of our town makes it, in my opinion, a significant piece of local history that I strongly believe ought to be saved. Compared to grander houses of a later period, this one is rather simple and unremarkable to the untrained eye and that is exactly the opinion of those who will decide this house's fate, that it's not particularly worth saving because it's nothing special. However, these people do not know their architectural history and why this house must be saved. To begin with, it is the only two story mid-19th century Greek Revival house still standing in our town. That in itself warrants saving it, but its ties to some significant personages in our local history makes it extra special. Not only did members of the founding family of our town once live here, but so did a Civil War surgeon, Dr. Aaron M. Sherman, who also helped to found the local Masonic lodge, the Universalist Church that is still in operation today as the Unitarian Universalist Church and the local Medical Society. He also served in the Ohio General Assembly, so he was a state legislator as well, pretty significant if you ask me. Sherman was said to have been at Ford's Theatre the night that Lincoln was shot, and his being a surgeon, this has me wondering if he at all offered any medical help to the President. If he did, that would give this house additional historical value.

I find the doorway of this house to be of interest, too. It is a robust Greek Revival doorway, with Doric columns, a sturdy lintel, sidelights and a window above the door, all features that are reminiscent of the work of 19th century New England country builder Asher Benjamin, whose work was also very influential throughout the Western Reserve of Ohio, where our town was located. The Western Reserve comprises most of Northeast Ohio and was land bought by the State of Connecticut to be resettled by people from that state. Benjamin came from Connecticut so the architectural styles he pioneered worked their way westward into this part of the state. His work is more prominent in the earlier Federal Style homes but later Greek Revivals bear marks of his influence and this house is no exception. Although the door itself is modern, I am still struck by the handsome framing of this doorway and how it hearkens to a past where symmetry and form were important to home builders. The interior of the home has been modernized considerably over the decades by various tenants and its later incarnation has seen it used as a student rental home, which is highly unfortunate. When the most recent tenants were informed that this house was slated for demolition, they punched enormous holes in the walls and pretty well trashed the interior, sadly. But there is still a fair amount of original woodwork in it and that in itself is remarkable. In the basement can be seen an enormous hand hewn beam with the adze marks still visible. I once attended a lecture given by a timber framer and he took us out to a 19th century barn on a frigid January night and showed us the hewn beams in it and told us that when we touched them, we were touching the hands that hewed the bark off of the trees to create the beams themselves. I love that idea that a beam can be a veritable time machine backward where you can touch a hand that worked a piece of wood that long ago. This is yet another reason that I want to save this house, the fact that it is timber framed, post and beam, the way they did it without the benefit of power tools so long ago. I would love to show future generations how houses were built when our town was young and they had to cut down the trees on the land where they wanted to build a home. So we shall see if this whole effort is successful. A bunch of us are meeting tomorrow morning to discuss strategies for saving it. We shall see what we can brainstorm and come up with. In the meantime, we have at the very least succeeded in staving off the wrecking ball until more research can be done on this historic house's provenance. I personally think that this will be found to be a very significant part of early town history that must be preserved, but maybe I am just being an optimist or something.....I do hope we are successful. Time will tell.