East Dayton before the 1880s: 19th Century Exurbia

East Dayton east of Tals Corner was mostly subdivided after 1875. Before that it was an early version of exurbia; large lot estates, land held in speculation, and farming for the city market.

The first map that has some detail on what was actually built on the land in East Dayton was the 1869 Titus map. Structures (mostly houses) and roads based on this map show a light scatter along the roads leading out of town (the six farmhouses featured in the previous threads are are shown in heavier outline).

The basics of the modern road system are already there, with 1st, 3rd, 5th, Smithville, Findlay, Irwin, Burkhart, Huffman, and Linden all in existence in one form or another.



The city limit was still at Tals Corner, but the Huffman and Craighead 1856 plat (in light orang) had already extended the street system and town lots past Linden.

The 1875 Combination Atlas map shows the early 1870s annexation eastward to roughly Findlay Street. The atlas also permits the mapping out of orchards, so one can see a concentration of orchards on Huffman Hill and the old Gillespie quarter-section north of Burkhart




Huffman Hill appears as a little cluster of farmhouses or suburban villas with intensive agriculture. The suprise here is a small cluster or settlement on Springfield Street, which is obscured today by subsequent plats and industrial development.

Drawing the property lines, the impression is that this area was more densely settled than it was, indicating perhaps early land speculation and absentee ownership, or that individuals owned multiple parcels.



In any case the land fragmentation along Huffman Avenue is quite apparent, as is the concentration of settlement. This was apparently a favored area, based on the relative density of houses on the land.

The pattern of property division would be the palimpsest for the post-1875 land development boom on the east side.

This is Dayton on Facebook

Along similar lines of Good News in Dayton is this Facebook site. A project of one of the five Creative Region initiatives, this is a way of using social networking media to improve community perceptionss.


From the Description:

In order to improve perceptions of the quality of life in the Dayton Region, this group is designed to celebrate those assets that make Dayton a great place to live.

I'm not into social network sites (I pretty much just use Myspace Music to check up on local bands and their freinds) but if anyone is interested, here is the link.

The "What Makes Dayton Great" discussion has the most posts. Interestingly enough Fred Bartenstein, who used to host the Banks of the Ohio bluegrass show at on WYSO is a member.

Lewis Kemp House, again

Apparently someone recognized the signifigance of this house as it's listed on the National Register, added in 1975.

The listing dates it to 1806.

So this is a very early house, perhaps coming after a cabin?

At this early date this is probably the second-oldest house within Dayton city limits (the oldest is a farmhouse in Westwood, near Wolf Creek, dating from 1802). The stone was probably quarried on-site. I've reposted a somewhat enlarged pix so one can see the stone coursing.

Unfortunatly the National Register nomination isn't online or availble, so no further detail. If a reader knows anything about this house please post in the comments.

Good News in Dayton

I really like their logo:



Good News In Dayton is a website, but also a drive-time radio presence on WHIO 1290 AM/95.7 PM 6-9 AM and 3-6 PM.

This site was recently mentioned at For the Love of Dayton and Its' Great in Dayton, the two more positive Dayton blogs, so perhaps a shout-out here at Daytonolgy is, by this time, a bit redundant.

However one must say that the it's good to see that it's not just me tired of the relentless "Dayton Sux" drumbeat. And the negative is easy to get sucked into, as can be seen by these Indigo Girls song lyrics from 20 years ago:

Well darkness has a hunger thats insatiable/
And lightness has a call thats hard to hear

To some degree an unstated intention of this blog is to tap into "lightness " by approaching Dayton via an appreciation of the urban history and geography of the city and suburbs beyond what is commonly known, to make the city and suburbs more interesting than they may at first appear, unfolding a certain rich layering over space and time, recovering urban memory, re-valuing the de-valued.

To even consider Dayton and vicinity as a subject worthy of such inquiry is in itself to go against the grain of negativty, the "hunger thats insatiable".

East Dayton Farmhouses: East of Smithville Road

Range 7, Township 2, Section 22, of the Between the Miamis Survey. Surveyed and settled two hundred years ago, the first settler familys' house still stands.

