Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The first blacksmith to open business was Abraham Dyson, who came in 1804. The first mill in the township was built by Lemuel Punderson at the Rapids, in 1807, for Squire Law, of Connecticut, but a flood came in the fall and carried it off.”
History of Portage County, Ohio (1885). Machine-read text.
one of 42 National Register listings in Portage County · listed in 1975 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.09000098- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The ground it stands on
6,350 words
The chapter on Hiram Township in History of Portage County, Ohio, published 1885 names Hiram. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
There is some doubt respecting the first settler in Hiram. By some it is thought that Abraham S. Honey, who made the first settlement in Mantua, was the man, and that he came as early as 1799, but that cannot be, for he, with his brother-in-law, Rufus Edwards, settled in Mantua, or at least made some improvements there, in the fall of 1798. Mr. John Harmon, one of the first settlers in Mantua, was under the impression that a man named William W. Williams came in the spring of 1799, built a cabin and made a clearing, but that he soon after left and settled in Cuyahoga County, where, in 1800, he built the first mill in that county. The truth, possibly, of this matter is, that when Honey left Mantua, which he did about 1802, he stopped during the spring or summer in Hiram, made a small clearing and built a cabin, but getting tired of the country, went away in the fall to Cuyahoga, where it is known that he lived several years.
In 1818, early in January, Daniel Hampton came from Trumbull County and settled on the west part of the east half of Lot 33, and about the 23d of the same month Samuel Udall, John Johnson, Martin Miller, Charles Loomis and Thomas Cowen left Pomfret and Hartford, Vt., with their families, which were all large, bound for Hiram. Udall had four yoke of oxen, three horses and a cow. The rest were also supplied well with oxen and horses. The weather was cold, the snow was deep, and they were six weeks on the road. Arriving in Hiram March 4, 1818, Udall settled on the west halves of Lots 24 and 27, Johnson on the west ends of Lots 22 and 39, Miller on the west half of Lot 36, Loomis on the middle part of Lot 39, and Cowen moved into a cabin owned by Richard Kedden. In the following summer came Gideon Cbapin, Lemuel Herrick, Miles T. Norton, Joel Button, Elisha Taylor, Horace A. Loomis, Curtis Eggleston, Truman Brace, Capt. William Harris and Charles H. Paine, the last-named moving in the fall to Freedom, and becoming the first settler of that township.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Garfield, James A., House between
2020 and 2020, burning about 1 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 293 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Garfield, James A., House between 1884 and
1974: 195 Animalia, 94 Plantae, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. Woolman, Allen, John, Brobst, P. and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
1 working within 5 miles of Garfield, James A., House: 1 past producer.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Hiram, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 6 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
During the evening hours of July 4th, a F0 tornado touched down in Portage County. This tornado touched down about three miles west of Hiram, and tracked mainly through an open field causing no damage to structures or crops. Spotter reports indicated that the tornado lifted just to the west of Hiram which was confirmed by evidence found by a damage survey team.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,621 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
of the typical so-called "Western Reserve" type, i. e., the front is on the left side. The plain frieze, end cornice returns, clapboard of 1850. UNEXPOSED CONDITION DETERIORATED UNALTERED RUINS FAIR Victorian age.The front windows were enlarged to floor-length "eared" architrave pattern. In the twentieth century the partition On the interior the stairhall was originally on the west side This is a medium-size Greek Revival house which was enlarged 1900),plus a small stoop with square posts on the east elevation. the gable end facing the road.The three-bay facade has an entrance XEXCELLENT enlarged (1960). siding and rear kitchen wing are typical of a Greek Revival farmhouse of the house but with the addition became a center hall.
The door CHECK ONE center of the west wall.Also in recent years, a porch on the across the front was added at that time(with a railing added around A fireplace and classic revival mantelpiece were added in the smaller wing to the rear was a shed which has also been In 1863 the wing on the west side of the house was added.It east side of the rear kitchen wing has been screened in.A second -GOOD consisted of two rooms providing the front and back parlors of the size, and the new wing has a projecting bay window. The porch between the two parlors was removed, making one large west room. XALTERED and window casings of the new wing are of an ample Greek Revival DATE. AREAS OF
Statement of significance
Garfield was commissioned in the Infantry in 1861, and Lucretia rented this house in 1862. The Garfields purchased the house in 1863, and Mrs. 1700-1799 1600-1699 ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC COMMERCE INVENTION ENGINEERING THEATER PERIOD BUILDER/ARCHITECT EDUCATION LAW PREHISTORIC TRANSPORTATION SIGNIFICANCE AGRICULTURE MILITARY X1800-1899 SCULPTURE LITERATURE XARCHITECTURE serve "the double purpose of window and ventillator." MUSIC XPOLITICS/GOVERNMENT _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT _COMMUNICATIONS the home of the Garfields for ten years following his principalship of The original Western Reserve style farmhouse was built around 1852 This Greek Revival house modified by Mrs.James A.Garfield was After the war, Garfield's career as a member of Congress took the house and include suggestions.
One interesting detail is his sugges- the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College.It is docum- Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858,but it was not until later he was elected President of the United States, and after only after the beginning of the Civil War that they established their own home. a few months in office he was assassinated.Today, the house has been ented by an interesting correspondence from Garfield to his wife. appointed head of the school. Eclectic Institute opened in 185l.James A.Garfield was a student there experienced carpenter.Garfield's letters home show the progress of by Orrin or Horace Brown.It faces the square where the Western Reserve in the same family since 1882. -1400-1499 him to Washington, and they finally sold the house in l874.
Six years -_1500-1599 -1900- _COMMUNITY PLANNING Garfield made plans for enlarging it, with the advice of her father, an ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC tion and explanation concerning the use of transoms between rooms to from 185l to 1854. He returned to teach in 1856, and the next year was 9
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 09000098, 11 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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