Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and so I thought I’d use this opportunity to write about my most recent “read”. It’s the book Tipping the Scales: One Man’s Freedom, by Stanley U Robinson with revisions and editing by his son David R Robinson. The book is available as an ebook and a print book.

As an historian wrote recently, heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings, choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them. Such heroes did not wake up one morning and say to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s that, when they had to, these people did what was right.

This book tells the story of some local people who were heroes. In 1954 a Columbus interracial family (Phyllis and Wilson Head and their 2 children) decided to move to an all-white neighborhood. In the racist real estate environment of the time, this was taboo. Though it was decidedly unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race, discrimination was rampant. The Heads were represented, for the real estate transaction, by attorney Stanley U. Robinson. They were able to conceal Wilson Head’s Black identity only because the seller, banks, and insurer never bothered to ask about race. Once the sale had gone through and the Heads moved into their new house at 2166 Indianola Avenue, all hell broke loose. Attorney Robinson faced the wrath of the banking and real estate agent community (including a threat of disbarment), and his family was deluged with crank telephone calls from the bigoted new neighbors of the Heads. The Heads themselves faced bigotry, but were physically protected by prearranged police presence and local church members’ vigilance. The Heads “stuck to their principles” and refused to be intimidated or bought out.

Though this act of segregation-busting was successful, in 1959 the Head family moved to Windsor, Canada “to get [the] children away from a racist society.” Wilson Head had a PhD and was a respected sociologist and civil rights leader, and the Heads’ (understandable!) move was Columbus’ loss. You can read more about Wilson Head here.

Next up on my reading list: Wilson Head’s own book, A Life on the Edge: Experiences in Black and White in North America. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-9680066-0-3.

Margaret Nelson (née Van Ness) grew up in Clintonville, and has shared some old family photos. Her family lived at the following addresses:

139 W Dunedin, 1939-1941 or 1942
175 E Tibet, 1942-1947
310 E Weber, 1948-1950
29 and 25 Tibet, 1950-1959
138 E N Broadway, 1960-1971

I’ll be sharing these old house photos in the months to come.

This photo is 139 West Dunedin. Ralph Taylor Van Ness (1902-1989) and his wife Norma Thorp Van Ness (1910-2000) bought this house in 1939; it was their first house as a married couple. They lived here until August 1942, when they moved to 175 Tibet Road.

Here’s are some present-day photos; the house has since been screened in and added on to.

[Vintage photo Courtesy of Margaret Van Ness Nelson.]

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 of North Broadway addition. The residences in the addition run their waste water into private sewers, which empty into an open ditch that runs onto the Chesnut land near the owner’s residence. Chesnut’s purpose is to have the courts declare this sewer system a nuisance and order it abated. He says the filth from the vaults, stables, and wasteways runs down near his house, polluting the water in the ditch, where he used to water his stock; that the winds carry noxious and offensive vapors and stenches into his residence, annoys his family, and is a continual menace to their life and health, besides decreasing the value of the premises. He sues for $6,000 damages, $1,000 of this amount because of the pollution of the ditch water on his land. He wants an injunction against the use of the ditch for sewer purposes…

[From Columbus Dispatch (published as Columbus Evening Dispatch) March 21, 1883 page 7.]

A couple months later, the North Broadway developers issued a rejoinder:

A Tart Answer
That Will Scarcely Turn Away Wrath
Filed by James M. Loren in the North Broadway Sewage Case

Some time ago James Chesnut, who lives on High Street north of North Columbus, filed a suit against the owners and residents of North Broadway dwellings and lots to prevent the use of an open ditch for sewer purposes, on the ground that it created a nuisance on the plaintiff’s premises. It was claimed that the suit, if successful, would compel the abandonment of the entire sewage system of North Broadway. Mr. James M. Loren this morning filed an answer, in which he claims that all the sewage from the houses on North Broadway passes into two large cisterns located at least 1,000 feet from Mr. Chesnut’s residence, and that no bad odor can come from the cisterns. About five years ago, Mr. Chesnut himself put in pipes draining his vaults and stables into the open trench. Some time ago, Mr. Loren says, Mr. Chesnut offered to sell him all his premises except the house and yard at a certain price, but he refused to take the offer, and then Mr. Chesnut for the first time objected to the North Broadway sewer system.