The Maryland Settlement

This part of Dayton Township (later Mad River Township, formed in 1847) saw an immigration from Maryland. These were not anglo-Catholics from the Chesapeake shores, but rather people of German ancestry who had migrated south from Pennsylvania to the area around Frederick.

The first Marylanders from Frederick were the Lehman, or Lemon, family who settled a quarter section on both sides of todays Linden Avenue, west of Smithville. The Lehman farm became a staging area for an influx of Marylanders from Frederick County, who lived on the property while building their cabins (according to old accounts this was a communal affair, like a barn raising).

The Marylanders apparently settled mostly in along the Xenia Road/Linden Avenue area and off of todays Smithville Road.



Another early settler from Frederick was Louis Kemp, who bought nearly all of Section 22. He was joined by the Suman family, aslo from Frederick, who apparently purchased portions of his land.

The 1851 map shows the Kemps and Sumans on Section 22, and Harshmans heirs still owning a part of the northwest quarter section, considerably expanded from Jonathan Harshmans 40 acres. The two house sites of interest are circled in red. Note the David Kemp house set near dead center of Section 22. This was perhaps the original Louis Kemp homestead site.


The 1869 Titus map shows how land ownership became fragmented as the pioneer families/landowners either divided the property among heirs, located to farms different from the orignal homestead (like the Gillespie family acquiring property east of Smithville), or sold out altogether and moved on.


The 1875 Combination Atlas map shows continued changes, even within the span of six years


The 1875 map provides some nice detail, showing perhaps orchards next to the old farmhouses, and their proximity to springs feeding into McConnells Creek. Note also the consistent jog in the ancesteral Burhart Avenue/Kemp Road around the Kemp farmhouse. The site is on a rise in land up from the valley of McConnels creek, so the road jogs to make climbing the grade less onerous.



Also, by 1875 "W. Suman" have sold out one of their original tracts to "D. Colser". The Colsers would retain this tract probably into modern times.

Finally, the 1895 map, showing the city limits reaching Smithville Road. The pioneer Kemp, Gillespie, and Harshman families are still landowners, holding all or part of their 1805 properties. And we can see an additional farmhouse for the Harries family, another pioneer family, but originally in the town of Dayton (an early Harries was a brewer: "his ale was of the finest make").

Birdseye views show the three surviving 19th century farmhouses (the Harries house severly modified and hidden away on a large lot).


The Kemp House

This aerial shows the house and the original route of Burkhart/Kemp Road. The house faces this alignment.


Approaching the house from the old farm road, looking south, one can see it is fairly long, but built in two parts, one in stone, the other in brick. The grounds feature some very large trees.


One can surmise this is the original Kemp homestead site, but it is questionable if this house was built by Louis Kemp or a later Kemp.

The stone construction is fairly unusual.

The limestone bedrock is occasionally close to the surface on the ridges and heights overlooking the valleys here, so stone might have been available on the property if it outcropped and was easy to quarry. The stone could also have been hauled in from the quarrys in what is now Belmont if the house was built later, when these quarries were in operation.

But why stone and not brick or wood? There is precedent for stone construction in Frederick (the Hessian Barracks and Shifferstadt house), but it's a stretch to say these influenced the choice of material.



Yet this is an excellent example of vernacular architecture, austere yet noble in form.

The house was not built in the L shaped I-house form, but as a sort of saltbox, with long sloping roof over the rear annex. The chimneys are not protruding or expressed on the side facade, but are flush with the wall.


Suman/Cosler House

This house stands out in its suburban neighborhood (which is historic in its own right as one of the very first postwar subdivisions east of the city), located approriately enough on Cosler Avenue.



At first glance this looks like one of Daytons vernacular urban I-houses, sort of an abbreviated T or L shape to fit on city lots, with a gable end facing the street and side entry.

