Tickets for what’s being described as an early American dinner are $40. For details or a reservation, go to info@crabill homestead.org.
David and Barbara Baer Crabill came to Ohio in 1808 from Loudoun County, Va., just outside of Washington, D.C.
“They apparently came with a family named Voss,” said George Berkhofer, who was director of the Clark County Historical Society when it assumed responsibility for the Crabill House in the early 1970s. (The house passed to the George Rogers Clark Heritage Association in 2010.)
A happy arrangement
The Crabills “were very poor when arrived with no money to even buy a cow,” says one account. “They lived and worked for brothers Thomas and Solomon Voss for a number of years. David worked in the fields and Barbara kept house for them.”
The two families had “a very happy arrangement,” according to another account — happy enough that the Crabills in 1810 named their fourth child Thomas Voss Crabill.
In all, a dozen Crabill children would help their parents clear 160 acres they bought in Moorefield Twp. in 1816, part of it a hillside that sits above Lake Lagonda at the C.J. Brown Reservoir.
“The trip (to Ohio) had been so exhausting and the first years so hard,” says a history, that once the family had “their very own place in the wilderness overlooking the beautiful Buck Creek Valley (they) decided to name their new home ‘The Promised Land.’ They even had this name stamped on their grain sacks.”
Another account says they called the house itself Fairview for its fair view of the valley below.
If those accounts seem a tad romantic, Berkhofer said the Crabills’ labors were anything but.
“David Crabill evidently was a strong stable person who made do with his family in the new world” when many did not, he said. “Crabill stayed around and eventually amassed a huge amount of land,” nearly 1,000 acres at the time of his death.
While that in itself would have been an accomplishment, Crabill also apparently dug out from nearly $15,000 in debt along the way — a debt he assumed as a cosigner of a note the primary signer failed to make good on.
At first living in a log cabin on the site, the Crabills built their home in the early 1820s, after David’s service in the War of 1812.
Mule work
Berkhofer, an architectural historian, said the house is done in the Federal vernacular style, meaning it was an everyday example of the Federal style favored in the 1800s.
The style developed “in the early republic (when) the nation defined itself by incorporating democratic ideas from ancient Greece and the Republic in ancient Rome,” says a history of the home. “This filtered into politics, philosophy, architecture and even into fashion and furniture.”
All that talk might have seemed high-falutin’ to the family that was just trying to put a respectable roof over its head.
“Probably the Crabills themselves knew a lot about construction,” Berkhofer said.
But they also may have had the help of a house builder, who often traveled with plans.
Not having to worry about modern conveniences like central heating and wiring, the house was a “relatively simple” project, Berkhofer said.
“You’re setting up a foundation of stones on the ground and you’re laying brick on that. When the bricks get high enough, you put cross timbers in and you start another floor. If I were young and strong, I could do it,” he said.
The problem Berkhofer might have today would be coming up with a mule to mix the mud for the bricks on site.
The technique of the time called for digging down to clay, then pouring in water and having the mule mix the water and clay together by hoofing around in it.
When it reached the right consistency, the mixed clay was put into brick molds, dried in the sun and eventually baked.
A report on file at the Clark County Historical Society described the property at large.
“A spring supplied water, which was carried by hand up a steep hill. This spring served a spring house, where perishable food products were kept in running water. Nearby was a small barn for cows. Also a chicken house, and no doubt a smoke house. The main barn of hewed timbers sat on the hill above the house.”
A cold day
The house had stood on the spot for nearly 150 years when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bought the property in preparation for building the dam and reservoir.
Realizing that the house might be salvageable, the Corps decided to slightly relocate the spillway and looked around for anyone who might be interested in the home.
“They had tried about everybody” when they approached Historical Society board member R. Carleton Bauer, Berkhofer said.
“On a cold, miserable afternoon, he drove me out to the place,” said Berkhofer, who soon warmed to the task.
“As the weather got better, we started working on it inch by inch.”
“The cabinetry had been stripped out and a great deal of the historical woodwork,” he said.
Fortunately, the late John Prosser owned a nearby house of similar age nearby “and gave us all the woodwork,” Berkhofer said.
Gale Zerkle installed much of it, including a primitive mantel in the kitchen that Berkhofer said was “almost a duplicate of the one in Mount Vernon. Hollis and Leonard Zerkle also pitched in, rebuilding the front porch and doing brick and some plaster work.
Meanwhile, Berkhofer was inside kneeling beside a galvanized tub scrubbing off bricks handed to him by David Sheley, who repaired and rebuilt fireplaces in the parlor, dining room, kitchen and an upstairs room.
Another major contribution came from Wallace Dillingham, who went to work repairing the walls.
“He replaced yard after yard of plaster,” Berkhofer said.
In the years since, many have participated in the upkeep of the house, with contributions from the Crabill family, the Turner Foundation and countless volunteers.
A telling timber
Berkhofer said that in the process of fixing the house up, he discovered it was grossly overbuilt.
When replacing timbers, “we ordered them from a rural sawmill” to get the 8- to 10-inch square logs needed.
Supporting timbers of that size were “not necessary whatsoever,” he said.
On the other hand, they may have been a symbol of the stout staying power of a family whose frontier home has survived for nearly 200 years.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368.
About the Author