Message from the Co-Presidents | |
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We hope you had an enjoyable summer and were able to set aside time for the activities that make these months so memorable. We are excited to begin a new programming season and look forward to seeing you on Thursday, September 14 for our first monthly meeting of the year. Our featured speaker that night will be Hudson resident John Bedell, who along with his wife DeeDee, will describe the extraordinary efforts they took to rebuild their 1880s home on Hudson-Aurora Road when fire struck it in 2020. For more details, see the item below.
With this issue, we are pleased to introduce a new feature entitled Properties with Pedigrees. Each month, we plan to take a look at one of the many unique properties in Hudson and provide a little bit of history about it. Hudson is blessed with hundreds of buildings that reflect the city’s Western Reserve heritage and we hope these pieces will build an appreciation for the many such structures we are fortunate to have in our midst.
We also want to recognize Boy Scout Troop 321 as well as the local organizations and individuals who came together in August to celebrate the restoration of the Boy Scout Cabin on the Green. This landmark has a long history, and we are thrilled it has been preserved to serve the young people of our community for generations to come. For photos of the celebration and more information about this iconic Hudson structure, read below. Speaking of important restoration work, some intriguing discoveries have been made about early stencils that once graced the Baldwin Buss House. For more details about what researchers found as this project continues, click here.
Finally, we want to note the passing of Hudson resident David Adams. Both Dave and his late wife Vicki were HHA board members, and both made important contributions to our work. Just some of the highlights of Dave’s life and career in teaching are included below.
As always, we thank you for your support of Hudson Heritage Association, your membership in our organization and your interest in the work we’re doing. We hope to see you on the 14th and throughout the year ahead.
Diccon Ong & Nora Jacobs Snider
Co-Presidents
Hudson Heritage Association
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Join us September 14 for New Programming Season | |
Speaker Describes How a Symbol of Hudson's Past Rose from the Ashes
A house fire is always devasting for its inhabitants. A fire that consumes a structure dating back 140 years with a storied history and deep connections to a community’s past presents challenges to the owner that are almost beyond comprehension. Those are the challenges audience members will learn about when they attend the upcoming meeting of Hudson Heritage Association, to be held at Barlow Community Center on September 14.
The September meeting will feature John and DeeDee Bedell, whose home at 3007 Hudson-Aurora Road was struck by a catastrophic fire in June 2020. Most of the 1880 structure was lost, forcing the couple to determine how to rebuild in a way that would honor the home’s architectural past, including finding the partners to help them recreate an 1880s home in the 2020s.
Known as the Elisha M. Ellsworth House, the home was built and then occupied by members of the Ellsworth family for more than 80 years. Elisha and his wife Emma were related to some of Hudson’s earliest residents. Elisha’s father was the uncle of James Ellsworth, who was responsible for Hudson’s revitalization in the early 20th century.
John Bedell will describe the aftermath of the fire and assessment of the damage, as well as the process the couple undertook to salvage as much as possible from the house in order to incorporate it into a new structure. He will describe the team they assembled to design and build the new home, as well as the countless decisions they made with the 1880 home in mind as the work progressed.
Diccon Ong, co-president of Hudson Heritage Association noted, “The story the Bedells will tell underscores how fragile the historical structures of Hudson are. John and DeeDee Bedell are to be commended for the extraordinary efforts they took to replicate something our community lost when they easily could have opted to replace it with a 21st century design instead.”
The September 14 meeting, which begins at 7:30 p.m., marks the beginning of HHA’s 2023-2024 programming season. The meeting is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served following the presentation.
|  | Home to John and DeeDee Bedell, this Greek Revival house located at 3007 Hudson-Aurora Road was destroyed by fire in June 2020. John Bedell will describe the process they undertook to rebuild an 1880 house in 2020 when he speaks to Hudson Heritage Association September 14. | Properties with Pedigrees | |
Over the course of the coming year, we will be sharing the histories of some of Hudson’s notable historical buildings. This is the first in the series.
Loomis Observatory
Perched on a small hill overlooking the corner of College and Aurora Streets on the grounds of Western Reserve Academy, this unimposing building could easily be mistaken for some type of groundskeeping facility if it were not for the notable half-dome structure on its roof clad in copper. In fact, it is the Loomis Observatory, named for Professor Elias Loomis, a Yale tutor who joined Western Reserve College in 1836 at the age of 25 to become a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy.
One of the leading astronomers of his time, Loomis acquired the equipment for the observatory in Europe in 1837 and returned to Hudson the following year and worked closely with noted architect-builder Simeon Porter to construct the building, which was finished in 1838. Among other achievements, Loomis was one of the first men in America to observe Halley’s Comet – a feat he accomplished while still at Yale College.
Loomis Observatory is the second-oldest observatory in the United States, the oldest outside the original 13 colonies and is part of the Historic American Buildings Survey maintained by the Library of Congress. It also is the southern-most structure of WRA’s noted “Brick Row,” the buildings that make up the oldest structures at the Academy, modeled on those once found at Yale University.
