Courtesy of the research of Laura Nicklas Hine, I now have a clearer view of the history of my house! She has amazing archival skills and now I know my great-grandparents purchased my house on April 25, 1910, and my family has been here in Tremont (the Southside) for 104 years! The original structure itself does indeed date to 1870 as I thought, making my home 144 years old! Here is her post to me, with much thanks!: Chuck, did a bit of digging on your 2154 Thurman. In deeds within your family, it was sublot 75 of the William Slade Subdivision. First, I looked at Trulia and they show that your house was built in 1870. 2148 Thurman was built in 1880 and 2162 in 1890. I have found that Trulia is pretty accurate - not always accurate, but most often its right. Now, going back through the deeds, I see that on April 25, 1910, Frank and Mary Slusarczyk bought the house from William and Kate Lang. The Langs bought the house from Clara Smith and George and Emma Russell on 4/21/1910. That threesome bought the house from Major and Susanna Smith on September 4, 1879. I couldnt go back further in the deeds because the Smiths had a lot of properties and I cant determine which deed pertains to yours. But, Major Smith was one of the first settlers on the Southside. More history to come on him later when I get around to some bios of important people. I then searched the Cleveland Plain Dealer and found that William Lang was a realtor. He and his wife were selling property like crazy in the 1903-1910 timeframe on the Southside - just about every street there had a house sold or bought by the Langs. Now, considering that the Langs were selling property left and right, I wondered if it wasnt them that subdivided this into sublots and had houses built, but the Langs owned it only in 1910. Bought it on April 21, 1910 and sold it to your ancestors four days later, so it doesnt seem they had time for building! I did find one deed with Major Smith and wife Susanna selling land, but it was for sublots 74, 75, and 76. So, Im guessing they owned a huge swath of land, sold that huge swath off, and then either the next owners or the realtor Wm. Lang subdivided it into individual lots. If we believe Trulia and your paperwork that came with the house showing it was built in 1870, it had to Major Smith or some owner before them that built the house. Id suggest that you make an appointment with the Cuyahoga County Archive and check the plat maps to see the ownership going backwards from where I left off and also the tax duplicates to see when the property value took a large jump, thus indicating that a house was built on it. And maybe you can learn by who. Either way, having gone back to Major Smith, you are looking at this house being built by one of the first settlers of the Southside! Sorry I couldnt nail it down completely, but those old deeds on the Recorders site only allow you to download the first page and the deeds to Major Smith from whoever owned it before them appear at the bottom of the pages and therefore the sublot numbers are on the second page which I cant see online.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 23:29:43 +0000
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