[From Columbus Dispatch (published as Columbus Evening Dispatch) May 20, 1883, page 6.]

Apparently Loren’s response was not accepted by the courts, for this article followed along in 1897:

North Broadway Sewage Causing Trouble

About a year ago James Chestnut, a farmer who lives between North Columbus and Clintonville, brought proceedings against property owners on North Broadway for damages on account of the sewer system which drains property along North Broadway. He sued for something over $4,000 damages. The case went to the circuit court and that tribunal issued an injunction preventing the use of the sewer system until it was remedied.

It seemed that when the sewers up there were constructed they were left in such shape that they dumped the refuse of the vaults and houses onto land either belonging to Mr. Chestnut or so close to his house that it created a nuisance. The injunction issued by the circuit court was made permanent and still stands. It now appears that the sewers are still in use and it is said that Mr. L. G. Addison, the attorney who represented Mr. Chestnut, has notified the people of North Broadway that unless they comply with the order of court he will have contempt proceedings instituted against them. One trouble which Mr. Chestnut’s attorney labors under is that the residents of North Broadway change quite often and it thus becomes necessary to notify the new comers of the […] order of court. New comers who are in ignorance of the facts, of course, cannot be held for a violation of an order of court of which they are in ignorance.

[From Columbus Dispatch (published as Columbus Evening Dispatch) Monday August 23, 1897 page 6.]

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 24, 1825, d. Jul 14 1891). (One source says “Ewing” but I believe that’s wrong.) She is buried with James in Greenlawn Cemetery. Some census records say Christiana was born in England or Ireland, and there’s also a record that says her father lived in Ridgeway, PA.

James and Christiana had a daughter (one census record says “adopted daughter”), Fannie, who was born around 1854/55. She lived with her parents and seems to have remained single. She continued to live in the North High Street (now Wall Street) house through 1910, but by 1914 she’d moved to 2103 Summit Street. She lived there until her death in March 1932; she died at age 78 in University Hospital of injuries suffered when she was hit by a taxi the previous December. (Her obituary also names a sister, Jennie Reid, who lived in Bridgeport Connecticut.)

I love the Chesnut house, still in existence at 3338 N. Wall Street.

Paul-Henri Bourguignon was a talented visual artist, a prolific writer and journalist, a skillful photographer, and an avid observer of the human condition. His wife Erika was a world-renowned anthropologist. They lived at 193 East North Broadway until their deaths in 1988 and 2015 respectively.

Here’s a terrific house tour of their Clintonville home, showcasing their life and collections at 193 East North Broadway before the house was sold.

And here are some links to additional information about each of them:
About Paul-Henri Bourguignon
About Erika Bourguignon

[Courtesy of Jane Hoffelt, who has worked indefatigably to keep the Bourguignon’s legacy alive and appreciated.]

Two nice photos of the Olentangy River in the 1950s.

From Bill Pegues:

During 1954 my parents moved to Columbus, where my father taught history at Ohio State until 1997. A couple years ago my brother scanned my dad’s slide collection into digital format. My father had documented the location of the scenes in many of them but a fair number lacked any identity. Among these were two shots from an identical point on the Olentangy River in the late ’50s. I spent some time with these and on Google Earth trying to determine where exactly they were taken. Ultimately, I concluded with certainty (based on zooming in on the line of houses visible in the early 1958 photo, and comparing them with the Google Street View of the houses there today, as well as noting the curvature of the river) that they were shot on the west side of the Olentangy just downstream of the old Henderson Road bridge looking north. At the time my parents were renting a house on East Selby Blvd just over the Worthington-Columbus boundary. The preceding photos in the 1957 set were taken at an Ohio State football game that fall, and of the old Lane Avenue bridge as the leaves were beginning to turn. My parents would likely have driven up Olentangy River Road after these games and taken Henderson up to High before driving north to Selby.

