A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Hammond North is today was a large white frame owned by the Laboyteaux family. I learned later that ithad been built to replace the octagon house just south of it up on the hill. Across the road from it was asmall frame cottage very close to the car track. I remember that a classmate of ours lived there, but diedwith diphtheria as her family did not believe in doctors. This had once been the old toll gate house. Justabove Rockford Place, west of Hamilton Avenue, was the Wilson’s stone quarry. There were two or threehouses back there when the stone quarry was active. The quarry could be reached by a cart road offGroesbeck Road.Louise and I used to walk on Sunday afternoons. Most of the time we would walk up HamiltonAvenue to North College Hill. The traction track was on the left side of the road on a right-of-way of itsown. It traveled through North College Hill and didn’t come onto the paved way until it got into Mt.Healthy. The old Harbison place was on the left side of the road. About this time Wittekind startedbuilding the house on the east side of the road. The area from the car barn to Harbison’s old house was alla thicket. I learned later on that the old Cary Cemetery was in there, but most of it had been moved toSpring Grove. Some graves were still there and I found out later that the work gang disinterred some ofthe skeletons. Apparently, one of the graves which had been left was that of Solomon Howard which wasthen moved to Wesleyan Cemetery.Marlowe Avenue ran west of Hamilton up to Cary Avenue. I can remember going with anotherfriend to visit the Methodist Sunday School on the south side of the street. All I remember of the northside of that section was the brick police station, now the fire house for College Hill. East of HamiltonAvenue it went as far as Lantana. Most of the houses there today had been built at the time. I believe thatthe Winnises, who had the feed store, lived two doors from the path opposite Salvia and the Beckers nextto the west. I didn’t know any of the people who lived on the south side of the street. Harrell’s lived in abig two story frame on the east side of Saranac about the middle of the block. The Baechle’s lived on thewest side. I didn’t know any one on the dead end of it except the Rumpke’s, who delivered our papers. St.Clare Church on the east side and the old Hammitt place on the west side as well as a few other newerframe houses were at the dead end of Salvia. The street ended at the property line of the old Simpsonplace, which faced Hamilton Avenue.I used to make my way up Larch Avenue on some of my walks. I have very early memories of TownHall and the big fireworks displays on the Fourth of July. Mother and Dad had to take me home one veryearly holiday, because I cried in fear of the fireworks. Later on, the Public Library was in the room on thewest side of the first floor. Several of my classmates lived on Larch-Adelia Hanks lived on the south sideand Ruth Smith lived on the north side of the street in another house built from the same plan as ours.Altogether there are four homes in this area built from the same plan-the fourth one is on the west side ofHamilton Avenue in North College Hill and is a ‘guest house’ today.After crossing Davey Avenue the beautiful Bauhmann home took up a large area on the north side ofthe street-I remember that they had twin daughters. There were several more old houses past Bauhmann’s,the one just before Paul Briol’s was the old Professor Burns house. It was empty a good part of the timeafter his died-Mrs. Burns would come back occasionally to try to take care of the property. She was ascary person. I used to meet her on some of the walks I took. She had piercing black eyes, wore tennisshoes and an old coat green with age. She always smiled and spoke to me. The house being empty somuch, the kids would break into it and poke into things. Louise’s sister, Margaret Buenger, knew about itand told us some of the things they told her-getting into family pictures, one being of a member of theBurns family in his casket. Finally the house was set on fire and destroyed. Past the Briol house was thelovely big (Robert) Simpson mansion at the corner of Belmont, where the Bellwood is today. I rememberit had a big square tower, which I learned many years later was a ballroom.At the Hamilton Avenue end of Belmont was the Grace Episcopal Church, the manse and severalmore old buildings/ On the west side was the Belmont Apartment building, an old frame (still there),several small stores (now gone) and then the Ohio Military Institute. We used to like tot come up onSunday afternoon and watch the cadets drill and march-in the spring they used to parade around the hillaccompanied by their band. There was a cannon on the parade ground, which was fired at six in themorning and in the evening. The O.M.I. was always special to College Hill residents-being a part of our231