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

Almost from its beginning College Hill has had a small African American population. There wasalways a strong Abolitionist element residing on the hill. There were a number of places in whichescaping slaves could be hidden. Mrs. Anna Benison, a descendant of the Strong family, told me howslaves used to come up the ravine on the east side of the hill, where the old railroad line was located, andcome up to the Freeland Strong home on Hamilton Avenue near where Hillcrest Avenue is today. Theywould be told to creep in under a huge brush pile in the gully beside the road and given sacks to coverthemselves. The Strong children would play around on the brush pile carrying sacks of food, which theywould carelessly drop, and would fall down into the brush for the hungry blacks hidden underneath. Afterdark the wagon would be hitched up with a goodly supply of straw in its bed for the slaves to hide under.Mr. Strong would then drive out the old Colerain road (now Belmont Avenue) to the next station on theUnderground Railroad, which was the old brick house at the northeast corner of Colerain and Springdaleroads. We never did discover who the conductor at that location was.There were always a few African American students in our classes at school. As I grew older anddeveloped an interest in history, I learned that some of our African American families had been here fromthe time of the Civil War or before. Many of the wealthy families on the hill employed them and builthomes on the east side of the hill for their servants. The Howard family had a stone quarry down alongthe traction line on the east side of the hill. There were some five or six houses down along the tracks forthe African American quarry workers. There were some living on Lantana, St. Elmo, Cedar, Piqua, Argusand Elsie, along with the Crawford Home for old African American men on North Bend road.The most prominent African American family n College Hill were the Lockers. Jesse was alwayshighly regarded on the hill. Rev. Laban Locker, a Christian Church minister, was his father, who preachedat the little Christian Church on Cedar at the corner of Piqua. After his father died, his mother, ElizabethLocker, brought the children from their old home in Mt. Healthy and located on Piqua so the childrencould go to College Hill School. Jesse was a top student and was the valedictorian of his class when hegraduated from the old College Hill High School. As a schoolboy he went to the Grace Episcopal Churchand pumped the organ for the services. He was a Cincinnati Council member for some years and later wasappointed as Ambassador to Liberia, where he died in 1955. His body was flown back to Cincinnati in amilitary plane. He lay in state in the Cincinnati Council Chambers; a representative from PresidentEisenhower being here for the funeral. It was probably the largest funeral procession ever seen inCincinnati as he was taken from City Hall to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Mt. Healthy for burial.John Robinson, although he lived in West College Hill, was a well known and well liked figure inCollege Hill. He had a team of horses and did a lot of hauling for College Hill residents. His son,Lafayette ‘Lefty” Robinson said his father used to take wagon loads to the railroad station for residents ofthe Glenwood Apartments when they were starting off to Michigan for their summer homes. He was alsothe man whom I remembered from my early childhood with a snow plow cleaning the sidewalks ofCollege Hill. His mother was a half-sister to Elizabeth Locker, Jesse Locker’s mother. Many of the oldtime residents of the hill have fond memories of the Robinson family.Most members of the African American families on the hill worked in one capacity or another formany of the old families in the area. Ola Mills, of the family on Piqua, worked for the Partl family onCary Avenue. The Morris family was another old family living on Lantana. John Morris was a carpenterand built some of the houses on Piqua. His wife Julia and their daughter, Ida, was Matie Bowman’s cook.Her daughter, Dorothy (Wyley) remembers going to the Bowman home many times to help her mother.The Smith family lived next door to the Imes’ on St. Elmo and ‘Chick” Smith was a well known footballstar. One old man named Higginbottom lived in the old Crawford home and worked for ‘Dusty’ Zimmeron Belmont. He used to tell stories of his father, who was a slave. If only more stories had been handeddown!241