4th of July, 1905

I wonder who it was with the interesting sense of humor -- the author of the article or the leaders of Wyoming? At least there were fireworks!

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer July 2, 1905.

Since it is a bit blurry:

Fourth of July will be celebrated in the usually quiet village of Wyoming in a manner calculated to whoop things up. There will be a drill by the Fire Department in the morning, followed by a potato race, in which Mayor A. A. Taylor, Solicitor James E. Robinson and the members of Council and Board of Education will take part.

The prizes are a small measure of potatoes, a rubber ballon and a tin whistle. A baseball game will take place at 10 a. m. between married and single men, after which a presentation of diplomas to survivors will be in order. Major George Fox will present medals to winners of athletic contests and has laid in a large supply of sole leather.

At 5 p. m. Hon. J. H. Bromwell will be introduced by the Mayor, and will hand out an old-fashioned Fourth of July oration, and as soon as night falls a magnificent display of fireworks will be exhibited.

Jewett Drive -- How the Streets Got Their Names

Jewett Drive is named after the family that for almost sixty years owned and lived on the property that was divided into the lots that line the street. Four generations of Joseph Franklin Jewetts lived in Wyoming, along with their wives, brothers, sisters, and cousins.

Joseph Franklin Jewett (1835-1922), the family patriarch, was born in Granby, Connecticut. He moved to Cleveland, where in 1858 he got into the sack manufacturing business as a partner in the Jewett & Adams Company. Just a few years later the company opened a branch in Cincinnati, and Joseph moved to the city to manage it, brining his wife, Cecelia Child (1842-1914), and family to the Queen City with him.

Source: The Railway Agent and Station Agent, vol. 17, 1897.

In the nineteenth century, grain, coffee, sugar, and many other goods were put in cloth sacks and, later, paper sacks, as part of the bulk shipping process. Manufacturing sacks in Cincinnati made a lot of sense—Cincinnati was a busy port on the Ohio River. Farmers brought their goods to the city and needed to bag them before they were loaded onto riverboats or railroad cars and shipped to distant markets.  In the mid-1880s Adams, Jewett & Co.'s place of business, which included manufacturing of the bags, was located on the southwest corner of Water and Vine streets, right on Cincinnati’s waterfront. Back in the nineteenth century railroad sidings also were located on Water Street. This land is now part of Smale Riverfront Park--the Digging Cincinnati History blog includes a great post about the area. 

Source: Cincinnati Illustrated Business Directory, 1883.

In August 1865, Joseph and Cecelia Jewett purchased slightly more than eight acres of land fronting on the west side of Springfield Pike, in the area that was to become Wyoming (it was Lot 1 of the Isaac B. Riddle Subdivision, which I hope to blog about in the future). 

Joseph and Cecelia had eight children, six girls and two boys. The oldest daughter, Laura (1861-1938) did not marry and lived in Wyoming and nearby Hartwell for most of her life. Second daughter Jennie (1862-1865) died just after her third birthday. Three of the Jewett girls married and moved away from the Cincinnati area. Helen (1865-1935) married Frank B. DeCamp and moved with him to St. Louis, Missouri; Carrie (1866-1955) married Albert Pfau and moved to Terra Haute, Indiana; and Grace (1870-1956) married Brandon Millikin and moved to Hamilton, Ohio. Youngest daughter, Cecelia (1874-1967) lived at home until she was in her 40s when she married Agustus T. Welsh and moved to Burns Ave. in Hartwell, returning to Wyoming to live on Stout Ave. near the end of her life.

Jewett Family, about 1895, on porch of family homestead built before 1870 and demolished in 1923.
Front Row: Joseph F. Jewett, Sr., Cecelia Child Jewett, Laura Jewett, Grace Jewett Millikin;
Second Row: Cecelia Jewett Welsh, Max Jewett, Carrie Jewett Pfau, Joseph F. Jewett, Jr., Helen Jewett DeCamp.
Source: Wyoming Historical Society/Gene Ann Cordes.

Joseph F. Jewett, Sr. was involved in the Wyoming community. He served as a founding representative on the Wyoming Board of Education in the early 1880s. He was also one of the investors that owned the Wyoming Land and Building Company Subdivision (Burns Farm).

The Jewett sons stayed close to home and became involved with family businesses. Both Jewett sons began their careers with the bag company. In the 1890s, Joseph Jewett, Sr. started a new venture—the Cincinnati Carriage Goods Company. Many “carriage” companies at the turn of the century were straddling the change from horse-drawn to horse-less carriages. I don’t know the full details of what the Cincinnati Carriage Goods Company sold, but I did find documentation that they were dealers of rubber tires.  Additionally, Joseph Jewett was also reported to be a “cotton dealer” in some publications in the 1910s.