However, the birds eye view shows the top of the T to be longer than expected, perhaps a long rectangular house like the Eichelberger house shown previously, with later additions

(possible spring location noted, as the 1875 map shows a spring near the house site)

Yet the chimney arrangement would have been different if the rectangular core was an old farmhouse, with end chimneys or a center chimney. So maybe the house was built that way, a rural application of a vernacular urban houseform found in antebellum Dayton. This style of house appears in the Oregon before the Civil War (see The Folk Process in Dayton's Oregon for a discussion of the urban I-house), so this structure might still be fairly old.

The 1904 topograhic map shows Section 22 as it entered the 20th Century. The three farmhouses discussed here noted in red.



In 1901 the 5th Street carline was extended up Huffman Avenue to a loop at Smithville Road. In 1906 one of the Kemp properties was subdivided as the East Park plat. As this area grew a shopping center would grow around the trolley loop, investigated in this post.

Coda

The houses shown in this series of posts are the most obvious farmhouses in East Dayton (there may be more but they're not readily apparent). There is one more farmhouse, off Huffman Avenue, that will be addressed in a later post on the country estates of Huffman Hill.

East Dayton Farmhouses: The Huston Houses

South of the Hamer property was an unowned quarter section (at least in 1805), the southeast quarter of Section 29.

This property, or 150 acres of it, was acquired by Israel Huston 1826. Israel came from Greene County, where his family had settled. He married a farmers daughter, Elizabeth Harsman, from the neighboring farm. So who owned it between 1805 and 1826? Which makes one wonder if this property had some connection with the Harshmans as they owned land all around it.


On the 1850s map one can see a farmhouse on the property, owned by Elizabeth Huston.


Later maps show this house joined by one other, and some orchards. Both houses were located on the low bluff dropping down to the Mad River valley, paralled by the hydraulic canal leading from todays Eastwood Park to the Front Street buildings.

On the 1875 map one can see some orchards next to both houses. Also, the property lines are clear enough to show that early on the Hustons didn't have much frontage on the Springfield pike. Perhaps this property had been owned by others at the time of the 1826 purchase.

By 1895 the city was encroaching on the property. One can see from this map that one house is shown slightly larger, and so it appears on this birdseye...

.
..yes, these two 19th century houses are still standing.
Zooming in on the southern, perhaps older house, one does see what looks like an old I-house facing out over the bluff toward the river bottoms, but with a largish series of additions to the rear.
The front facade is a classic antebellum I-house, with flanking chimneys and a somewhat asymmetric entrance. Could this have dated to the time of Israel Huston, or is it even earlier?

The wings to the rear are fairly well in keeping with the front house in porportion. One has to admire that limestone stone fence in front. Is that original?



The second house, just to the north, appears on the 1869 map but not the 1850s map, dating it to the 1860s at the latest. It's board and batten, with some interesting window treatments and little side vents in the gable.

One has to wonder about the story behind this house as it isn't shown under seperate ownership. Perhaps it was built for one of the Huston children?

The property was finally first subdivided by J.R. Huston in 1902. The property was finally completely subdivided in 1924 as two plats, Beverley Hills north of todays Woodley, and Grand View Heights south of Woodley. These plats were finally built-out in the 1950s.

The first Huston house is perhaps one of the oldest, if not the oldest, true farm house between Smithville and Tals Corner, another excellent example of Dayton's architectural patrimony.

Next, two heirloom houses from east of Smithville, and the story of the Maryland colony.

East Dayton Farmhouses: Surveys, Early Settlers, & Tates Point

Continuing to explore East Dayton's pioneer past with a look at the lay of the land, the first surveys and settlers, and Tates Point.

The landscape from a 1804 map, which shows contours. East Dayton as the bottoms of the Mad River, the low bluff or rise marking the end of the flood plain, and the bench or flats from the bluff to the eastern hills. One of these had two historic names, Hamer's Hill (from the first settler) and Tates' Point, which was the name used during most of the 19th Century. Both usages are no longer current.

South of Tates Point was the rise or ridge known as Huffman Hill. To the east the land rolls down to the valley again, toward McConnells Creek.

