September Newsletter

September 2, 2022

As Hudson Heritage begins its new membership year, we would like to extend a warm welcome to our new members and thank all our returning members. Your generous financial support shows your commitment to historic preservation and the architectural legacy of our town. For those of you who have not yet renewed, please visit https://hudsonheritage.org/membership/. 

September Program

HHA’s Program Committee has been hard at work! This month we are excited to welcome back Gwen Mayer, the Hudson Library and Historical Society’s archivist who will speak on “Historical Mysteries of Hudson.”  Please join us September 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Barlow Community Center as Hudson’s puzzling past is revealed.  More details can be found below.

1927 Building

Design work has begun on the proposed 1927 Building memorial structure that we wrote about this summer thanks to the generosity of Paul Westlake, principal of DLR Group, and his team in Cleveland.   Two or three design concepts will be presented to the Hudson City School District in September for review and comment.  All the designs incorporate the salvaged artifacts from the front façade of the building.  The HCSD and Hudson Heritage Association hope to have a final, mutually agreed upon design by December.  Once approved, Hudson Heritage Association will begin a two-year effort to raise the money needed to construct the memorial.

Perspectus Architecture in Cleveland is working on the submission of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) that documents the architectural heritage and landscape of the 1927 Building.  It is expected that the blueprints, photographs, and history of the building will be on file at the Library of Congress by early 2023.  Once submitted, the information will serve as a resource for architectural historians, restoration architects, preservationists, and scholars.  Only eight properties in Hudson currently hold this honor.

City of Hudson Comprehensive Plan

The City of Hudson will begin work on the Comprehensive Plan this fall. The document, directed by residents and local stakeholders, guides the community’s vision for the future. The Plan details a long-term vision and policy agenda for important issues in land use, housing, parks, infrastructure, transportation, and more. The Hudson City Charter requires a review and update of the Comprehensive Plan at least once every 10 years.  The last one took three years to complete and was adopted by Council in 2016. 

A Steering Committee will be selected and will meet regularly to provide guidance and an overall direction to the plan. Nineteen members will serve on the committee and will include seven residents selected through open application, seven residents appointed by Council, and five members appointed by Council from City boards and commissions.  Additionally, the City will be working with a planning consultant to assist with public engagement and plan implementation.  

Visit https://www.hudson.oh.us/694/Previous-Comprehensive-Plans to learn more about the process and how your voice can be heard.

We look forward to a productive year and seeing you at our upcoming programs!

HHA’s September Program: "Historical Mysteries of Hudson" by Gwen Mayer

Renowned local historian Gwen Mayer will be the featured speaker at the

September 8 general meeting of Hudson Heritage Association when she presents a program entitled “Neighborly and Nefarious Deeds in Hudson’s History, 1850-1950.”  The program promises to provide details of the scandals and crimes that took place in the then-sleepy village and township of Hudson, Ohio during its transformation from a rural, farming community to a growing suburban town.  Mayer intends to add “good news” stories into the mix, and will provide some surprising details about Hudson’s past during 100 of its most colorful years.

Mayer is a familiar face to many in Hudson and has been a member of the staff at the Hudson Library & Historical Society for 25 years.  She currently serves as the Library’s archivist, overseeing a collection of newspapers, maps, manuscripts, papers, genealogy materials and artifacts dating back to Hudson’s founding in 1799. It is the only such collection focused on Hudson and is dedicated to educating the community about the town’s rich history through outreach, research and events. The Historical Society also maintains one of the nation's largest research collections on abolitionist John Brown and the Brown family. 

The September 8 meeting will be held at Barlow Community Center and will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Latest Property to Receive an HHA Marker Tells the Story of an Early Neighborhood

The home at 74 E. Streetsboro, currently owned by Nicole Salmon, will receive the coveted Hudson Heritage Association marker at the September 8th meeting. The home, built in 1891, will be known as the Clarkson/Wellman House. 

The home is a gabled ell house, sometimes known as “Folk Victorian” or “Hall and Parlor,” which was common between 1870 and 1910. This style used regular floor plans, simple building techniques and local materials. The earliest examples of Victorian Folk style were timber-framed, two-story homes with the intersecting gable ridge at the same height as the front ridge, as is evident with this house.

The original foundation footprint and floor plan of the Clarkson/Wellman House are still visible and have been integrated into the modern additions. This home is exceptional in that its historical elements have been so well preserved and maintained. There are many original components in the “T” gabled sections of this house. They include flooring, trim, doors and hardware. It even has a fireplace that was featured in a book on Hudson architecture.