The first feature in the 1957 photo that interested me is the parking lot at center-left, indicating that this was a popular spot for people to visit, and probably picnic and stroll around. At the time, SR-315 didn’t yet exist this far north (it wasn’t completed from Ackerman Road north to 270, if I recall correctly, until I was entering high school in 1980) so the only road running along the west side of the river was Olentangy River Road. The second feature of note is that the land on the east side of the river is, accordingly, the open field that would be the location of Whetstone High School (from which my brothers and I graduated in the late ’70s and early ’80s), constructed in 1960-61.

[These photos were taken by Frank Pegues and digitized by Jim Pegues, and came to us courtesy of Bill Pegues.]

Scott Jones, a professor in the OSU School of Music, kindly shared some terrific photos of the 1947 construction of his house at 528 Acton Road.

The photos came to Scott from Sally Schock (Moore) who grew up in the house and whose father’s brother built the home in 1947.

The house looks today very much like it did when finished in 1947.

[Photos are courtesy of Sally Schock (Moore), via Scott Jones.]

David Penniman, a resident of the Rosemary neighborhood, sleuthed out a copy of a document penned in 1984-88 by Richard C Knopf and Miriam F Near. The document, entitled Reminiscences: Not Memoirs, is a free-wheeling remembrance of growing up in the neighborhood around Henderson and Rosemary Parkway in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Dave’s copy came from Ann and Keith Bossard of Dominion Blvd; Dave then digitized the 97 page book and shared it with us. Thanks, Dave!

Both Richard and Miriam are deceased; their obituaries are linked below.
Richard C Knopf, 1/4/1925 – 7/17/2002
Miriam Fowle Near, 6/28/1924 – 12/10/2009

I’m so appreciative of people who preserve local history, as Richard and Miriam, and Dave, have done.

[Digital version of the Knopf and Near typescript courtesy of David Penniman. Knopf obituary came courtesy of the Ashtabula Public Library System based on a search and tip from Nick Taggart, retired librarian par excellence at the Columbus Metropolitan Library.]

This lovely home at 80 West Cooke Rd was originally built in 1925 for Lulu & Carl Cooke. The Cookes owned it for 40 years, and the house has only had 4 owners since it was built. Fortunately the home’s original character and charm has been maintained throughout the years.

I believe I’ve passed the house many times without noticing it, and suspect its lines were obscured by foliage until recently. What a gem it is!

The house is in the Rosemary housing division, developed by Charles Johnson in 1923 and named after his mother.

As a side note, the Mediterranean Revival style–so unusual in Clintonville–reminds me of the old Zimmerman home that used to be located at the NW corner of Henderson and Olentangy River Roads.

There are also examples of that style at 44 West Jeffrey Place (left photo below) and 223 West Beechwold Blvd (right photo below) in Old Beechwold. An historic inventory for 44 West Jeffrey can be found here. 223 West Beechwold seems to have had the address “4923 West Beechwold” and may have been designed by architect Frank Kinzig, according to the Old Beechwold Historic District Nomination.

My friend Nancy Campbell tells me that in the 1920s, there was a lot of interest in exotic styles for houses, usually attributed to the young men who came back from WWI. Having seen more of the world, they were interested in Tudor, Mediterranean, Mission, Chateauesque (French) styles. The Sears and Aladdin kit houses, though offering predominantly Craftsman or “plain” styles, also offered the others. These three houses were more upscale versions of an interesting mix of styles. According to Virginia McAlester’s book, A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America’s Domestic Architecture, tile roofs were used in Spanish Eclectic, Mission, Italian Renaissance, and Prairie styles. The Cooke Rd. house seems somewhat Tudor, with the “musicians’ balcony” overlooking the living room.

[Real estate listing & photos courtesy of Judy Minister; historic architecture information from Nancy Campbell.]

Gary Mean’s stunning restoration effort of 242 East North Broadway was included in Old House Journal, April-May 2011 issue.