The Old Stone House: Part 4

For decades train excursionists would disembark on Ninth Street and walk past the Old Stone House (green arrow) on their way to a day of fun at Rock Springs Park.

Eighth-grader John Chaney wrote a story about his favorite house in Chester, West Virginia, the Old Stone House in the city’s “upper end.” His story became a two-year research project in high school and a book in 1966.

Chaney wrote that he often wondered about the family that built the Old Stone House. One story he discovered claimed that George Washington owned the land as it was given to him by the state of Virginia for services rendered during the French and Indian War. The grant was for 1,000 acres and included "a one-half mile frontage on the Ohio River, extending from the mouth of Mark's Run and extending back from the river, through the center of what is now Rock Springs Park to a point south of Lawrenceville."

The land and the house, once the property of the Mark’s Family came under the ownership of C.A. Smith in 1900. Both were part of a deal struck with Rock Springs Park owner J.E. McDonald. Smith built his own home slightly to the west and just above the Old Stone House on Pyramus Avenue, a vantage point that gave him an unobstructed view of his pottery and his newly acquired amusement park. Smith’s home was built with all the latest modern conveniences on a terraced hillside with beautiful landscaping, but the Old Stone House below was a mere shell of its former self, having been raided and lived in by wandering vagrants.

Chaney wrote, "Mr. McDonald let the Old Stone House stand open for a period of time. During this time it became a stopping place for hoboes. People came to the house and took away anything that wasn't nailed down - windows, glass, window frames, fixtures of all kinds, doors, and any woodwork. The house was truly a big mess."

It did not take long before Mrs. C.A. Smith decided to fix up the house for her son "Dunc" Smith. The inner walls were completely removed and the house was reinforced with steel rods and a stucco addition which added a larger kitchen downstairs and an additional bathroom upstairs. These changes and others saved the Old Stone House from total destruction and have kept the dwelling habitable for over 100 years.

The Old Stone House as it looks today. Present owners are “Rusty” and Janice Smith (Courtesy of Vicki Robinson Jordan).

RSP Mural Artist Offers Painting Class

(Mural of Rock Springs Park by Craig Wetzel.)

If you still live in the Chester/East Liverpool area, Craig Wetzel, who has been highlighted here for his murals of Rock Springs Park, is offering a basic painting course at Pick's Photo & Studio in E. Liverpool, beginning in October. Details can be found here.

Class Description:

There have been some changes to the Fundamentals of Painting Class, the most important being that, through Ashland University’s Professional Development Services, graduate credit will be given upon completion of the course, which will be worth 1 credit hour. Furthermore, in order to meet the accreditation requirements, the class will be extended by one additional session and the times will now be from 6 – 8:30 pm. There is no change in cost for the additional 4.5 hours. Material requirements will be mailed to course participants next week and a detailed outline of each class session will be posted on the instruction page soon.

The Old Stone House: Part 3

In his book, a young John Chaney in 1965 traces the history of the Old Stone House in Chester, West Virginia. The home still stands today on Carolina Avenue near the spot once occupied by Rock Springs Park. Both the park and the house have histories which include Native American and early pioneer visitors including, it is widely believed, George Washington on one of two trips in the area. But Chaney also mentions another legend that may have passed through on his way to Ohio – a legend whose name is carved into a wooden border in the kitchen of the nearly 200-year old home.

"A DREAM OF HOME"

"I saw the Old Stone House and faces I love,
I saw Chester's valleys and hills,
The apple trees that swayed and seemed to say,
Johnny Appleseed came thru this way!
I listened with joy to the echo of the old village bell.
The log was burning brightly,
'Twas a night that should banish all sin,
The bells were ringing the Old Year out and the New Year in."

This marker located in Franklin, PA, 84 miles north of Pittsburgh, describes French Creek as the area where Mr. Appleseed lived between 1797 and 1804!

Many know Johnny Appleseed as a folk hero, but unlike Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, Johnny was a real man. “(Chester) area lore has it,” wrote Chaney, “that one John Chapman stopped and spent a night at the Old Stone House when he was distributing his apple seeds in the area. John is better known by the name given to him by folklore as 'Johnny Appleseed."


