 |
| Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, June 15, 1896. |
15 June 2016
08 June 2016
123 Burns Avenue, part 2
In my last post I documented how the DeForest family came to live at 123 Burns Avenue. The families that followed, both as renters and subsequent owners, included men and women who were involved in making the greater Cincinnati community a better place, through the judicial system, education, social work, and military service.
 |
| 123 Burns Ave. |
The Dilley Family (ca.1907 - ca.1915)
The 1910 Census tells us that at that time Boyd E. Dilley, (1853-1926), his
wife Ella Clayton Dilley (1862-1928), and their son Charles Cropper Dilley
(1894-1986) were renting the home at 123 Burns Ave. Boyd was the son of Jonathan Dilley, who in addition to having been a merchant and innkeeper, was a probate judge in Morgan County, Ohio. In 1870 Boyd was a clerk for the Morgan County Courts. Around 1880 Boyd came to Cincinnati, and initially worked for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, but went on to work for the federal courts in Cincinnati. He became Deputy Clerk of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court in 1887 and was promoted to Clerk in 1907. His future wife, Ella, worked in his office as a Recording Clerk of the Court; they married in
1890. Ella was born in Covington, Kentucky. Her parents died when she was quite young, and she was raised by her paternal grandmother.
The couple moved from Cincinnati to 123 Burns Avenue in Wyoming in the latter half of the first decade of the 1900s. They liked Wyoming enough to buy a home here - they purchased and moved to 735 Stout Ave., Wyoming, sometime before
1915 (that house was built in 1914, so they may have been its first owners). Ella Dilley was active in the Wyoming Women's Club, and served on its executive board.
 |
| Source: Cincinnati Enquirer April 10, 1926. (Apoplexy is a stroke) |
Charles Cropper Dilley spent his teenage years living at 123 Burns Ave., graduated from Wyoming High School in 1911, and attended Yale University. He enlisted in the Army’s Coast
Artillery Corps in August of 1917, as the United States entered World War I. Entering the service as a second lieutenant, he was a captain when he was honorably discharged in November of 1918.
In 1920 Charles was
living with his parents on Stout Ave., and was a clerk for a public utility company. Charles
married Dorathea Schmidt (1902-1996) in 1927 and moved to
Akron, Ohio, where he was president of a oil company (Benzol-Cumberland, later Benzoco,
Inc.). He also was on the board of directors of the First-Central Trust Co. of
Akron.
 |
| Source: http://kubin.com/photo-gallery/ |
The Beckwith
Family (ca. 1915 - 1923)
The 1920 Census reveals that the George and Harriet Beckwith and their sons, Ralph and Wayne, were living at 123 Burns Avenue that year. George Beckwith (1867-1949) was the son of a Butler County farmer. His occupation is listed in the 1900 Census as bookkeeper, and later as a merchandise broker. He had an office downtown on Second Street, close to the waterfront, where goods would have arrived by boat or rail. In 1893 he married Harriet Neff Izor (1867-1957). Harriet, or Hattie, was born in Indiana; her father Monroe Izor was, over time, a miller, flour inspector, and flour dealer. He brought his family to live in Lockland, Ohio sometime between 1870 and 1893; he had an office downtown on Walnut Street, near the Ohio River waterfront.
In 1900 the Beckwiths were living with Harriet's widowed father in Lockland on Anthony Wayne Ave. In 1910 they were renting a home in Wyoming, at 120 Burns Ave. (Harriet's father had remarried - to Katherine Friend). The family may have moved into the home at 123 Burns Avenue as early as 1915, when the Dilley family moved out. Living in the home with them were their sons Ralph Monroe Beckwith (1894-1968) and Wayne Izor Beckwith (1900-1984) (their middle names honor their maternal grandfather).
Younger son Wayne graduated from Wyoming High School in 1917 and attended the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the S.A.T.C. (the Student Army Training Corps) during World War I, graduating in 1922. He later lived in Westchester County New York, where he worked in the home building and life insurance industries, married, and had a family.
