Cornwall Borough resident Bruce Chadbourne offers another of his “Who Knew?” installments of Cornwall history.
There stands on the corner of Walnut and S. Ninth streets a small Victorian mansion with a story, one with great acts of kindness that span multiple generations of Lebanon’s rich history. And yes, it even includes iron, horses, a dash of the Coleman family, and some gold.
Today the mansion is the home of “Agape House,” a women and children’s shelter operated by the Lebanon Rescue Mission. The organization purchased the home in 1985 for $50,000; the project became a mission that united all sectors of Lebanon, rallying agencies, 48 churches, civic organizations, community 10k runs, benefit concerts, and other events. All told nearly $300,000 was raised to transform the deteriorating house from one of neglect into a comfortable home for women and children, a home that has now served Lebanon for nearly 40 years.
“AGAPE” was a word found in the Lebanon newspapers nearly every week for over a year, with articles and editorials reporting every inch of progress of the fund-raising goal until the shelter’s opening in late September 1986. A large crowd had gathered for the anticipated event, despite the discouraging rains.
Agape (ah-GAH-pay) is an important Greek word used in the Christian scriptures that means “Love” of the highest kind – active, giving, sacrificial. Our concept of the word “charity” is one facet of that grand word. Kindness is another.
That house on the corner had been known for years as the DeHuff house, although in fact it was first the home of the Nutting family. The DeHuffs resided in another grand mansion six blocks east on Chestnut Street.
If not too confusing – the DeHuff family came to live in the Nutting’s house at 139 South 9th Street, and the Nutting family moved into in the DeHuff house at 239 Chestnut, which became known about town as the “Nutting House.” Beginning in the 1950s this house was transformed into a kindergarten, going through several phases as a nursery and day care until 1999, when purchased and restored as a private residence.
If you pull on the thread connecting those two families, significant pieces of Lebanon history unravel.
A ghost story debunked
A myth of a haunting unfortunately arose around the legend of the DeHuff and Nutting homes. It goes like this:
A. (for Abraham) Gilbert DeHuff had built his grand home at the corner of Chestnut and 3rd streets in 1882. He and his wife Emma Greenawalt DeHuff raised 9 children through 1893. Late in 1882 their two young daughters Mary and Margaret died at ages 3 and 5 of diphtheria. This much is true.
It was also said that the Nuttings, living at their Victorian mansion at Walnut and South 9th streets, had lost two young children. This is not true – their four children all lived into adulthood.
The myth continues that the two grieving families decided to swap homes, believing the houses had something to do with their tragedies. The grief was real, but it was an act of kindness and inter-family connections that led to the exchange of the two properties.
Let’s back up and tell the real story.
A. Gilbert DeHuff (1838-1897)
The writing of this story was precipitated by the recent visit by A. Gilbert DeHuff’s great-grandson John DeHuff, Jr. with his son to the Lebanon Rescue Mission.
John, a New Jersey man, came researching family genealogy. His father, John Sr., had grown up in the Walnut Street mansion and John Jr. would later visit on occasion in his youth. He knew it well as the “DeHuff house.”
Abraham Gilbert DeHuff’s father Henry was a coppersmith (as was his grandfather) from the Lancaster and York communities before moving to Lebanon by 1820. The previous generations had descended from John DeHuff (1704-1751) of Alsace, France, among the Huguenots (persecuted French protestants) who came to the Lancaster region. Henry had 14 children by two wives; Sarah his first wife died nine years into their marriage. Gilbert was the third child of Henry’s second marriage to Margaret Arndt.
According to his obituary Gilbert’s early education was the “old Lebanon Academy,” under Professor J. H. Kluge.
At age 24 Gilbert is found in Washington D.C. registered in the census as a printer. During the Civil War he served in the Navy in 1862, as the clerk of Captain John C. Beaumont, who later became Admiral, and served on several warships.
John Jr. shared the story from Gilbert’s civil war diaries of a document Gilbert received from the war department; he was awarded several hundred dollars as his share of the profit from their capture of a Confederate ship.