A saddle or gap seperated the high land of Huffman Hill from the heights of Belmont to the south. This gap was used by the road to Xenia and later the DX&P railroad, and in modern times US 35.



Lines on the Land: The Between the Miamis Survey

The land had questionable early history. Aboriginal title was extinguished at the Treaty of Greene Ville, and the land was mistakenly thought to be part of Symmes Purchase, thus underwent an early survey in the late 1700s.

Subsequent to the Symmes land ownership controversy (people were buying property from Symmes that he did not own) Congressed authorized a re-survey in 1801 and the land was surveyed as the Land Between the Miamis Survey, between 1802 and 1805.

The modern township, section, and quarter section lines date from this survey and form the framework for land sudivision in East Dayton.


In the above map the numbers are the sections (640 acres), which are subdivided into quarter sections (160 acres) . These can be subdivided again into quarter-quarter sections (40 acres, which is where "40 acres and a mule" comes from). Federal surveys usually went no further than quarter secctions.

Early Settlers and Locations

Since Dayton was settled in 1796 with and the official Federal surveys commenced in 1802 some parcels were settled prior to the Federal survey. An early record of property ownership is the 1805 tax duplicate for Dayton Township. This lists taxpayers by name and by location and acreage. Using this information, the 1850s map, and knowlege of the section numbering system the location of the first landowners in East Dayton can be mapped with some accuracy:


It should be noted that Daniel Cooper obtained the Dayton townsite, city and town lots and surrounding lands, via a pre-emption. The eastern boundary of his land was a half section line running north-south to the Mad River, and was the city limit until the 1870s.

One can recognize some familiar names on this map, such as Van Cleve, Edgar, and Newcom, the first settlers of Dayton. The first Dayton settler to actually locate beyond the townsite was William Hamer, who acquired two quarter sections in 1796. One of the quater sections was in section 29, set aside for "ministerial purposes" by Symmes, and since Hamer was a Methodist preacher he located on the section, on the hill that was named for he and his kin.

The first anglo child born here was born to the Hamers, named Dayton after the new town.

The 1805 property ownership with some later changes, drawn on the 1869 Titus map. One can see Hamer's property at a strategic location, whith their cabin, later house, facing the Springfield road and Mad River bottoms.



James Findlays property, which we've seen earlier, is shown in gray.

It's unclear how the property came to be further subdivided. Doing some cursory geneological research on Dayton Hamer: He was married in 1819 sold mill rights and land along the Mad River in 1826, and eventually relocated to Tippicanoe County Indiana either in the late 1820s or early 1830s.

Apparently his descedents ended up in Illinois (Danville area) and perhaps one, also named Dayton Hamer, ended up on San Francisco Bay, Alameda County California, buried in a pioneer cemetary near San Leandro. A neat little family saga illustrating the westering urge in American history.

Tates Point

In any case the property came to the Tate Family, listed as beloning to S. Tate in the 1850s map (most of the eastern quarter section came to Jonathan Harshman). The Tates apparently aslo owned Tates Mill, located in todays McKinley Park: Forest Avenue was known as Tates Mill Road in 1869.



But the house was older, probably built by Dayton Hamer, as Lutzenberger dates it to 1818 (though I think the brackets at the roof are later than that). This is a surviving photo of one of the oldest farmhouses in East Dayton

Lutzenberger's caption on Tates Point reads:

Note:The 116-year-old house at Tates Point in which officers of the First Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry were quartered. Colonel Edwin Parrott of Dayton was in charge of the regiment at that time. He and other officers lived in the house. The men camped on the hillside. The house was built in 1818 and was razed in 1934.

This camp was Camp Corwin, and was a mustering point for Civil War volunteers from the Dayton area. The First Regiment mentioned in the caption eventually fought at First Bull Run, coverning the Union retreat to Washington.

Perhaps a later image of Tates Point showing the industrializing Mad River bottoms. The house was replaced by a big slaughterhouse which still stands, though it's used for something else now.


The rest of the Tate/Hamer property atop the hill was developed as a very out-of-the-way housing project.