New House Going Up on East Main, History of the Site Shared
Contractor Adam Ackerman’s crew is currently erecting a new residence at 659 East Main Street. The lot has been vacant for over three years after the original residential structure at that address was razed.
The former residential structure was built in the 1800s when that area was beyond the village limits.
Checking the 1888 Mead’s Atlas, it appears this house was in place and owned by a P.A. Thornberry on a parcel that covered most of the land from Bethesda Street to Cedar Avenue and on over the hill to the railroad tracks.
The 1882 Birds Eye View does not go that far east while the 1899 Birds Eye View clearly shows the house in place.
The 1926 City Directory lists the house as the residence of Judson Ballard and his wife, Helen Chappell Ballard. Ballard was the Secretary of the Home Savings and Loan Company. Home Savings originally located on W. Main but moved to 124 East Main Street in 1924 after a financial scandal closed the Peoples National Bank, later the National Bank of Barnesville, the previous year.
Dr. Sheppard politely reported the closing of the National Bank as …
“Apparently the progress (of the bank) was satisfactory, but after a career of forty years, due to irregularities, the bank was closed November 14, 1923. After many legal questions had been adjudicated, in the due course of time, the corporation was liquidated, and the charter cancelled.”
The Home Savings and Loan Association was organized in 1889. Sadly, for Ballard, the Home Savings was also found wanting during the Great Depression. The President of the firm was J. W. Cassells while Ballard’s father-in-law, Attorney W. O. Chappell, a native of nearby Boston in Somerset Township, was Vice President of the firm.
Sheppard noted in 1940, “since the “Bank Holiday” (of 1933), this institution has been on restricted basis and is now (1940) in the process of liquidation.”
The local rumor mill suggested it was Mr. Chappell, not Ballard, who was responsible for the bank’s troubles, but the younger Ballard “took the fall” for the firm’s failure.
When the 1949 city directory was published, 659 East Main was the home of H. C. (Howard) Young and his wife, Laura. Young was a local building contractor. When the 1976 directory came out 26 years later, it was home to Young’s son William R. Young and his wife, Bonita (Bonnie) Young and their children. Bill was also a contractor and Bonnie, like a lot of women in the community at that time, worked at the Jonathan Logan garment factory.
The Young family lived there for many years.
Now the lot is being prepared for a new future with the construction of the new residence.
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