Back in Lebanon a few years after the war, he purchased a surveying business from Isaac Hoffer and John Yingst. According to the 1870 census he lived at home in the second ward at 264 Chestnut Street with his mother Margaret (father Henry having died in 1854), and was registered as a railroad clerk. He would continue working for many years for William C. Lorenz, resident engineer of the Lebanon Valley Railroad. (Note: This railroad is the line that continues to run through Lebanon today, from Reading to Harrisburg, previously as the Philadelphia-Reading and now Norfolk Southern.)
In 1870, Gilbert married Emma Greenawalt, whose family name (an Americanized form of German Grünewald) appears in previous generations of the DeHuffs, and among residents in the region today. Her parents were Charles and Mary Ann Greenawalt, registered as a merchant in the 1850 Lebanon census.
Gilbert’s surveying career had transformed into “civil engineer,” as registered in the 1874 Lebanon city directory, where he lived with his young family at 416 Cumberland Street. Six years later the census shows his family growing, as was his career as a civil engineer.
DeHuff’s employment with the railroad continued until early 1877, having been stationed in Reading, when his job was discontinued by the railroad’s “retrenchment” (what we now call “down-sizing”).
A house of heartbreak
In 1882 DeHuff built the grand mansion on the lot across from his mother’s property, to become 239 Chestnut Street at the corner of 3rd Street. Appearing in Philadelphia architect Isaac Hobbs’ book and in an 1883 women’s magazine, the home is described as a French Gamber Cottage, shown with detailed floor plans, built of brownstone and finished with hardwood throughout, at a cost of $9,000. Another account describes limestone coming from the Lancaster quarry.
It was in that house just months after its completion that two daughters died of diphtheria, first Margaret at age 3, and then two weeks later their older daughter Mary at age 5. The dual tragedies cast a deep shadow over the blessing of their grand new home.
The shadow persisted five years until in 1887 (the same year he lost his job with the railroad) when the DeHuffs “down-sized” and exchanged properties with the Nuttings. He sold the 239 Chestnut house to Nutting at a profit for $16,000 and bought the “Nutting House” at 139 South 9th Street for $10,000. From that point on the two houses became known by the names of their new owners.
So, it was not ghosts, but a mixture of necessity, and perhaps some grief at losing two precious daughters five years earlier.
Introducing the Greenawalt and Meily families – “It’s complicated”
Gilbert’s wife Emma was the daughter of Charles Greenawalt, proprietor of a hardware store on Cumberland Street. The newspaper report of his death describes the Greenawalt family as “one of Lebanon’s oldest and most esteemed.”
Greenawalt’s original hardware store was adjacent to the home of John Meily. John’s first wife, Helen Halter, of Washington D.C. died in 1873. As it turns out, Helen’s younger sister Louisa had become married to Lyman Nutting.
After Helen’s death, John Meily married “Kate” (Catherine) DeHuff, daughter of the hardware store proprietor next door and sister of Gilbert.
Keeping all in the family, John’s younger brother Richard later married the younger DeHuff sister, Anna.
Although the Colemans were renown for being born into an iron dynasty, other iron families in Lebanon arose from marriage. The Meilys were iron men, in business with Lyman Nutting since 1867. It is through this connection that the Nuttings and DeHuffs became related socially, attending functions in the DeHuffs’ Chestnut Street home (more on these details in the next installment).
If it helps untangle the names, the above diagram illustrates the inter-family relationships among ten siblings and spouses (arrows indicate marriages).
The diagram would be further complicated by including the Garner and Gloninger family connections. The “ten” remain together as they now share in common their final resting place in Mount Lebanon Cemetery at 235 East Maple Street.
Not iron but sandstone
By 1889 Gilbert DeHuff was advertising in the Lebanon paper, looking to hire a crew of 20 men to open a quarrying business along Robert H. Coleman’s Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad near Mount Gretna. In developing the sandstone he discovered a vein of ochre, a type of iron oxide, whose properties were useful for pigments in a variety of applications.
Mike Weber, volunteer geologist at Cornwall Iron Furnace, remarks that once the ochre had been stripped off, the underlying clay would have been accessible for use in making bricks. Indeed, the sandstone quarry became Mt. Gretna’s brick plant by the early 1900s.
A property listing describes the Mt. Gretna concern as having two dwellings, a blacksmith shop, and considerable machinery and other capital assets.