Older son Ralph graduated from Wyoming High School in 1912 and also attended the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1917, and was also a member of the S.A.T.C. In 1917 when he registered for the draft, he was living in Montclair, New Jersey, and was a chemical salesman for the Huron Milling Company. He enlisted as a private in the New York National Guard in July of 1917, and was repeatedly promoted until he was made an officer, a second lieutenant, in September of 1918. At this time he was sent to France, where he was assigned to Co. H of the 372nd Infantry. The 372nd, was a "colored," all African-American, infantry regiment that had been sent to France in March and seen quite a bit of action. However, in mid-September the Army replaced all its African-American officers with white officers; one was Ralph Beckwith. This occurred as the unit began to fight in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. In October Ralph was injured in a gas attack. After the 372nd returned to the United States, Ralph remained in France, and was transferred to a military police unit, through July, 1919, when he was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant and returned home.
In 1920 Ralph Beckwith was back living with his parents, and was a sales manager for a canning company. In June 1921 he purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue from Grace DeForest Hall, but then sold it just two years later in July of 1923; he signed the deed while in Minnesota. Ralph went on to marry, have a family, work as a manager in the paper industry, and live in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Naples, Florida.
George and Ella Beckwith were again living with her father Monroe Izor at the time of the 1930 Census, on Anthony Wayne Avenue; his second wife had died in 1926 (Monroe is listed with three different addresses on Anthony Wayne - 306, 206, and 208. I don't know if he moved or if the Census taker was repeatedly mistaken). After Monroe Izor's death, George and Harriet Beckwith moved into one of the apartments in Hess' Flats, the apartment building facing Springfield Pike at the corner of Worthington Avenue, where they were living at the time of the 1940 Census. They later moved to New York to be near their son Wayne.
The Van Buskirk Family (1923-1928)
In 1923 Edgar Flandreau van Buskirk (1883-1976) and his wife Edna van Buskirk (1886-1983) purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue. Living with them was their son, Edgar F. van Buskirk, Jr. (1912-1986). Edgar and Edna had both been raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1908, and Edna graduated from Vassar College. Edgar taught high school in Brooklyn during the 1910s. Edna was also a teacher in New York City schools; the couple married in about 1911 and their son was born the next year. During this period, Edgar also earned a master degree from Columbia University, and from 1918-1920 he was an assistant educational director with the U.S. Public Health Service.
Edgar came to Cincinnati to be the Executive Secretary of the Cincinnati Social Hygiene Society, which promoted sex education and worked to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. In this role, Edgar gave lectures throughout Cincinnati and Hamilton County to parents and teachers, and prepared materials for programs to be held in the schools; he also was on the staff of the University of Cincinnati, lecturing to students on social hygiene. While in Cincinnati, he was working toward a PhD at Ohio State University, which he completed in 1928. Edgar's publications include co-authoring The Science of Everyday Life, (1925) a junior high school natural science textbook, still available in reprints on amazon.com; Sex and Character Education (A Course for Parents) (1925); The Place of Sex Education in Secondary Education (1928 - his dissertation); and Principles of Healthful Living (1938).
While living in Wyoming, Edgar became involved in local government. He was a member of the Village of Wyoming's first planning commission, established in 1924, which oversaw the initial adoption of a zoning ordinance for the community in 1925. In 1928 Edgar was hired as a professor by Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. He and Edna lived there until the late 1950s, when they moved to Lakeland, Florida.
While I could not find much information about Edna during her time in Wyoming, in St. Louis and in Florida Edna was active in her community, in politics and in government, so I assume she must have also done the same in the Cincinnati area. She served as President of the Missouri Federation of Women's Clubs, as an active member of the League of Women Voters, the Civil Liberties Union, and the Universalist-Unitarian Fellowship.