John Clarkson, the original owner of the house, was a railroad conductor. Clarkson was born in England in 1851 and came to America at the age of four. He married Lize when he was 29 and had four children. The house was occupied the longest by C. V. and Ella Wellman who purchased the home in 1921 and owned it for 51 years.

Research on the home uncovered an aspect of our history that is often overlooked when telling the story of Hudson’s early days. While Hudson’s first settlers came from Connecticut with David Hudson or soon after and have been thoroughly documented, another group arrived during the second half of the 1800s and is less well-known. These were the factory workers, the railroad workers and the new immigrants to America who played an important role in Hudson’s growth during that time. The area around the Clarkson/Wellman house is a key part of this story, one which will be explained at the September 8 meeting.

Historic Preservation Discovers Hidden Treasures

Recent renovation work discovered some hidden treasures at the Baldwin-Buss House and the Brewster Store.

Baldwin-Buss House

Eureka! In mid-July selective demolition of the east front porch of the Baldwin-Buss House revealed that the original fan light with its intricate molding had survived! It represents the signature work of master builder Lemuel Porter. Porter's skill and ingenuity produced the Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Presidents House on Western Reserve Academy’s campus, and the Whedon Farwell House in Hudson. All are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and are regarded as fine examples of early Western Reserve architecture.

Brewster Store

The Brewster Store once served as the National Bank of Hudson after James Ellsworth's return in 1907. The original National Safe and Lock Company vault remains in the building. After carefully removing layers of paint from the vault door, the original paint template was revealed with pin striping and other decorative accents. Such doors were often ornate and included hand-painted designs and scenes, engravings and gold-plated parts. The safe's door will be carefully restored to its previous grandeur.

Brewster Mansion, 1853

By Mark Filippelli, WRA Class of 2022

Looking back at the life and work of Anson A. Brewster provides an opportunity for us today to gain insight into what the “American Dream” might have looked like in the mid-1800s.  Anson was an early entrepreneur in Hudson who over the course of his long career owned and/or operated several properties on Main Street.  Anson grew up on a farm in Hudson, and then as a very young man spent a few years in Washington, D.C. apprenticing in the dry goods business.  In his early twenties he returned to the family farm and entered into a business partnership with Zenus Kent, a successful entrepreneur in the region.  They opened a dry goods store at the corner of Aurora Street and Main Street.  Kent provided the capital and Brewster the sweat equity.  The store thrived.  (The old Brewster Store still occupies the lot just to the west of Brewster’s Gothic Revival residence, on the corner of Aurora and Main streets, and it is currently undergoing a major interior and exterior renovation.). However, Brewster was not just a successful merchant in Hudson—in 1840 he was elected mayor.  In 1841, he was appointed judge of elections.  In 1842, he became the town’s treasurer.  He also made many contributions to Western Reserve College, eventually establishing a scholarship in his name. This is quite interesting given that Anson, himself, never went to college.

The history of the ownership of the land lot on Aurora Street upon which Brewster would eventually build his grand family residence, known today as the Brewster Mansion, is itself quite fascinating.  Owen Brown, the father of abolitionist John Brown, built a small cabin on this land in 1805 upon first arriving in Hudson from Connecticut.  Then, records show that in 1825 there was a larger framed house on this same plot of land, still owned by Owen Brown.  After that, in the 1830s, Zenas Kent bought the frame house and lot when he and Brewster went into business together as merchants.  But, in 1842 the old house that was formerly Owen Brown’s burned to the ground, and around the same time Brewster bought out Kent’s interest in their partnership and went into business alone.  By the 1850s Brewster owned most of what had been Owen Brown’s extensive holdings in the center of the village, and he subdivided the part which today is Owen Brown Street and named it “Brewster’s Addition.’’

