An Old Chestnut…or Rather, Chesnut
Occasionally, the name of a local figure pops up with frequency, and one forms an image of, well may I say, an irascible neighbor? James Chesnut (often spelled "Chestnut") is one of those guys; see other posts about him here. Who was this guy, anyway? James Chesnut was born in Ireland on May 1, 1820, and he died at age 85 on May 26, 1905. Census records say James was a "machine sawyer," "works in coal factory", or "foreman and tool shop". He seems to have owned 20 acres on North High Street. His wife was Christiana McEwan (b. Dec [...]
A Little Bit of Sewage Goes a Long Way
Last month I provided a glimpse of James Chesnut, who lived at 3338 N. Wall Street. James Chesnut was involved in significant litigation with the North Broadway developers and neighbors. Though last month I said James appears to have been irascible, I'd certainly be that way too if this happened to me. From the Dispatch: Whew! James Chesnut Sues North Broadway Residents Wants Big Damages and Their Sewerage System Declared a Nuisance James Chesnut, who owns a 20-acre tract along High Street near North Broadway, this morning brought a damage and injunction suit against the owners of property and residents [...]
Clinton Heights Avenue Trivia
I recently had the benefit of reading an abstract from one of the north-side-of-Clinton-Heights-Avenue residents. A couple interesting things from the abstract: Calumet Street, according to the abstract, used to be called "Oak Hill" before the name was changed to "Beech Hill," and then changed to "Calumet." The alley along the north side of Clinton Heights traversed through the school property and then to North Broadway. I have often wondered about this vacated alley, which runs behind the properties along the north side of Clinton Heights Avenue and the south side of East North Broadway. It's a recessed, ravine-like greenspace [...]
Chesnut House
And another amazing old photo of North High Street from Stu Koblentz. This photo also looks north, and was taken just south of the intersection of High and North Broadway. The house on the west (left) behind the little shack (marked "ice") is the Chesnut house (aka Chestnut house), described in this web site's "Water for Cookies" entry and also found in my book. The school on the east (right) side of High Street is the old Clinton Township school building, a picture of which is also in my book. You can click on the image to see it in [...]
Water for cookies
The township school located at Clinton Heights Avenue and North High Street did not, originally, have running water. Every day a child was designated to carry one bucket and dipper across High Street to the Chesnut house (see page 12 in my book, Clintonville and Beechwold) to fetch water that would be shared by the students. Legend has it that there were no lack of volunteers for water duty, as Mrs. Chesnut (or perhaps it was her daughter Fannie) always had cookies for the volunteer. This is a bad, yet significantly older, image of the Chesnut house.