Edgar van Buskirk, Jr. lived at 123 Burns Ave. from age 11 through 16; he finished high school in Columbia, Missouri. He attended his father's alma mater, the University of Rochester, graduating in 1933. He married Elisabeth Beyer in 1935. In the 1930s he worked for the American Child Health Association in New York; the Farm Credit Administration in St. Louis; and the Michigan Municipal League in Ann Arbor; all according to reports in the Rochester Alumni Review. He was also reported to be a student in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1938 (likely graduate study at the University of Michigan). The 1940 Census finds him living in Arlington, Virginia and working in publishing for the federal government. Edgar, Jr. served in the Navy during WWII. He was living in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts at the time of his death.
The Reed Family (1928-1953)
When Edgar van Buskirk accepted the professorship at Stephens College and needed to sell his home, he found a buyer in a man he likely crossed paths with professionally, Ellery F. Reed. The following article explains Ellery's coming to Cincinnati.
The Helen S. Trounstine Foundation was established in 1917 in memory of its namesake, a young woman who was very active in local civic organizations but developed a terminal illness and died at age 27, prematurely halting her advocacy. Miss Helen S. Trounstine served as civic director of the Woman's City Club and was instrumental in the research that led to the establishment of the Juvenile Protective Association. The Helen S. Trounstine Foundation was established to do fund social research in coordination with the Community Chest (the predecessor of the United Way), and became part of that organization in 1931.
Ellery Francis Reed (1891-1978) was born in Iowa. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and served as president of several colleges, including Lenox College, which Ellery attended as an undergraduate and where he trained in the ministry. He served in the Medical Department of the U.S. Army from March to September, 1919, during WWI. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and taught at the University of Illinois and Miami University, Ohio, before coming to Cincinnati. He worked for the Community Chest until 1957, after which he did some research work for the Hamilton County Welfare Department.
Ellery married Gertrude Elizabeth King (1898-1932) in the early 1920s, before the birth of their daughter Margaret Lucy Reed (b. 1924). Their second child, Murray King Reed (b. 1927) was born just before they bought the home at 123 Burns Avenue. The family also had a live-in servant according to the 1930 census, 63-year-old widow Josephine Bobeck.
Gertrude was born in Los Angeles, California, though her family relocated to Peoria, Illinois when she was a child, where her father was a lawyer, real estate agent, and building contractor. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1919, where she was a member of Alpha Phi. While living in Wyoming, Gertrude worked as a a visiting teacher at Avondale, Bond Hill and Mary Dill Schools in Cincinnati; on the 1930 Census her occupation is noted as "social service." Gertrude passed away in 1932, at age 34, of complications from scarlet fever.
Sometime before 1940 Ellery remarried, to Ella M. Weinfurther (1885-1987). Ella was from Wisconsin, where her father ran a creamery. She worked as a teacher in her rural community of Mishicot, and then moved to Milwaukee in about 1914, where she worked as a nurse, and later became a social worker, employed by Associated Charities and then by the Travelers Aid Society. By the late 1920s she was a field director for the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work in New York City. She continued employment in the social work field after she moved to Cincinnati. After selling the home at 123 Burns in 1953, Ellery and Ella moved to Hollyhock Drive in neighboring Springfield Township.
Lucy and Murray Reed grew up in 123 Burns Ave. and attended Wyoming High School, but moved out of the Cincinnati area as adults. Lucy graduated in 1941, nominated "best looking" of her class, and went on to attend the College of Wooster. She married fellow Wooster alumni John Otis Clay in 1947.
Murray was a member of the class of 1944, nominated "most studious." He earned a his B.A. from Yale, a PhD from the University of Minnesota, and became a psychologist.
In 2002, Lucy paid a visit to the current residents of 123 Burns Avenue, which was reported on in an article in Wyoming Living. Copies of the article, as well as correspondence from Murray about the home and his experiences growing up in Wyoming, can be found in the files of the Wyoming Historical Society. Located in the basement of the City Building at 800 Oak Avenue, the historical society maintains files on every property in the city, in which any historic documentation they have collected or been given about the home is kept.