Joseph and Cecelia’s son, Maxwell Jewett (1872-1960) worked with the Cincinanti Carriage Goods Company, and then in the 1920s managed The Jewett Company, which bought and sold cotton goods. Max lived with his parents until he married Jennie Kane (1882-1951); they had one daughter, Jane E. Jewett (1908-2002). After Max and Jennie's marriage, Joseph Sr. and Cecelia sold or gave them a 100 foot by 590 foot lot cut out of the southeast corner of the Jewett homestead property. In 1919 they deeded this land back to Joseph, Sr. and moved into Cincinnati. Census records show Max and Jennie were living in San Diego, California in 1940, but city directories place them back in Cincinnati by 1951.

After initially working in the family sack business, sometime before 1905 Joseph F. Jewett, Jr. (1868-1947) established a pulley manufacturing company, The Standard Pulley Company. In 1893 he married Elizabeth “Betty” Haven (1868-1939). For a time they lived in Covington, Kentucky, where son Joseph F. Jewett, III (1893-1976) was born. But they were back in Wyoming, Ohio for the birth of daughter Eleanor “Haven” Jewett (1898-1928). At the time of the 1900 Census they were living on Walnut Ave. in Wyoming, and in 1907 they purchased and moved their family to the house at 507 Springfield Pike, where they lived until 1924. They stayed in Wyoming the rest of their lives; the 1930 Census records them living on Wentworth Ave., along with son Joseph, III.

507 Springfield Pike, Home of Joseph F. Jewett Jr. from 1907 to 1924.

Joseph F. Jewett, III studied engineering at the University of Cincinnati and then served in WWI, from 1917 to 1919. He began service as a Second Lieutenant and by the end of the war had been promoted to Captain. For part of his enlistment he was stationed in Maine, but then spent most of 1918 in France. Upon returning to the United States, he married Helen Gardner in Portland, Maine in 1919. They came to Wyoming, and in the 1920 Census are listed as living at 701 Springfield Pike--on the Jewett homestead property, possibly in a home on the southeast portion of the lot, recently vacated by his uncle Max. Joseph III and Helen had two children, Dorothy Jewett (b. 1921) and Joseph F. Jewett, IV (1924-2011). However, the couple divorced and Helen moved to Los Angeles with the children. Joseph IV was a military pilot in both WWII and the Korean War.

In 1919 Haven Jewett, daughter of Joseph Jr. and Betty, married Stanley Duttenohfer, of the family that owned Cincinnati’s Duttenhofer shoes, and they had one son, Stanley, Jr. Unfortunately Haven died in 1928 of tuberculosis. 

In the 1920s, the Jewett homestead land was sold to Marion and C. Dean Poage. Joseph, Sr. sold the bulk of the land to them in 1921. The lot at the southeast corner was sold to the Poages by Joseph, Sr.'s children in 1924; they had inherited it at his death in 1922. C. Dean Poage was a builder-developer-real estate agent who built many Cincinnati area subdivisions. He sold the first lot from the Jewett land in April, 1928 - the home at the northwest corner of Jewett Drive and Springfield Pike, the current 701 Springfield Pike.

701 Springfield Pike, first home sold from subdivision of Jewett homestead.

The 1928 deed for this property reveals one of the ugly realities of the early twentieth century housing market - racism. Covenants on the deed for this and the other lots Poage sold on Jewett Drive  limited development to single family homes, prohibited fences in the front yards, prescribed minimum house setbacks from the street, but also specified that:

"(5) Said premises or any part thereof or any buildings hereinafter constructed thereon shall not be sold, rented, leased, occupied or used by any person or persons other than of the white or Caucasian Race, except for servants living with families occupying said premises."

Racial covenants like these were commonly used in communities across the United States from the 1920s into the 1940s, but they were deemed judicially unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, as violating the Fourteenth Amendment, and were subsequently removed from deeds as homes were resold. As communities adopted zoning ordinances (which Wyoming did in 1925), specifications about yard setbacks and permitted uses were also removed from most deeds.

In the 1940s Joseph Jewett III remarried, and he and his wife Emma moved to the house at 40 Jewett Drive. Joseph III lived out the rest of his life on part of the land where his grandfather had established his home in Wyoming a hundred years earlier. 

McNamara & Conner Subdivision

It was June 15, 1890 -- 125 years ago -- that this advertisement ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, June 15, 1890.

