Posted on 07/24/2012 5:51:29 PM PDT by Pharmboy
There is a lot of history there.
The oldest building still remaining in the original Connecticut Western Reserve is in my home town.
If it dates to 1679, it was surely French.
The Newly formed America did not settle the area until the late 1770s.
There was no “farm country” back in the day.
I’m thinking local tavern/trading post/inn.
The only thing that does not make sense as a last resort fighting place, is the ground level door.
The slotted window (guns) and the small widow (guns) make sense and the large second level entrance makes sense if the ladder for egress can be retracted.
which is why my hunch is this structure dates from the late 1700’s (post Rev) or very early 1800’s, when settlers were moving into Ohio and were still vulnerable to attacks into the 1790’s (or later into the 1800’s? Ohio historians?)
someone was settled on this land enough to build a stone structure -
just wonder if they have investigated whether the stone is encasing or replaced an older log structure, as has been suggested occurred with some of the original log blockhouses in pre-Rev war PA that are contained within later built homes
That is where they found my ancestor Lochry’s 1774 blockhouse- within a farmhouse built over it
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/blockhouse.html
There are some other very interesting sites in Ohio. In Independence, out side of Cleveland, A friend’s Great Grandmother owned a farm on the North East corner of Valley View and Rockside roads, This farm pre-dated the Firelands era, There was an ancient family cemetery right up close to Rockside. The farm was in the Cuyahoga River Valley. On a tall hill on the South East side were the remains of what was rumored to be a fort, and that quite a battle had taken place there, with Indians. When we explored there as kids, all that was left were large sandstone blocks.
The area is now all office and light industrial. I went into the office building that was built over the family graveyard, and asked them if they ever had strange things happening. I told them that i had witnessed the construction of their building, and that I had watched the old family graveyard just plowed under. Some of the people I talked to were quite disturbed by that news.
I have seen similar structures in Apache areas in Az that were small with slotted windows for fighting the indians as a last resort.
Larger wooden structures were built around them over the years and the old “safe” place was a place of last resort for security within the wooden building but not fighting.
Over the ages the wooden structures were lost and only the old hidey hole remains.
There are more reported “ghost story’s” in Ohio than any other state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Pitt_Blockhouse
The Ft Pitt Blockhouse, oldest “authenticated” structure west of the Alleghenies
Second floor opening could have been knocked out or enlarged later if the building was converted to farm or other use
The gun slot tips me off, and the small size of it.
Lots of things change with time.
It’s hard to date some of this stuff.
Where I grew up we became the county seat, but there where political tensions, and the Court house was burnt down and all records were lost
http://www.mahoninghistory.org/wdyk9-countyseat.htm
I don’t believe it. How could someone build a fort without paved roads and bridges in place? Whoever built it didn’t do it without the Government’s help.
And no moats full of alligators LoL
I’m going to have to check that out.
Close to home.
Heh! Could be. There were a lot of them and they seemed to be, uh......very prolific. heheheh. One of his grandsons was Joshua Frye Speed, Lincoln’s room-mate and “BFF” of notoriety.
Time for an archaeological Dig at this place and see what that says. I think there was more to the place—wooden buildings now gone (or burned) Maybe some bodies buried there too.
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