In 1900 the Beckwiths were living with Harriet's widowed father in Lockland on Anthony Wayne Ave. In 1910 they were renting a home in Wyoming, at 120 Burns Ave. (Harriet's father had remarried - to Katherine Friend). The family may have moved into the home at 123 Burns Avenue as early as 1915, when the Dilley family moved out. Living in the home with them were their sons Ralph Monroe Beckwith (1894-1968) and Wayne Izor Beckwith (1900-1984) (their middle names honor their maternal grandfather).
Younger son Wayne graduated from Wyoming High School in 1917 and attended the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the S.A.T.C. (the Student Army Training Corps) during World War I, graduating in 1922. He later lived in Westchester County New York, where he worked in the home building and life insurance industries, married, and had a family.
 |
| Source: University of Wisconsin Yearbook, 1922 via ancestry.com |
 |
| Source: University of Wisconsin Yearbook, 1917 via ancestry.com |
Older son Ralph graduated from Wyoming High School in 1912 and also attended the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1917, and was also a member of the S.A.T.C. In 1917 when he registered for the draft, he was living in Montclair, New Jersey, and was a chemical salesman for the Huron Milling Company. He enlisted as a private in the New York National Guard in July of 1917, and was repeatedly promoted until he was made an officer, a second lieutenant, in September of 1918. At this time he was sent to France, where he was assigned to Co. H of the 372nd Infantry. The 372nd, was a "colored," all African-American, infantry regiment that had been sent to France in March and seen quite a bit of action. However, in mid-September the Army replaced all its African-American officers with white officers; one was Ralph Beckwith. This occurred as the unit began to fight in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. In October Ralph was injured in a gas attack. After the 372nd returned to the United States, Ralph remained in France, and was transferred to a military police unit, through July, 1919, when he was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant and returned home.
 |
| Soldiers of the 372nd Infantry preparing to board ship in France for their return home and discharge in March 1919. (Not 100% sure, but the officer on the left looks a lot like Ralph Beckwith to me) Source: National Archives and Records Administration |
In 1920 Ralph Beckwith was back living with his parents, and was a sales manager for a canning company. In June 1921 he purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue from Grace DeForest Hall, but then sold it just two years later in July of 1923; he signed the deed while in Minnesota. Ralph went on to marry, have a family, work as a manager in the paper industry, and live in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Naples, Florida.
George and Ella Beckwith were again living with her father Monroe Izor at the time of the 1930 Census, on Anthony Wayne Avenue; his second wife had died in 1926 (Monroe is listed with three different addresses on Anthony Wayne - 306, 206, and 208. I don't know if he moved or if the Census taker was repeatedly mistaken). After Monroe Izor's death, George and Harriet Beckwith moved into one of the apartments in Hess' Flats, the apartment building facing Springfield Pike at the corner of Worthington Avenue, where they were living at the time of the 1940 Census. They later moved to New York to be near their son Wayne.
The Van Buskirk Family (1923-1928)
In 1923 Edgar Flandreau van Buskirk (1883-1976) and his wife Edna van Buskirk (1886-1983) purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue. Living with them was their son, Edgar F. van Buskirk, Jr. (1912-1986). Edgar and Edna had both been raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1908, and Edna graduated from Vassar College. Edgar taught high school in Brooklyn during the 1910s. Edna was also a teacher in New York City schools; the couple married in about 1911 and their son was born the next year. During this period, Edgar also earned a master degree from Columbia University, and from 1918-1920 he was an assistant educational director with the U.S. Public Health Service.
