A while back I wrote a history of the Oscar M. Gottschall house at 20 Livingston Ave, just off of Huffman Ave.
It’s a beautiful home that is considered to be the greatest Gothic Revival structure in Dayton, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places back in the 1970s.
Soon after I published the article, I received an intriguing email from Betsy Wilson, a house historian and member of Preservation Dayton who has researched numerous properties, from the Dayton Daily News building to the Santa Clara historic district, to support their nominations for historic designation and in many cases save them from demolition.
She had been interested to read the history, but had conducted some research of her own that threw into question its very premise, as she explained:
“It is indeed a stunning house and a great example of Gothic Revival architecture, and I’m grateful it has survived when so much of Dayton’s built environment has not. However, in my research on 1522 Huffman Ave., it appears that this house was in fact, the Gottschall house. I realize this is a bold assertion, given that the house is listed as such on the National Register.”
From there I was eager to see what she had found. In my article I had shared the history as it has generally been understood: the beautiful home at 20 Livingston Ave was built circa 1870 for Gottschall, a prominent Dayton attorney, and his wife Octavia Soule who had been married in 1869.
But Wilson found that Gottschall bought 1522 Huffman Ave (previously 1494) in 1878, and lived there until his death in 1916.
And prior to 1878, according to the Dayton City Directory, he and his wife lived various places downtown, such as W. 5th, W. 1st and Water St.
Wilson also looked into the ownership of 20 Livingston, a rather complicated process because the lot it is situated on was platted in 1901 by Florence Ware, but the house was constructed earlier than that.
The Ware plat actually re-platted an earlier 1859 plat by John Webber and Jane Wilson, before the area was part of the City of Dayton.
For that earlier lot number, Wilson found sales from “Jane Wilson to Edwin Payne (1859 – $1,492), to Cynthia Bissell (1881 – $15,000), to Geo P. & Frank T. Huffman (1887 – $15,000), (and) to Florence Ware (1887 – $17,000). No Gottschall.”
The steeply increased price of the 1881 transaction seems to suggest that Payne may have built the Gothic Revival house instead of Gottschall
Wilson noted that she did find a deed in the same abstract book “which lists a sale to Oscar Gottschall but he sold it again soon after. The deed … gives a description of the property based on a prior sale from Jane Wilson to Elias McGown, which I have not looked at, so I can’t yet conclusively prove that this is NOT the 20 Livingston property but it seems unlikely.”
The early history of 1522 Huffman Ave is interesting as well in its own right as well, as Wilson shared with me. It was likely built around 1871 by William Fletcher DeCamp, but was damaged by a tornado soon after.
His wife Mary DeCamp died of tuberculosis in 1873 at just 26, and Wilson speculates that perhaps they moved to Huffman Hill for the fresh air.
DeCamp owned a carriage works in Dayton which burned to the ground in 1875, and he returned to his hometown of Cincinnati and sold his home to Oscar Gottschall.
Wilson researches historic properties through her business Betsy Wilson House Histories. She can be contacted at bwhousehistories@hotmail.com.
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