It is interesting to see what they thought buyers would appreciate about the location. At the top of the list was good commuting with convenient passenger trains to downtown -- 40 a day! Also good schools and churches, streets and sidewalks, public electricity and water (soon to come).

Below is an image of the McNamara & Conner subdivision plat. It was actually the third time these blocks were subdivided into lots. There were two earlier subdivision plans including this area filed by the Lockland Wyoming Improvement Company, but apparently no lots from the first two platted subdivisions ever sold. Timothy E. McNamara and Oliver E. Conner purchased these 10.87 acres in April 1890, and had this plan prepared in June of that year.

Looking at the plan, you can see that the lots fronting on Burns Avenue are the largest, 70 feet wide, with those facing Grove slightly smaller, 60 feet wide, and the lots on Crescent Avenue yet even smaller, at 50 feet wide. The subdivision's designer appears to have planned in advance for larger homes on Burns, and smaller, more affordable homes next to the railroad tracks.

The 1890 advertisement stated that McNamara & Conner would build "a few elegant" residences on the lots, but save a handful of homes constructed in the 1890s, most homes in the subdivision weren't built until the early twentieth century, and are more modest dwellings.

Only home in McNamara & Conner Subdivision built in 1890 according to Hamilton County Auditor records.
Source: Hamilton County Auditor.

Today there are 35 houses in these three blocks. Based on information from the Hamilton County Auditor, only 6 homes were built in the subdivision in the 1890s--most of those on the corners adjacent to Cooper Avenue. Another 5 houses were built in the 1900s, all on Crescent Avenue. During the 1910s 6 houses were constructed. During the boom years of the 1920s, 11 homes were built, and 5 more in the 1930s. Only 2 homes have been added in these blocks since World War II.

Researching the lives of the men who financed and marketed the subdivision, Timothy E. McNamara and Oliver E. Conner, reveals that they were businessmen with a diversity of interests. In addition to a real estate partnership, McNamara and Conner also shared ownership of an 1885 patent for a hand fire extinguisher.

Source: Official Gazette of the U.S. Patent Office, vol. 31 no. 11, June 16, 1885.  

Oliver E. Conner (1847-1922) focused his career on real estate. Below is his obituary.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1922.

Real estate was a sidelight for Timothy E. McNamara (1846-1911), who was primarily in the distillery business. He spent part of his career managing the Millcreek Distilling Company, subsidiary of the Standard Distilling Company.

Know a Good Example of Historic Preservation in Wyoming?

Do you know of a good example of historic preservation in Wyoming?

Have you or one of your neighbors been careful to retain or restore historic elements as part of maintaining, renovating, or remodeling a Wyoming home, business, or institution?

Nominate them -- or yourself -- for an award!

Application Form is Here

Examples of last year's winners - see pages 4-5 of this City Newsletter.

Nominations are due ASAP!

My Own Old House (Part 3): The Whitteker Family

The Whitteker family lived in our home during the 1880s. They were a middle class Cincinnati family that lived in suburban Wyoming for a few years, and spent much of the rest of their lives in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati. The father, a salesman, paved the way for his children to get excellent educations and go on to have interesting careers--minister, nurse, artist--which took them across the country and the world.

In 1887 there was a county directory published which listed the residents of Wyoming and the street they lived on—but not house numbers, because they had not yet been assigned to homes in Wyoming. Because only two homes had been built at this point on East Mills Ave. (then called Wiley Ave.), and because Chalres S. Fay is listed as living at the corner of Wiley and Elm, it is my conclusion that the family of William and Mary Whitteker was living in our house in 1887. They may have moved there as early as 1882, when the Golden family moved out.

William Aaron Whitteker, Jr. (1852-1926), was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and was the son of a merchant. In 1878 he married Mary L. Fry (1851-1939); she was born in Florence, Alabama, daughter of Sarah and Thomas Fry. Thomas was a cabinetmaker, according to the 1860 Census.

William Whitteker came to Cincinnati from West Virginia sometime before 1875. His early jobs included florist and milliner clerk (selling ladies’ hats). While living in Wyoming, his occupation was listed in the county directory as traveling salesman. On later censuses he was reported as selling coffee and seeds.

According to the 1880 Census and 1881 Cincinnati City directory The Whitteker family had been living at 584 McMillan Street in Walnut Hills. When they moved to Wyoming in 1882, William and Mary had two children, Elliot (1879-1918) and Lilian (1881-1979). Daughters Juliet (1884-1950) and Gertrude (1887-1891—died of diptheria) were born while the family was living in the house on East Mills (Wiley) Avenue. Below is young Gertrude's death notice. I love that they call her "our sunbeam."