Edgar came to Cincinnati to be the Executive Secretary of the Cincinnati Social Hygiene Society, which promoted sex education and worked to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. In this role, Edgar gave lectures throughout Cincinnati and Hamilton County to parents and teachers, and prepared materials for programs to be held in the schools; he also was on the staff of the University of Cincinnati, lecturing to students on social hygiene. While in Cincinnati, he was working toward a PhD at Ohio State University, which he completed in 1928. Edgar's publications include co-authoring The Science of Everyday Life, (1925) a junior high school natural science textbook, still available in reprints on amazon.com; Sex and Character Education (A Course for Parents) (1925); The Place of Sex Education in Secondary Education (1928 - his dissertation); and Principles of Healthful Living (1938).
 |
| Source: amazon.com |
 |
| Edgar F. Van Buskirk, Sr. Source: Stephens College Yearbook, 1932 via ancestry.com |
 |
| Source: Lakeland Ledger (Lakeland, FL), May 16, 1978. |
 |
| Edgar F. Van Buskirk, Jr. Source: David Henry Hickman H.S. Yearbook, 1929 via ancestry.com |
When Edgar van Buskirk accepted the professorship at Stephens College and needed to sell his home, he found a buyer in a man he likely crossed paths with professionally, Ellery F. Reed. The following article explains Ellery's coming to Cincinnati.
 |
| Source: The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 7, 1925. |
Ellery Francis Reed (1891-1978) was born in Iowa. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and served as president of several colleges, including Lenox College, which Ellery attended as an undergraduate and where he trained in the ministry. He served in the Medical Department of the U.S. Army from March to September, 1919, during WWI. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and taught at the University of Illinois and Miami University, Ohio, before coming to Cincinnati. He worked for the Community Chest until 1957, after which he did some research work for the Hamilton County Welfare Department.
 |
| Fundraising Images for Community Chest Source: United Way of Greater Cincinnati |
Gertrude was born in Los Angeles, California, though her family relocated to Peoria, Illinois when she was a child, where her father was a lawyer, real estate agent, and building contractor. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1919, where she was a member of Alpha Phi. While living in Wyoming, Gertrude worked as a a visiting teacher at Avondale, Bond Hill and Mary Dill Schools in Cincinnati; on the 1930 Census her occupation is noted as "social service." Gertrude passed away in 1932, at age 34, of complications from scarlet fever.
Sometime before 1940 Ellery remarried, to Ella M. Weinfurther (1885-1987). Ella was from Wisconsin, where her father ran a creamery. She worked as a teacher in her rural community of Mishicot, and then moved to Milwaukee in about 1914, where she worked as a nurse, and later became a social worker, employed by Associated Charities and then by the Travelers Aid Society. By the late 1920s she was a field director for the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work in New York City. She continued employment in the social work field after she moved to Cincinnati. After selling the home at 123 Burns in 1953, Ellery and Ella moved to Hollyhock Drive in neighboring Springfield Township.
Lucy and Murray Reed grew up in 123 Burns Ave. and attended Wyoming High School, but moved out of the Cincinnati area as adults. Lucy graduated in 1941, nominated "best looking" of her class, and went on to attend the College of Wooster. She married fellow Wooster alumni John Otis Clay in 1947.
 |
| Source: Wyoming High School Yearbook, 1941 Wyoming Historical Society |
 |
| Source: Wyoming High School Yearbook, 1944 Wyoming Historical Society |
In 2002, Lucy paid a visit to the current residents of 123 Burns Avenue, which was reported on in an article in Wyoming Living. Copies of the article, as well as correspondence from Murray about the home and his experiences growing up in Wyoming, can be found in the files of the Wyoming Historical Society. Located in the basement of the City Building at 800 Oak Avenue, the historical society maintains files on every property in the city, in which any historic documentation they have collected or been given about the home is kept.
14 May 2016
Bequest from a Wealthy Grandparent - 123 Burns Avenue part 1
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.
 |
|
|
William and his family lived in what we now think of as downtown Cincinnati. For a long period he had a home on 4th 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.
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.
 |
| 123 Burns Avenue |
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.
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.
 |
| Source: Cincinnati Directory, Robinson & Fairbanks, 1831 |
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
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)