The Ebenezer Andrew House
Our office is located in an historic building in Centerville, the history of which you can find below.
History of the House
The well-proportioned brick house at 6239 Wilmington Pike, built by Ebenezer E. Andrew in 1835, represents the Andrew family in Washington Township. Mr. Andrew’s parents, James and Elizabeth Morrow Andrew, had live near Fayetteville, North Carolina until a fire destroyed their family home in 1789. They considered it not so much a calamity as an act of providence, because they were deeply religious Presbyterians, disturbed about the unrighteous slave traffic. They wanted to live in a free state, and after the fire, came as far as Nashville, Tennessee. Ebenezer Erskin Andrew was born in this city in January 1800, joined to Rev. Robert Armstrong and the Presbyterians in Kentucky by family ties, the James Andrews came to Ohio with the Presbyterian migration of 1804, settling in Greene County.
Marrying Stephen White’s daughter, Hannah, on December 16, 1824, Ebenezer Andrew was first deeded land by Stephen White in Section 21 in January 1826. By the fall of 1827, he had sold that tract and purchased the northeast quarter of Section 14, by bordering Wilmington Pike. This land had belonged by patent to Thomas Horner, and by deed to his son, David Horner.
It is assumed that Hannah and Ebenezer Andrew lived in a log house on this land. It was not for long, however, for Hannah died January 16, 1829. It is said that she died “on her knees at morning worship,” and left a nine-month old son, James W.
Ebenezer Andrew then married Pauline Tate on September 10, 1829, and their family grew to include nine more children: Robert A., William Tate, Margaret R. Addison Ebenezer, Newton A., Elizabeth N., Mary H., Angelina and Joseph. For this flourishing family, the Andrews built the gracious two-story brick home on Wilmington Pike.
The front two-story sections of the house and an adjoining dining area, five rooms in all, comprise the 1835 part of the house. Reflecting the prosperity which came to the farmers in the early 1830’s, the house is characterized by decorative brickwork. Under the front eaves is a row of shaped bricks, and a row of corbelled bricks, place on an angle. The brickwork on the façade is of Flemish bond, while the brickwork on the sides is American bond, with headers every eighth row.
Four windows decorated with stone lintels span the upper façade, with three windows below. The front door is off center to the right; and the doorway is trimmed with rectangular panels and a four-light transom. All the interior doors in the house have five panels, each panel highlighted by a smaller raised panel.
Downstairs there are two parlors, each with a gable end fireplace. Tongue and groove ash flooring, six to eight inches wide, is constructed with square headed nails. The fireplace mantels have been changed to marble ones, reminiscent of Victorian days, Adjacent to the fireplace in the north parlor is a line in the floor, outlining the position of a steep stairway wall on one side and a cupboard on the other side.
A cupboard with double doors, located on the west wall of the dining room, is constructed with solid oak wooden pegs and decorated with square panels. There is a veranda porch off the dining room which was added in the 1940’s.
In the two bedrooms above the parlors are more of the original ash floors. The upstairs fireplaces have mantels decorated with units of three telescoping rectangles. The brick hearths are still in place. Built when clothes presses were still in use, the north bedroom was built without a closet. In the other front bedroom, the fireplace is flanked by a narrow closet on one side and a cupboard on the other.
Around 1852, a brick addition was made to the house, skillfully employing stone lintels over the windows and American Bond brickwork to blend with the earlier section. Inside, the addition made room for a wide spacious stairway and kitchen area on the main floor downstairs, three bedrooms above.
Perhaps the most important influence in the life Ebenezer Andrew was his affiliation with Sugar Creek Presbyterian Church. As an elder and a member of the session from 1844 – 1881, he was remembered as sitting just behind the pastor’s pew, with his snowy locks. At the time of his death April 27, 1881, he was honored with a resolution recorded in the church minutes “in testimony of our regard for this Father in Israel…”
It was his wish that his younger sons, Newton and Joseph, divide his farm for their use. Newton A. Andrew, born in this home in 1841 took the north half of the farm and continued living in the farm homestead. Described as “a large, good man, loyal to his country and helpful to his church,” he was married first to Elizabeth Foust in 1868. She died and he was married again in 1877 to Catherine Collins of Xenia, Ohio. They had no children. Like his father, he too, served as a ruling elder in the Sugar Creek Presbyterian Church for many years.
Newton Andrew died in 1915, but the house remained in the Andrew family while relatives care for his invalid wife “Cassie” until she died in 1937. Just about a century after the house was built, it passed from the ownership of the Andrew family when it was purchased by Madela B. Henderson in 1938.
Mrs. Henderson set about remodeling the house, adding a window to the north parlor, removing one from the south parlor, adding a fan light and side lights to a doorway near a circular driveway on the north side of the house. A summer kitchen at the back of the house was made into a utility room and two rooms were added above it. A porch with a peaked roof was replaced by one of colonial design. This is a type of architecture that better served Mrs. Henderson’s taste.
The property today is owned by James Keyes and occupied by Gibson & O’Keefe Co., LPA.