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, February 10, 1891.

William, Mary, and their children moved back to the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati before 1890, when a Cincinnati city directory lists them living at 255 Hackberry. They subsequently lived at 114 Kleine, and then spent at least 20 years living at 2621 Cleinview. Two more children were born after they moved out of Wyoming: Lois (1890-1991) and Homan (1894-1972).

I haven’t found much information about the family’s life while they lived in our house on East Mills (Wiley) Ave. However, the three children who spent their youngest years in the house went on to live very interesting lives.

The eldest, Elliot Huff Whitteker (1879-1918), interrupted his college studies at age 19 to enlist and serve with Company M, First Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in the Spanish-American War, 1898-99. He went on to continue his degree at the University of Cincinnati, and in 1904 graduated from Lane Seminary. Elliot became a Presbyterian minister, serving congregations in a number of Ohio cities and then in Illinois and Iowa. He married and had three children. His first wife, Maybelle Morris, died in 1912; Elliot's second wife was named Winnie. Unfortunately Elliot died of pneumonia in 1918 at age 39.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, February 7, 1918.

The Whitteker’s third child, daughter Juliet A. Whitteker (1884-1950), graduated from Cincinnati’s Hughes High School in 1903. She became a nurse and worked in Cincinnati for several years. In 1918 she was working in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in the 1920s in La Grande, Oregon. In about 1931 she moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, where she worked for the Massachusetts State Board of Health. By 1940 she was living in Boston, and was a superintendent with the Massachusetts Health Department. The 1943 Boston City Directory listed her position as Nurse Supervisor for the Division of Child Hygiene. Juliet died at age 65 in 1950 on Cape Cod, but is buried in the family plot in Spring Grove Cemetery.

Source: La Grande Observer, November 2, 1922.

The eldest daughter, Lilian Eveleth Quarrier Whitteker (her name as she had it listed in the University of Cincinnati Bulletin) (1881-1979), had the most unconventional life of the Whitteker children. She studied art at the University of Cincinnati and with Frank Duveneck. Lilian was active in local and regional art organizations in the first two decades of the twentieth century, including serving as vice president and as treasurer of the Cincinnati Women’s Art Club. She also spent a few months living in Los Angeles and Pasadena California in 1917-18. She was primarily a painter in the impressionist and post-impressionist styles, but in 1918 won accolades for creating French character dolls, some of which were purchased and presented to the Cincinnati Art Museum; others were obtained by the Chicago Art Institute.

Links to webpages showing examples of Lilian's art:

Doll Illustration

Portrait

Afternoon at the Park

Flowers

More Flowers

Landscapes

Sand Dunes

In 1920 Lilian moved to New York City, where she got involved in theater design. Then in the mid-1920s she moved to France. She went there with William Perry Dudley, landscape architect, who is described as her lifelong love (and who was married before going to France and remarried once there). William purchased the Donjon de Montbazon, a castle ruin in the Loire Valley of France, which he and Lillian worked together to restore. They were often visited there by other American artists, and in the 1950s Alexander Calder was a nearby neighbor. In the late 1930s, as war approached, William Dudley returned to the United States with his wife. Lilian, however, remained in France through the war, and spent six months imprisoned by the Germans in an internment camp in France because she was a U.S. citizen.

Montbazon Castle, Loire Valley, France
Source: http://www.suttonclonard.com/Z_Castle_Montbazon_Tours.htm

After the war she continued with her art, showing it in numerous exhibitions in France. When William Dudley died in 1965, he left the castle to the French government. Locals intervened wanting to allow Lilian to continue to live there and to try to transform the castle into an art center, but after four years this fell through, and Lilian had to move. She died in 1979, and was buried in the town of Montbazon. After her death over 400 pieces of her art were auctioned. The town of Montbazon established an art prize in her name and named a street after her.

This article (in French) tells her life story, includes several pictures of Lilian (including one of her as a child), and explains how her style of painting changed over time. Link to Article

Playing Croquet Can Be Hazardous

I haven't forgotten about my blog, I just had a very, very, busy spring.

I found this great article several months ago, and have tried my best to track down more information about the people involved. I can tell you that Mrs. Roy Davis survived; she is listed in later social columns as attending various events. Other than that, I haven't been able to learn much else about the Mrs. Davis or Ralph Russell, or even where they lived. If anyone knows anything about them, please share with me!

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18, 1905.

The Blue House on Vine St. / Van Roberts Pl.

