Bequest from a Wealthy Grandparent - 123 Burns Avenue part 1

Looking into the early history of 123 Burns Avenue, I find a story that goes back to one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, a man who made a fortune investing in the growing city's real estate. In his later years he and his wife moved to live with a daughter in suburban Wyoming, and at his death he divided his fortune among his children and grandchildren, including one grandson who had lived a much more modest life and ended up living at 123 Burns Avenue, thanks in part to the inheritance from his grandfather.

William Stephenson (1793-1873) was born in Yorkshire, England. He came to the United States in about 1810, living first in New Haven, and then in Hartford, Connecticut, where he married Lucinda (Lucy) Wood (1794-1884) in 1813. In 1819 they moved west to a very young Cincinnati. William worked in a tin shop and in a type foundry, and in about 1822 established his own tin shop, both manufacturing and dealing in tin ware and other metal products. He also invested in Cincinnati real estate, and over the decades built quite a fortune from both collecting rents and from the sale of land that had appreciated in value.

By the 1830s, William Stephenson had become involved in many early Cincinnati enterprises. He was on the Board of Directors of the Cincinnati Savings Institution, founded in 1831; served as treasurer for the Medical College of Ohio; and was treasurer of the St. Georges Benevolent Society and the Fire Warden Company, No. 1. He is reported to have been involved in "alleviating the distress occasioned by the cholera and flood of 1832" and as supporting the temperance movement of the 1840s. He served on City Council and as City Recorder. In the 1840s his son Henry joined his tinware firm, and in 1855 William retired from that business, leaving it to Henry to manage.

Medical College of Ohio, 1835
Source: Ohio History Central

William and his family lived in what we now think of as downtown Cincinnati. For a long period he had a home on 4^th Street between Plum St. and Western Row (now Central Ave.). However, in 1865 he moved to suburban Wyoming. When the Census was taken in 1870, William, 76 years old, and his wife Lucy, were living with their daughter, Amelia Stephenson Stearns – wife of George S. Stearns, of Stearns and Foster. 

Fourth Street Looking West from Vine, 1835, by John Caspar Wild.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

One other thing we can track through the Censuses is the growth of Stephenson’s estate. The Census reports the value of the real estate he owned, which in 1850 was $51,000; 1860 was $100,000; and in 1870 was $240,000 (by comparison George Stearns only owned $50,000 in real estate in 1870). By some calculations that is the equivalent of over $4.25 million in today’s dollars.

When William Stephenson died in May of 1873, he left a long, detailed will, explaining how his estate should be invested and dispersed until the death of his wife, and then how it should be distributed to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. His numerous real estate holdings provided rents that he directed be used to grow the estate and that his executors should continue to invest in more land purchases. This ultimately included buying the lots in Wyoming on Burns Avenue.

Published will of William Stephenson
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

The land on which 123 Burns Avenue stands was part of a farm once owned by Archibald Burns. After his death, his heirs arranged for J.T. Wilson to divide the farm into lots and sell them, sharing the proceeds. However, J.T. Wilson died in 1870 having only sold a few of the lots. The heirs continued to sell lots from the subdivision after Wilson’s death. Grant H. Burrows purchased Lots 47-49 from the Burns estate in the early 1870s.

In July of 1874, the estate of William Stephenson purchased these same lands from Burrows. The Hamilton County Auditor's website provides an approximate construction date for the home at 123 Burns Ave. as 1875, just after this purchase. In 1877, three years after the estate’s executors purchased this land, they granted a 99-year lease to William Stephenson’s grandson, William DeForest for the southernmost portion of Lot 49, fronting 112 feet on Burns Avenue, and including a house built on the lot.

123 Burns Avenue

In 1888, four years after the death of William Stephenson’s wife, his estate was finally disbursed to his heirs, including William DeForest, and as part of his share he was given the land and home at 123 Burns Avenue, as well as the next lot to the north that is now 131 Burns Avenue. This redistribution altered the lot lines, turning the original three lots into five lots, each with approximately 112 feet in street frontage. William's sister, Caroline DeForest, was given the lot next north, now 141 Burns, his cousin Arthur Stephenson received what is now 149 Burns, and the lot that is now 159 Burns went to his cousin Blanche R. Stephenson. In addition to the two lots on Burns Ave., William received at least 13 other lots--in Avondale, and in Cincinnati's West End, Over-the-Rhine, and Downtown neighborhoods, with annual rents ranging $100-230 per parcel.