According to Richard Price, John Chapman's only biographer, Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts on September 26th, 1774. He left home at fifteen to travel west, starting in Warren, Pennsylvania, where he began to plant apple trees. A devotee of the philospher, Emanuel Swedenborg, claimed John saw planting apples as part of a spiritual journey in a time when many in the United States were interested in philosophies that emphasized the importance of 'nature'. Apples were also smart to plant financially. They could be eaten fresh, used in pies, dried and made into cider, hard and not hard. In many ways Johnny Appleseed was indeed an early ecologist, realizing that planting trees was not only good for pioneers but for the environment.

About 1800, John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) and his brother collected a large quantity of apple seeds near Pittsburgh and floated down the Ohio River in canoes to what is now Wellsburg, W. Va., where they planted several apple nurseries. So it is not only possible, but very likely that Chapman like Samuel Marks only a few years later came to Chester by flatboat.

Coming Soon: Rock Springs Park owner, C.A. Smith, acquires the Stone House as part of a huge land deal, but it is his wife who rescues it from destruction.

Old Stone House: Part 2

The Stone House as it looks today. This is actually the back of the house which faces Carolina Avenue and the Ohio River. Find out why in today's installment of "The Old Stone House."

In the early 1830s, Samuel Marks and family arrived by flatboat from Pittsburgh and landed at the south side of East Liverpool, Ohio, then the northern-most point of Virginia. He purchased 1,000 acres of the "Cochrin land" for $1,000 or $1.00 an acre. It was this same land that J.E. McDonald would purchase fifty years later in order to construct his "Showcase of the East": Rock Springs Park.

John Chaney in his book "The Old Stone House" wrote of this period and the Marks' beloved home. "At one time this area was inhabited by Indians. Naturally there were many Indian trails. A trail that they (the Indians) used was still quite visible when the Marks came. The house was built facing the trail, very peculiar since most homes were built facing the river."

At the time Chaney was writing in 1966, the exterior of the Stone House was blackened due to its proximity to the industrial centers of the area: several potteries and a tin mill along the Ohio River. However he points out that originally the stone was a "creamy tan...sparkling with those glittery things that are in sandstone," beautiful and still visible in the basement untouched by the elements and factory smoke.

Because of the tools which were used to cut the stone blocks, none of the windows in the house are the same size. The house is supported by huge tree trunks split in half that run overhead for the entire length of the basement and still show the axe marks where the trees were shaped nearly two hundred years ago. The basement also includes a fireplace, as did every room in the house, until the ones in the upstairs were "blocked up and had false walls put in front of them," during a renovation in the 1950s according to Chaney.

Coming Soon: Johnny Appleseed and the Old Stone House

Old Stone House: Part 1

(From the collection of Sayre W. Graham, Sr.)

In 1966, John Chaney, who was just a high school sophomore, wrote about his one true love for a research paper. Unusual as it may sound for a teenager to share such a personal story with his high school English class; it is nothing when compared to the fact that he had it published and distributed throughout his hometown and the surrounding area.

"I am in love," Chaney began. "The one I love is not mortal; she has observed the world for one hundred and thirty-one years. She has more grace and charm than some ladies I know...the one I love is a house." John was referring to The Old Stone House in Chester which sits below one-time Rock Springs Park owner C.A. Smith's House in the “upper end” of Chester. When Smith purchased the land and the park, he got the Old Stone House in the bargain. In fact, were it not for the improvements to the house made by Smith's wife for their son "Dunc", the old home probably would not be around today.

The Stone House and property was originally part of the Mark’s Estate. The Marks were one of only two two farming families in what was once the “South Side” of East Liverpool in the early 1800s. The Marks Farm was in the east and the Gardner' s Farm west. The two connected only by a rutted dirt road.

Before the Chester Bridge was constructed, people traveled by ferry from Ohio to then Virginia via the Broadway Wharf in Liverpool (pictured above in 2009) and across the Ohio River to where the marina is today, at the foot of the aptly named “Ferry Road” on the Gardner Farm. They would then have travelled by foot, horse and buggy or cart to the Mark’s Farm and its Rock Springs Grove for picnics and church outings.

