National Register reference number.84000440- 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.
Then and now
1901 to 1992
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
91 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
19011992
The ground it stands on
433 words
The chapter on Norwich Township in History of Franklin County [Ohio]:, published 1858 names Columbus. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
This township was laid out and organized by its present name in 1813; but it then extended across the river, including what is now the south end of Perry. In the original division of the county into townships in 1803, what is now Norwich constituted a part of Franklin Township ; and when Washington was set off and established in 1809, it then constituted a part of that township, and so remained until 1813. There never was any village in this township until after the Columbus, Piqua and Indiana Railroad was estalished, and then the village of Hilliard was laid out in the fall of 1853, by John R. Hilliard. The place is generally known as " Hilliard's Station." It is quite a small village of probably a dozen families, two grocery stores, and a post office. The first post office in this township was established in the spring of 1852, at )Smiley's
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 1 fire within 5 miles of McCracken-Sells House
in 2011, burning under an acre 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
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 9,371 specimens
collected within 10 miles of McCracken-Sells House between 1804 and 1975: 7,392 Animalia, 1,272 Fungi, 559 Plantae, 117 Chromista, 30 Unrecorded, 1 Protozoa.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by 19 V 1938 in original publication, Knull, =, ? 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
2 workings within 5 miles of McCracken-Sells House: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Calcium. 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
Columbus, the town this property stands in, in 107 storm reports between 1993 and 2026: 56 thunderstorm wind, 26 hail, 13 flash flood, 11 flood.
The reports record 9 injuries. 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.
Trees were downed, some on power lines. Four golfers were injured after lightning struck the shelter house they entered to take shelter from the storm.
Trees were downed at several locations. Winds were measured at 59 mph at Port Columbus Airport. Four men were injured at an outdoor amphitheater when the tent they occupied was blown over.
A microburst, with winds estimated to be between 80 and 100 mph, struck the west side of Columbus, destroying roofs of two industrial buildings. The debris from the roofs stretched 600 yards. A tractor-semitrailer was also blown over, injuring one male.
Damage was first observed on Deserette Court. The west-facing|side of several housing units had shutters torn off and also|experienced minor siding damage. This is where it appears the|tornado first touched down.||On the opposite side of Deserette Court, additional shutter and|siding damage was observed, and primarily affected the east-facing|side of the housing units.||Damage continued to the east onto Boyleston Boulevard, with the|garage door of one home completely destroyed and walls of the|garage experiencing significant damage. Siding and roof damage was|also observed on this home, and damage is assessed to be in the|EF0 category, with winds around 80 mph. An eyewitness also stated|that she was looking west and saw a tornado moving toward|Boyleston Boulevard.||A swath of damage continued to the east, affecting homes along|Niantic Drive and Hingham Lane. Much of the damage was associated|with trees, where large tree branches in the back yards of|several homes on both Niantic Drive and Hingham Lane were snapped.|A convergent pattern was observed from 10 to 12 inch diameter tree|branches. Some damage to homes was also observed, including a|large portion of siding being stripped off the east-facing side of|a two story home. Minor roof damage was also noted on several|homes.||Damage became more sparse further east along Hingham Lane and was|confined to a few large hardwood tree branches being snapped off.
Two to three feet of water on some roads submerged some cars and caused others to float. On Leonard Street and 5th Avenue, a foot of water was entering the main level of some homes.
Roofing materials were removed from several buildings, a gutter was blown down, power lines were downed, and fencing was partially blown over in northeastern Columbus due to damaging thunderstorm winds. These winds also blew a large tree down onto a house on Schleppi Road.
10 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
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
by side on two floors (2 over 2). The stair to the second floor is situated in the south- a third room to the south on the first floor, and an attic space (now finished) to the south the second floor is equally divided between the landing/hall and a bedroom. The north half into this space recently.. (See floor plans attached.) The interior fireplaces have been exposed/rebuilt. Some fireplaces had suffered extensive own right, architecturally (c.1950?). 7. Description Condition deteriorated fair unaltered cellar and is topped with a gable roof covered with asphalt shingles.The original split It is approached by a limestone stoop and steps which was recently exposed with the removal are still intact.The mantels and facings removed did not have any
Statement of significance
(in one paragraph) he resided here. appears to be original and may have served as an office. Areas of Significance-Check and justify below are the brick walks restored in their original locations around the house and the extant _economics Situated on the southwest corner of Hilliard-Cemetary Road (formerly Hilliard, Columbus, and summer kitchen with its fireplace and crane intact. Other architectural details of the exterior are abracketed cornice w/quarter fan lights and Adam Sells (l860-1908). All farmers by occupation, these gentlemen were descendents of ..religion other (specify) Builder Architect The McCracken-Sells House, built c.1845, is significant as the only remaining well-preserved example of the traditional midwest rural house type, the Pre-Classical. I-Houselin Norwich Twp.
It remained this size until the 1930's when it broke down into a smaller parcel, as nominated..
1800-1899 Unknown some of Franklin County's earliest settlers and were themselves prominent citizens in the states, only two of these houses remain standing in Norwich Twp, and the other has been spaced 6/6 light double hung windows, and the interior gable end 5-bay I-house),the gable roof with its ridge pole running parallel to the roadgtthe evenly elevation.This wing has a 3-bay facade with its own entry in the center bay.The wing portion of a former site of a Wyandot encampment when the tribe was under the leadership of Franklin County,ohio.Although known to bea predominate form in ohio and other midwestern this house was also one of the founders of Wesley Chapel *A History of Franklin & Pickaway Cos,Ohio, Williams Bros.,1880 Fishinger Road, AHKS,1979 Acreage of nominated property Approx.
2 acres Quadrangle scale 1:24,000 UT M References as said Subdivision is shown of record in Plat Bood 17, page 261, Recorder's Office, Franklin - state 11.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 84000440, 28 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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