William DeForest (1836-1900) was the son of William Stephenson’s eldest daughter, Mary Stephenson (1814-1856) and DeLauzun DeForest (1808-1892), who married in 1832 in Cincinnati--before William Stephenson had developed his real estate empire. DeLauzun DeForest, like William Stephenson, also came west to Cincinnati from Hartford, Connecticut, around 1830. He was a bookbinder, though for a time in the 1840s he worked for his father-in law’s tin business and did a stint owning a grocery, but returned to bookbinding in the 1850s. 

Source: Cincinnati Directory, Robinson & Fairbanks, 1831 

William DeForest's parents had at least seven children, but only three survived to adulthood. His mother, Mary Stephenson DeForest died in 1856 when she was just 42, and William was 20. His older brother George died in 1860 at age 27. His younger sister, Caroline was just 4 when her mother died (she inherited the lot that is now 141 Burns Ave. from her grandfather). By 1860 William's father DeLauzun DeForest had remarried, and Caroline had been sent to live with her Stephenson grandparents.

William DeForest combined the occupations of his grandfather (metal work) and father (bookbinding) and became a manufacturer of printing type. City directories listed his occupation variously as "type maker"; "typecaster"; "type founder"; and "machinist." William did not have his own business, but likely worked for one of two type manufacturers located in Cincinnati in the early 1800s, the Cincinnati Type Foundry or the Franklin Type and Stereotype Foundry (or possibly for his Stephenson relatives' tinware manufacturing business). The two type companies were both located on Vine Street and both produced printing presses and all the parts from type to ink necessary for printing.

Source: Williams' Cincinnati Directory, 1865.

Source: Williams' Cincinnati Directory, 1865.

In 1857 William DeForest married Eliza Jane Higdon (1838-1923) in Clermont County, Ohio, where her father, Josiah Higdon owned a farm (he also ran a stable/livery in Cincinnati with his sons). For much of the 1860s William and Eliza lived in Cincinnati on Richmond Street, near today’s location of the Lloyd Library. Then in the early 1870s they lived for a brief time on Budd Street, near the riverfront, west of downtown, just east of the mouth of Mill Creek. William and Eliza lost at least three children within their first year of birth. Their oldest son, William S. DeForest (1858 – 1901),  suffered from some form of developmental disability: in 1870 when most children his age were listed as “at school” he was indicated as “at home”; the 1880 Census lists him as “idiotic”; and the 1900 Census indicates that he was unable to read, to write, or to speak English. William and Eliza had one daughter who survived to adulthood, Grace DeForest (1866 - 1943). Prior to moving to Wyoming, none of the Census records indicate William DeForest as owning any real estate.

In 1877 William and Eliza DeForest moved to the home at 123 Burns Avenue in Wyoming, when William, Jr. would have been 19, and daughter Grace was about 11 years old. Grace DeForest, who spent her teenage years living at 123 Burns Avenue, married Harry Hall in 1893. In 1900 the Census lists their household immediately before that of her mother and brother, so they may have been living right next door, on the lot to the north that William DeForest had also inherited, 131 Burns Avenue. Eliza DeForest and her son William remained at 123 Burns for a time after William, Sr.’s death in 1900; William, Jr. passed away in 1901. By 1903 Eliza Higdon DeForest had joined the Hall family’s household and moved out of Wyoming, first living in North Avondale, and by the time of the 1910 Census they had relocated to Myrtle Avenue in East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. Eliza lived with them there until her death in 1923.

131 Burns Avenue

Harry and Grace DeForest Hall had nine children; the two eldest were girls, the rest boys. Harry was bookkeeper, cashier, and treasurer for various firms over the years. In 1921 Grace DeForest Hall, who had inherited the properties at 123 and 131 Burns Avenue from her father, sold the two homes after having rented them to a number of families over the preceding two decades. During that time it is difficult to know for certain who occupied the homes. However, the 1910 and 1920 Censuses identify at least two families that lived in 123 Burns. Stay tuned for a post about those families...