A. Gilbert DeHuff teamed with his brother-in-law Philip S. Greenawalt as partner in the quarry business. Philip had taken over his father’s hardware store and was also serving as a director of Lebanon Valley National Bank. Incidentally, the two men were sued over contractual matters by Robert H. Coleman’s Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad.
Final years
Newspaper accounts recorded a number of DeHuff’s real estate transactions. He seems to have been busy acquiring and selling properties, seeking to profit from Lebanon’s expansion. A few years earlier, the city’s leaders celebrated this golden era (and Robert H. Coleman’s role).
In 1892 DeHuff had renewed his interests in the Washington area and bought a farm in Guinea, Virginia (south of Fredericksburg near what are now Route 17 and Interstate 95), with intentions to relocate, though never realized. Various accounts in the Lebanon newspaper show him putting his various properties up for auction, including those in the city, at Mount Gretna, and his residence at 139 S. 9th Street. The auction of his home went up to $8,000 but was postponed indefinitely for failing to reach the needed threshold.
He did sell his 139 S. 9th Street home in 1894 to Harry. H. Light in a trade that involved other properties. The fact of this sale is puzzling, because as mentioned above the house was back in possession of the DeHuff family in the early 1900s until sold in the 1980s. John DeHuff, Jr. offers the opinion that this sequence was another “act of kindness.”
Possibly Light purchased the house to help Gilbert realize his dreams to move to Washington, though unfulfilled. Then, Light sold the house back to the family after Gilbert’s death. This is plausible as the DeHuff daughters were friends of the Lights’ daughters, according to the newspaper social pages.
The 1895 city directory shows him owning a house back on Cumberland Street, a few blocks west of where his married life began 25 years previously. His mother, having died in 1891, left him her home at 520 Cumberland Street.
A. Gilbert DeHuff, man of faith
For so many of that era church membership was customary and presumably heartfelt.
Beginning in 1877 or earlier, Gilbert DeHuff was known for his faithful participation at St. John’s Reformed Church on Willow Street near 10th Street. So also were the Meilys and Greenawalts.
DeHuff appears in newspaper accounts as a benevolent man, contributing to Good Samaritan Hospital and other charities. His obituary commented: “He was a faithful member [of the church] and took a deep interest in its work.” Further, “He was a loving husband, devoted father and his death causes deep sorrow in the household.”
He continued to trade real estate until his death in 1897. At age 59 he became ill for about a month’s time until dying of pneumonia.
A final twist
In researching this story, John DeHuff, Jr. now realizes the consequence, had Gilbert succeeded in selling the “DeHuff” house at South 9th and Walnut streets in 1892. He had dreams of moving his family to the Virginia farm, near the place of his years of naval service.
John’s grandfather Philip Greenawalt DeHuff (named for his uncle) was born in 1893 and would not have grown up in Lebanon had the family moved to Virginia. In shades of “Back to the Future,” John’s grandfather would not have met his bride Stella Garner, of Lebanon’s Garner family.
Pulling the thread further, neither John Jr. nor his father John DeHuff Sr. would have been born. The DeHuff mansion would not have returned to the DeHuff family, nor would it have been sold to the Lebanon Rescue Mission in 1985, nor would so many women and children have been aided by the kindness of the people of Lebanon.
As St. Paul had written to the church in Rome long ago, “All things work together for good for those who love God.” Funny how things work themselves out!
Stay tuned for additional installments on this story. Next time, Lyman Nutting’s pursuit of gold, coal and iron. Following that, more discoveries on the DeHuff, Meily, Greenawalt and Nutting families.
Story Credits
First, the author is grateful to Mr. John DeHuff of Great Meadows, NJ, for providing his photos and research insights.
Also, Susan Blouch, executive director of the Lebanon Rescue Mission, which will celebrate 80 years of service to Lebanon next year. As this story was going to “print,” Lebanon Rescue Mission, which also operates the Men’s shelter, Free Clinic, and seniors’ food pantry, announced plans to expand its women’s ministry to meet the growing need in Lebanon County. In the last 40 years, the “DeHuff home” known as Agape Shelter has been “home” to 620 families or approximately 2,000 women and children.
The author is affiliated with the Lebanon Rescue Mission as a member of the board of directors.
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