In 1853, Brewster hired Frederick W. Bunnell to build a mansion following a design by Simeon Porter.  It was thought for many decades that Simeon Porter had himself built the mansion, but, in fact, he only provided the design with Frederick W. Bunnell supervising its construction.  Anson lived in the Brewster Mansion until he passed away in 1864. Brewster’s widow stayed in the home until her passing in the 1870s, and then the property remained in the ownership of the Brewster heirs until they sold it for $2,500 in 1902 to Henry Wehner and Patrick H. Moran.  In 1905, Moran bought out Wehner's share for $1,000, and after Moran's death in late 1927, the title was passed to his widow, Minnie, who lived there until 1948.  In 1949, it became the Elms Nursing Home and was owned by Elms for a while.  Then, in October of 1980, Mrs. Gertrude Helmke became the new owner of The Elms and wanted to do a project that would have involved a great many internal renovations to the Brewster Mansion that threatened to change its original character.  The Hudson Heritage Association opposed this plan as not likely to be “best for the community.”  In 1982, the mansion was purchased by architect and developer, Allan M. Sveda, who undertook a more preservation-minded restoration.  This included the rebuilding of fireplace mantles to match the existing Gothic Revival woodwork, the restoration of the wide-board poplar flooring, and much more.  Sveda turned the old mansion into a one-of-a-kind office space, and this remains the current use of the building today.  The most recent transfer of this property came in 1987 when it was purchased by the Continental Title Co.

The Brewster Mansion is the only stone high-style Gothic Revival house in the entire Western Reserve.  The exterior is composed of large sandstone blocks for the front facade of the building with brickwork around the sides.  It all rests upon a fairly typical sandstone foundation.  Its most distinctive feature is the pair of stone pillars rising for two stories just in front of the main entry, supporting porches on the first and second floor.  These are marked by beautiful Gothic arches and the central pillars are adorned on top with small onion-shaped domes.  The covered section of the second-floor porch creates a balcony with an enviable view of the Village Green.  There are drip moldings on the front-facing windows and a beautiful carved white door.  

When you walk into the building you enter a central hallway with a staircase leading to the second floor.  Rooms (now offices) are accessed through doors off this central hallway.  The first-floor ceilings are an impressive eleven feet high.  The interior features multiple beautiful marble fireplaces.  The floor and walls reveal several examples of impressive Gothic Revival woodwork.  Originally, the house contained some twenty different rooms.

This mansion is one of the most important pieces of architecture (and history) in all of Hudson.  It has had several owners and been put to a few different purposes over the years, but the basic beauty of the building has never changed.  Over time, this mansion served as a family residence, a hotel, a wedding hall, a nursing home, and now an office building.  

When Brewster first built his home in 1853 it was with the idea that it would be the first of many fine homes that would eventually line Aurora Street when the expected railroad boom transformed Hudson into a thriving market town.  That dream went bust when a planned railway line failed to materialize followed shortly thereafter by the economic disruption caused by the Panic of 1857.  It would, in fact, be another century until the construction of the Ohio Turnpike would make the town more accessible to would-be commuters.  Thus, the growth expected in the mid-nineteenth century only came to fruition in the latter half of the twentieth century.  Still, Brewster’s fine home remains today as an example of the forward-thinking mindset of an early town booster.  

Welcome New HHA Board Members

We are excited to introduce two new members to the HHA board this year: Erin Dickinson and Barbara Breedon VanBlarcum. Profiles of these talented and enthusiastic individuals appear below. We look forward to learning more about their creative ideas, interests, and perspectives.

Erin Dickinson

Erin grew up in Stow and was a day student at Western Reserve Academy, graduating in 1999. After that, she obtained a BA in History and English from Vanderbilt University and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. She practiced Business Litigation for nine years before becoming a stay-at-home parent. She and her husband, Michael VanBuren, also a WRA grad, have four sons. Last year, they moved their family back to Hudson from Broadview Heights. Erin is active in the community, serving as an Executive Board Member for Community Legal Aid and is currently a member of Summit County Council. 

Barbara Breedon VanBlarcum 

Barb just recently retired as HCTV’s Program Director. Over her many years with HCTV, Barb established an exemplary history of working in the community media industry. She honed her skills in video production and editing, team building, public speaking, and fundraising. She is a strong media and communication professional with a B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University and a M.Ed. in Educational Tech/Curriculum & Instruction from Kent State University. She is also, of course, a beloved and long-standing member of the greater Hudson community. In fact, in 2020 she was awarded Good Day in Hudson’s Citizen of the Year Award.

2022-23 Program Dates

Plan to join us for our popular monthly programs. Unless otherwise noted, these meetings are open to the general public and are held in the Assembly Room of Barlow Community Center at 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments are provided. A schedule for the upcoming programming year follows:

October 13

"Who Names the Neighborhoods" by CWRU's Professor John Grabowski

November 10

The "Other Douglass": H. Ford Douglas & the Ohio Black Convention Movement by WRA's Dr. Erik Chaput

December

No meeting

January 12

(To be determined)

February 9

(To be determined)

March 9

(To be determined)

April 13

(To be determined)

May 11

HHA Annual Meeting - TBD