I first noticed the house when visiting the Wyoming Avenue Farmers Market’s old parking-lot location, next to the railroad crossing. It was bright blue, and looked as if it had not been altered much since it was built in the late nineteenth century. Last year it was lost, due to years of deferred maintenance combined with its less-than-ideal location adjacent to the railroad tracks. Up until the time it was demolished, from the outside it looked much as it did when it was first built—a modest home for a family headed by a dedicated public servant. For 24 years, the home's owner, Fred Bracker, was Village Marshall and Patrolman for Wyoming, and he and his family lived in the house at 520 Vine Street for more than 50 years. (The street was later renamed Van Roberts Place).

Source: Google Maps Street View

Frederick Bracker (1858-1934) was the son of German immigrants who were innkeepers, first running a hotel in Cincinnati, and sometime before 1860 moving to manage a hotel in Glendale. Fred’s first occupation was as a painter. In 1880, he married Mary Ann McArdle (1856-1941), daughter of Irish immigrants, whose father was a “common laborer,” according to the 1870 Census, when her family lived in Hamilton, Ohio. Fred and Mary Ann had five children, Eva C. Bracker (1882-1975), William A. Bracker (1886-1952), Mary Ann Bracker (1890-1965), Frank  M. Bracker (1892-1967), and Charles F. Bracker (1894-1961).

The Bracker family lived on Vine Street in Wyoming in 1887, according to the 1887 Hamilton County Directory. They purchased the lot where 520 stood in 1888. County Auditor records indicated the house at 520 as built in 1890, but that date might be off by a couple years.

The residents of Wyoming elected Fred Bracker to be Marshal of the Village from 1884-1908 and he was also employed by the village as a patrolman most of that time. During his time as Marshal, Bracker was Wyoming’s point person for public safety. He dealt with crimes that ranged from loitering and pickpockets, to theft, burglary, domestic violence, suicide, and murder. Over the years he also assisted with other emergencies such as fires, train derailments, and streetcar and automobile accidents. His name appears in dozens of articles in the Cincinnati Enquirer that reported on crime and accidents in Wyoming. Here are selected few.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 April 1907

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 December 1899

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 December 1900

After leaving office, Fred returned to the occupation of house painter. The 1910 Census reports other residents of this block as laborers at manufacturing plants, machinists, a carpenter, a locomotive engineer, and a widow who was a washerwoman. Most of the residents rented their homes; the Brackers were one of only a few families who owned their homes in this block of Vine Street. Many of the families were headed by men and women whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Germany and Ireland.

In 1920 Fred’s occupation was listed on the Census form as a painter of locomotive engines, and the children of the family all had jobs. The daughters, Mary and Eva, were seamstresses in a mattress factory – likely Stearns & Foster, in Lockland.  Frank was a clerk for the railroad and Charles worked in a tailor shop. William, a machinist, had married and moved out of the home, but still lived in Wyoming.

By 1930 the other sons married and moved away from home, but lived nearby. As of the 1930 Census, William was in Lockland and a millwright in a soap factory. Frank lived in Reading and was a clerk for a railroad. Charles lived on Wilmuth Ave. in Wyoming and had a dry cleaning business (Becht’s Dry Cleaners). Eva and Mary Ann continued to live with their parents; Eva still worked as a seamstress in a cotton mill, but Mary Ann ran a confectionery store, and later was a cook in a restaurant.

Frederick Bracker died in 1934, Mary Ann McArdle Bracker died in 1941, and the house was inherited by her daughter Eva Bracker. In 1944 Eva Bracker sold the property at 520 Vine St./Van Roberts Place to Claude Johnson.

Source: Cincinnati Times-Star April 30, 1934

Claude Johnson (1904-1985), an African-American WWII veteran, had grown up in Wyoming and Lockland. His father came to the area from rural Kentucky, but his mother’s family had long roots in Wyoming--his great-grandparents came here in the late 1860s from Tennessee. After WWII, Claude Johnson owned and operated a convenience store in Lockland. While he owned 520 Vine Street/Van Roberts, Claude spent some time living in it, at times rented it to others, and his widow, Helen Graham Johnson, lived there for a few years after Claude's death.

The neighborhood originally known as  ”Greenwood,” located north of  Wyoming Avenue and straddling the railroad tracks and the Wyoming/Lockland border, was one of the few suburban Hamilton County neighborhoods where African-Americans were able to live in the early twentieth century. Within this neighborhood, black residents, comprised in large part of successive generations of families and friends, developed their own supportive community that included schools, churches, service organizations, and other institutions.