For a look inside the observatory and to learn more about Professor Loomis and his work, watch this interview with WRA archivist Tom Vince. Find more images on our website.
|  | Loomis Observatory as it appears today. | Congratulations, Hudson Boy Scouts and Rotary Club! | |
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Hudson Boy Scout Cabin
Hudson Heritage Association extends hardy and heartfelt congratulations to the Hudson Rotary Club and BSA Troop 321 for the successful completion of their $200,000+ restoration of the landmark log cabin located on the West Village Green just south of Route 303. The cabin was originally built in 1931 as a combined project of these same two organizations. Hudson Township trustees also played a critical role by offering permission to build on park property. Since its dedication on August 26, 1931, the cabin has served as the weekly meeting place for Troop 321. It has also long served as the setting for annual spring flower sales, winter Christmas tree sales, Santa on the Green gatherings, and the backdrop for Hudson’s World War I memorial that lies some 40 yards to its east. However, in the intervening years, time had taken its toll on the building. The roof sagged and leaked, many of the American Chestnut logs making up the exterior of the cabin had begun to rot, and the chinking between the logs became severely compromised.
|  | A few years ago, it was recognized that if the log cabin were to provide another century of useful service to our community, then a major effort would be needed to address these deferred maintenance issues. Thus began a project that brought many different groups and individuals together to achieve a common goal. The results are impressive. The cabin now features a new roof, new rafters, new windows, a refurbished interior, a revamped HVAC system, and improved exterior landscaping (including a handsome new flagpole in front of the east entrance). Heeter Enterprises of Ravenna offered to donate and deliver replacement exterior logs very similar to the original “wormy” chestnut logs of the original structure. | Left: Guests gather for the cabin’s rededication on August 19. Right: Western Reserve Academy Historian and Archivist Tom Vince with HHA Vice President Barb VanBlarcum in front of the restored cabin. | |
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Back in August of 1931, there were reportedly some 500 citizens who gathered “in the rain” to celebrate the log cabin’s original dedication. The more modest crowd that assembled ninety-two years later, on what was more or less a picture-perfect Saturday morning, enjoyed short addresses from Hudson Rotary Chairman Keith Viers; Rotarian and former Troop 321 Scout Master Andy Morse; Hudson Mayor Jeffrey Anzevino; State Representative Casey Weinstein (Dist. 34), and Hudson City Council President Chris Foster. One of the last speakers was WRA Historian and Archivist Tom Vince who talked about the very earliest log cabins of Hudson along with the construction of this iconic structure in the depths of the Great Depression.
HHA tips its hat to the many individuals and organizations that together pulled off this important historic preservation project. According to the Rotary Club of Hudson website, over 125 Eagle Scouts worked their way to this honorable achievement starting in this little log cabin. May the next hundred years see this fine tradition continue.
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Guests had the opportunity to see firsthand the results of the multi-year restoration project following the formal rededication. | |
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HHA was saddened by news of the August 8th passing of former HHA trustee, David Adams, who served with his wife Vicki on the HHA Board in 1986 and again in 2014 - 2017.
In February 2016, Dave also presented an HHA program sharing his research about the eventful and tragic life of Adelaide Rideout, a Hudson resident (55 Oviatt Street, Grimm/Rideout House) and graduate of Western Reserve Academy, who left Hudson for the American West in her 20s to educate and prepare Sioux Indians for an uncertain future in a region undergoing rapid white settlement in the 1890s.
Dave and Vicki opened their historic house at 172 Aurora Street (the I. T. Frary House) for a reception when Christopher Busta-Peck of the Cleveland Public Library spoke about I. T. Frary who, among other achievements, researched and wrote the notable book Early Homes of Ohio, featuring many homes in Hudson.
A long-time resident of Hudson, Dave was professor emeritus at Cleveland State University. He wrote a foundational book on the American Indian boarding school experience, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928, followed by a study of ethnic and cultural boundaries in his second book, Three Roads to Magdalena: Coming of Age in a Southwest Borderland, 1890-1990. His work was cited as recently as this August 30 in an article published in The New York Times entitled “The Native American Boarding School System.”
Dave was preceded in death by Vicki and leaves behind three children, a sister, his 101-year-old mother and two grandsons.
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Dave Adams, in a photo taken by Allyn Marzulla, at the March 2015 HHA meeting held at Pierce House, Western Reserve Academy. | |
It's Not Too Late to Renew Your HHA Membership | |
If you have already joined or renewed your membership to HHA for our 2023-24 season, thank you! If not, we ask that you do it now. This annual appeal is our primary source of income and supports the work we do to provide programming, maintain our website, sponsor the historic home marker program, conduct advocacy work and raise awareness for the importance of preserving the historical character of the buildings, streetscape and architecture of Hudson. Please take a moment to visit https://hudsonheritage.org/membership/ to join or renew online. Your financial support of our mission and activities is greatly appreciated! | |
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PO Box 2218 - Hudson, OH 44236
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