The shaded wood grove was fed by Rock Springs and a small creek, later called Marks Run. Within fewer than fifty years, and the construction of a new bridge and trolley line, Rock Springs Grove was transformed into Rock Springs Amusement Park.

Marks Run(Courtesy of Richard Bowker)

John Chaney’s first love, the Old Stone House, would have been witness to all these events listed above for it was the Mark’s Family who built the stone house from rocks quarried in the hills above Rock Springs Park known today as Lawrenceville. The Marks purchased their property in 1816 from heirs of George Washington and a team of oxen hauled the hand-cut stone over the hillside to a flat area above the river bank.

George Washington had traveled through these western lands on more than one occasion and chose the site as part of a plan meant to compensate him for his years of service to the colonial war effort and the new nation. "Legend also holds," wrote Chaney 150 years later, "that George Washington had a log cabin erected, by what was later called Marks Run, for the use of the caretaker. It was into this cabin that the Marks Family moved when they came down the river from Pittsburgh.

Next, in Part 2, Samuel Marks builds the beloved Stone House on a plateau overlooking the Ohio River.

Slovak Day

PÁS Junior Group at Kennywood's Slovak Day.

Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, PA, still holds annual community picnic and cultural heritage days including Serbian Day, Greek Day, Italian Day, Slovak Day, and others. The Slovak celebration is typically held on the third Thursday in July and includes a mass celebrated on the park grounds, food and music. This tradition is carried over from Rock Springs Park who hosted the event as late as July 18, 1965, according to a news brief in the Beaver County Times.

Beaver County Times - July 16, 1965

30th Slovak Day Slated Sunday

The 30th Ohio Valley Slovak Day, which includes the entire tri-state area, will be held Sunday at Rock Springs Park, Chester, W.Va. Rock Springs Park is located on Route 30, about 36 miles west of Pittsburgh.

The program will open with a Slovak dialogue mass in honor of SS. Cyril and Methodius, the national apostles of the Slovaks, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Toronto, Ohio. This will be the first Slovak mass to be celebrated in this area. Msrgr. Andrew R. Beros will celebrate the mass.

Following the church services, a picnic basket dinner will be held at Rock Springs Park dining pavilion from noon till 4 p.m. Coffee and soft drinks will be available at the park.

The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakia) is a landlocked state in Central Europe bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south.

Cattle Barn Remains

(Courtesy of Sayre W. Graham, Jr.; from the collection of Sayre W. Graham, Sr.)

In my previous blog entry, I posted this image of Rock Springs Park owner – C.A. Smith’s cattle barn. The image is from the collection of Sayre W. Graham, Sr. and was shared by his son, Sayre, Jr.

Curious about the location of the barn in what had been the Hill Crest Farms property along Smith Road in New Cumberland, WV, I made an attempt to locate the only remains of the barn, its silo, using Google Maps’ satellite feature. Unfortunately, I was not able to zoom in enough to make out the silo from Google, but Sayre, Jr., who still lives in the area, went to the site and took this terrific shot of the silo this week.

He wrote, “I took a ride over Smith Road on the way home today. I've seen this silo many times but I never knew about the Smith barn.”

(Courtesy of Sayre W. Graham, Jr.)

I mistakenly referred to the original image above as a postcard, but Sayre, Jr. pointed out that it is one of many promotional photographs taken of structures built by the Finley Brothers Construction Company of Chester, WV, of which Sayre W. Graham, Sr. was a trusted employee for many years. Finley Bros. constructed many buildings in the area, including several structures in Rock Springs Park, the City Hall, and Chester High School. After Bob Finley retired, Sayre Graham, Sr. started Graham Construction and built the IGA and the VFW in town. Bob then came out of retirement and worked for Graham.

It is interesting to note that the roof of the barn did not have any supports, but was “a clear span from end to the other,” according to one-time Chester resident Barry Smith on Facebook’s “You grew up in Chester or Lawrenceville if you remember...” page.