Certainly Route 42 was one of the underground routes, and the tavern could well have been a station or stopping place, but no specific proof of this has yet been found.” “There is a belief that before and during the Civil War, the tavern had been used as a stopover for slaves who fled north via the ‘underground railroad’. At that time – approximately the same time Virginia Shewalter was writing her book – it seems the home’s legacy as a safe house for slaves seeking refuge was still mostly considered to be just a rumor. The property was last sold in the mid-1970s to its current owners, the Vaught family. This location operated as a tavern through the 1800s and a hotel in the 1900s, later opening for a brief stint as a restaurant, called the Colonial Farm Restaurant or Colonial Inn, in the 1940s and 1950s.
In the 200 years since those days, a number of new owners have inhabited the building as both a home and a place of business. James married his first wife Anna Layman Conrey in 1816 and the couple, devout Methodists and noted abolitionists, were known to regularly host retreats here for traveling members of the clergy. Conrey inherited this nearly 2-acre property from his father Jonathan Conrey in 1827. Conrey House, among other names, due in part to its monumental legacy.Īs described on page 123 of Virginia Shewalter’s, “A History of Union Township, Butler County, Ohio,” James D. The house, which dates to the turn of the 19th century, is sometimes referred to as the Spread Eagle Tavern or the James D. Other notable features include a limestone foundation, a U-shaped floorplan, two enclosed side porches and a stately columned front porch, visible from the street looking west.
Did you know West Chester, Ohio is home to a documented stop on the Underground Railroad?īuilt before the Civil War about a mile north of the Sharonville border in Butler County, the now privately-owned property at 9797 Cincinnati Columbus Road (US 42) in Pisgah is legendary as a stop on the path to freedom for enslaved African Americans.ĭesigned in the Early Republic/Colonial Revival style (sometimes also described as Greek Revival or Jeffersonian Classicism), the structure is aptly known by the name Seven Chimneys for some of its striking architectural characteristics, namely its seven brick chimneys.
0 kommentar(er)
