Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1995. 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
“Richards-Sewall House County and State Significant Person Significant Dates Other Champaign County, Ohio Cultural Affiliation Amos Richards? Local government Period of Significance Areas of Significance Champaign County Library Applicable National Register Criteria”
Narrative Statement of Significance, National Register nomination for Richards--Sewall House. Machine-read text.
one of 27 National Register listings in Champaign County · listed in 1995 · category: Building.
Architectural style. Queen Anne style architecture in the United States, Gothic Revival
National Register reference number.95000937- 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 subject of this sketch received rudimentary education in the common schools, and afterward attended college at Cincinnati. On the 12th of July, 1825, he married Mary P. Tiffin, a most excellent lady, and daughter of Edward Tiffin, the first Governor of Ohio. Mr. Reynolds was trained to mercantile business, but afterward turned his attention to agriculture. He at one time lived in Chillicothe, but for a number of years has been a retired citizen of Urbana. His amiable wife died July 1, 1862. They had but one child, also deceased. Mr. Reynolds still resides at the southwest corner of High and Reynolds streets.
A. M., President of the Urbana University, Professor of Intellectual and Moral Science in the same institution, and minister of the New Church, in Urbana, since 1870, was born in Bath, Me., in the year 1837, and is the son of Wm. D. Sewall, of that city. He was educated in the public schools, and, at the age of 16 years, entered Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Me., where he was graduated in the degree B. A. at the age of 20. The same year, 1858, he went abroad ; spent a winter in Rome and other parts of Italy ; the following summer, went to Germany, where he was matriculated a student in the university of Tubingen in Wurtemberg, and pursued his studies in theology, philosophy and literature under the direction of the learned scholar and eminent Swedenborgian, the late Dr. Frederick Immanuel Tafel, then professor of Philosophy and Librarian of the university. From Tubingen he went to pursue his studies at the university of Berlin, where he attended lectures under the eminent Orientalist, Bopp, the historian Ranke, the theologians Hengstenberg, Nitzch and others. He also traveled extensively in Germany, Switzerland and France, passing considerable time in Paris attending lectures at the Sorbonne, and subsequently making a sojourn at St. Amand, in Cher, enjoying the intimate society of the eminent French New Churchman, the late M. Le Boys des Guays. Returning to America after three years' absence, he received from Bowdoin College the degree of Master of Arts, and he then entered upon his preparation for the ministry of the New Church, in which faith he had been nurtured by his parents, studying under the direction of the Rev. Samuel F. Dike, - his Pastor, and the ordaining minister of the Maine Association of the New Church.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Richards--Sewall House between
2002 and 2002, burning about 1 acres in total. 1 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
Recreation and ceremony
1
Natural
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 1,547 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Richards--Sewall House between 1838 and
1975: 1,197 Animalia, 267 Plantae, 64 Fungi, 11 Unrecorded, 7 Protozoa, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. Gray; W. S. Sullivant, A. R. Gaufin, A. R. Gaufin, H. H. Ross 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
9 workings within 5 miles of Richards--Sewall House: 5 producers, 2 past producers, 1 plant, 1 unknown.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tungsten. 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
Urbana, the town this property stands in, in 72 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 49 thunderstorm wind, 14 hail, 6 flood, 1 lightning.
The reports record 3 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.
A 12-year old boy was seriously injured by a lightning strike. Two other boys with him, ages 8 and 11, also complained of minor muscle spasms in their legs.
Trees and powerlines were downed from Upper Valley Pike east to Kennard-Kingscreek Road. A garage sustained major damage beyond repair along Upper Valley Pike.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. 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.
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
4,249 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.
Statement of significance
X A Property is associated with events that have made of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and 1853 - 1886 - D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) %A ownedby a religious institution or used for - B removed from its original location. Sewall, Frank - C a birthplace or grave. - D a cemetery. - E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. - F a commemorative property. G less than50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years.
Narrative Statement of Significance Previous documentation on file (NPS): N/A - preliminary determination of individual listing (36 State Historic Preservation Office CFR 67) has been requested - Other State agency - previously listed in the National Register - Federal agency - previously determined eligible by the National designated a National Historic Landmark - recordedby Historic American Buildings Survey - recorded by Historic American Engineering Record # Bibilography Religion Register Education Criteria Considerations Architect/Builder individual distinction. Richards-Sewall House County and State Significant Person Significant Dates Other Champaign County, Ohio Cultural Affiliation Amos Richards?
Local government Period of Significance Areas of Significance Champaign County Library Applicable National Register Criteria 9.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 95000937, 48 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
4 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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