Area House Once a Stop on
The Underground Railroad

When you walk into Rick and Beth Auxier's house west of Fostoria, it's easy to tell they have a sense of history.

The main portion of the house was completed in 1897, the Victorian Era, and is decorated inside and out in that style. Tables and shelves hold a wide variety of antiques and collectibles.

But the house is also a part of history. It was very likely a stop on the Underground Railroad and there's architectural evidence to back that up.

"There's a fellow who grew up around the corner," said Beth. "He said that when his grandpa was a little boy, they lived in the home over there. Our understanding from that gentleman and several other people around here is that it was part of the Underground Railroad.

"There's a cupboard in the family room where the bottom lifted and went right down to the cellar. Unfortunately, when they put in new wiring and plumbing in the 70's, they put boards over that so you can no longer completely raise the door."

Sure enough, a trip to the basement reveals the trapdoor that leads to a passageway. The walls of the passage don't extend quite all the way to the foundation wall, leaving a hiding place behind them on either side.

The Underground Railroad operated from roughly the early 1840's until the Civil War. Loosely organized, it helped runaway slaves reach safe havens in free states or in Canada.

The railroad terminology took hold almost right away. Slaves trying to escape were "passengers." Anyplace they stayed along the way was a "station." People who helped were "conductors."

The house wasn't always as spacious and elaborate as it is today. The original owners started small.

"They bought it from a man who was the first owner of the First National Bank in Findlay," said Beth. "When his daughter got married, he gave them a big lot of land here. They built a small home. It was homesteaded around 1840 and in the basement you can see where the old family room might have been right above the foundation of a cabin or the first building.

"Then they started building on. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, they would send for kits that were used on the fretwork on the outside on the peaks," she said.

Rick said the stone foundation under the first section of the house still has bits of straw sticking out from the original construction.

Houses in the Victorian Era were characterized by elaborate decoration and workmanship and Beth and Rick have maintained that atmosphere. For instance, the curtains are layered with lace and the house is decorated with teacups, bottles, and even more unusual items such as old porcelain lids for canning jars.

An Edison Home Phonograph, Model E, that you have to crank dominates a table near the window. Before there were cylinders and Beth and Rick have an extensive collection of popular music from nearly a century ago — Uncle Jose Buys an Automobile, The Pussycat Rag, Happy Thought Married — the first generation of recorded music.

Turn of the century businesses distributed advertising cards. Rick and Beth own one touting the virtues of "Pettijohn's California Breakfast Food."

The picture has two glowing children in front of the hearth, one in a washtub and the other in her nightgown eating her Pettijohn's California Breakfast Food. There's fire in the hearth and a kettle with something cooking. A bellows hangs at the ready. A tea kettle and cups rest on the mantelpiece.

The text reads, "Pettijohn's Breakfast Food will satisfy you. It is nourishing, palatable, delicate and economical and has no equal as a breakfast food. It is recommended by the leading medical experts as the most nourishing food ever offered to the public. It is far more delicious and wholesome than oatmeal. Children fed on this favorite food have bright eyes, rosy cheeks and clear heads. Wheat is the natural food for man. Oats is the natural food for horses and mules."

Paperweights were a popular Victorian item. One type, about the size and shape of a bar of soap, has a felt bottom. A photograph of a family member, in the case a small girl with her pet dog, is affixed to the reverse of the bottom overlaid by clear glass and the owner had a personalized paperweight.

Beth's fifth cousin on her mother's side is Gen. Philip Sheridan. During the Civil War, Sheridan lead troops at Chickamauga, the Chattanooga Campaign and the Wilderness Campaign.

It was Sheridan who cut off Robert E. Lee's retreat near Appomattox and forced the Confederate surrender. In honor of her famous relative, Beth has a photograph of Sheridan as a major general.

Beth and Rick aren't the only folks interested in the history of their rare and exceptional home. One day this past summer two women in their late 80s stopped to see the house. They were sisters.

Rick said, "This was their grandfather's house. They came in the summers to help work the farm."

Those two women traveled a long way to relive their childhood memories.

Today, one lives in Kansas; the other in South Africa.

Surely they enjoyed themselves. But like anyone who visits the Auxiers, they no doubt enjoyed a look at the past.