A handwritten map of the neighborhood, created by Lulu Pearle Browne (Ohsner), helps to clarify who lived where in the Maple Grove neighborhood in the early 1900s. You can click on this thumbnail and zoom in for a better view. (Photo courtesy of the Ron Ohsner family)
The Cooke family cemetery was located near the southeast corner of Cooke Road and High Street. According to genealogy records, the earliest headstone dated to 1817. Most of the graves were moved to Greenlawn or Union Cemeteries when Bishop Watterson High School was built in 1958. A few headstones were later discovered on a lot on Lenappe Drive. I would love to have some pictures of this cemetery.
There was also a John Rathbone Cemetery at the intersection of Morse and High.
George Whipp came to the area with his wife and two sons from Maryland in 1833. His son George P. was 16 years at the time, and initially worked as a carpenter. Son George married Lucinda Smiley, and they had 10 children one of whom was also named George. The family farmed and had two truck stands along North High Street. (Note: Sometimes the family spells its name with one “p”.) A bit more biographical information can be found in A Centennial Biographical History of the City of Columbus and Franklin County Ohio (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1901) p. 770 excerpted here.
One of the oldest families in Clintonville is the Whipp Family (sometimes spelled Whip). They owned a farm, and a couple of stands along High Street that had big large orange signs advertising a refreshing drink consisting of freshly squeezed orange juice. The Whipps may have been the first owners of the mill located just north of Henderson Road and the Olentangy River. Here is a picture of the Whipp family circa 1889: George, Oscar, Everett, Laura, Cora, and Mabel. (Photo courtesy of Sue Gallogly)
The Whips lived at 73 East Weisheimer.
How I would love to acquire a picture of the old Schreyer House. This was described as being one of the first high-class homes in its neighborhood. The property was 50 acres, from High Street to the Olentangy River, bounded by Henderson to the south and the “Stewart and Weisheimer farms to the north.” The grand house was built by Barney Phinney (one of the owners of the Worthington Pike) about 1893, and was subsequently sold to G. Schreyer, a Columbus stove and furnace manufacturer.
Two excellent orchards grew on the place. A windbrake of splendid walnut trees protected one orchard and a row of fine maples formed the windbrake for the other. There was also a very good spring just west of what is now Rosemary Parkway. Surrounded by rose gardens and shrubbery, the house was an imposing structure with pointed gables and the interior finished throughout with solid walnut.
Mr. Schreyer died in 1901, and his wife (Ernestine Zeller, after whom Zeller Road was named) moved elsewhere. The old Schreyer house was eventually subdivided into apartments. The house burned down in 1913; the Columbus Fire Department had been called but could not respond, because there were no water lines in that vicinity at the time. The land was purchased by Charles Johnson in 1923 and subdivided into the Rosemary Development.
And as a side note: “Rosemary” was the name of Charles Johnson’s mother.
This is a train wreck that occurred in 1880 north of Hudson, at the Big Four Railroad tracks. (Photo courtesy of Judy Cohen)
As my book shows, there was once a covered bridge over the Olentangy River at Dodridge Road. The Dodridge covered bridge was replaced by a truss bridge built by the Columbus Bridge Company. This picture shows the replacement bridge in 1890. Fishing from the bridge was a favorite activity for many 20th century Clintonville residents. It was a lovely river, and crappy and small mouth bass abounded. (Photo courtesy of Columbus Metropolitan Libraries)
I love the story of the Republican Glee Club. Here it is: It was 1872, shortly after the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant for his second term of President. Some men were enjoying a convivial evening in one of the rear rooms of the Old Ambos Restaurant and Café on South High Street, and discovered that they all liked to sing and all were Republicans. Henry W. Frillman, one of the group, had just returned from Chicago and reported on the activities of a political glee club he heard sing there. The men decided to start a Republican singing and marching club, and called themselves the Grant and Wilson Glee Club. They rehearsed rigorously and became much in demand at rallies around the state. They were even invited to take part in the inaugural festivities in D.C. After the election, the group disbanded but in 1876 reconvened as the Hayes and Wheeler Glee Club. Members participated in four successive campaigns, and participated in state and local campaigns as well. In 1895 they incorporated as “The Republican Glee Club of Columbus Ohio.”
In the late-1920s, they moved their headquarters to 57 Weber Road and remained there until about 2000. The building is now a private residence. (Photo courtesy of Tom Atzberger)
North Broadway was developed by the Loren and Dennison company in 1897; it was intended to be the place to live, and it was. James Loren originally planned to call it the Oakland Addition, but the post office requested he change the name to avoid confusion with another neighborhood. It had a small railroad depot and post office at North Broadway’s east end at the Big Four Railroad track. This house at 510 North Broadway Street was the first house built in the subdivision. It was built around 1890. It was sometimes called Acton Place, for reasons I was unable to discover. By 1894 it was owned by a man named E. Howard Gilkey. The William W. Daniel family purchased it in 1896, and the house remained in that family’s hands until 1961. It burned down in 1966. My Clintonville and Beechwold book has a photograph of the original house; this photograph shows the fire. The spot is now occupied by Columbus Speech and Hearing Center. (Photo from an unnamed newspaper clipping)
I also found a handwritten history that said that this was the first house built on North Broadway and was lived in, or owned by, someone named Loren. I do not recognize the house—do you? (This very poor image was taken from a photocopy of a microfilm.)
According to the 1896-97 city directory, there was also a Jeremiah C. Loren (motorman) living 1 building north of North Broadway on the east side of North High Street.
Mary Rodgers (resident of East North Broadway who has been researching the houses along East North Broadway) believes this is a picture of 625 East North Broadway, a house which was in the Broadway Villa subdivision and which I have written about here. It was lived in by the MacIntosh family.