Beall-Stibbs Homestead in Wooster getting work done

Standing strong for more than two centuries, even the Beall-Stibbs House needs a little TLC now and then.

As one of Wayne County’s oldest standing residences not built as a log cabin, the venerable structure located at 546 Bowman St. in Wooster will undergo a bit of a facelift in the coming weeks and months.

What can be labeled as regular wear and tear, just far more of it than most buildings ever see because most don’t last 200 years, things like freezing and thawing, spalling and degradation of bricks, which likely were made onsite, and water penetration around windowsills, among other things, have literally chipped away at the house since the Monroe administration.

The restoration project has been supported by a grant from the Wayne County Community Foundation.

“We submitted a grant request to the Wayne Community Foundation and they approved it,” said Vicki Slater, the Beall-Stibbs House Committee Chair. “It was for $9,000. We were thrilled that they were allowing us to do this. We had to get on the schedule of a stonemason who is pretty renowned.”

Where the masonry on the Beall-Stibbs House goes, there are different areas that need attention. “There is stonework that needs work, there is brick that needs to be remortared,” Slater said. “It’s pretty much all over the house.”

Slater said the project should begin by mid-July and will take “a few weeks.”

The Beall-Stibbs House Exterior Masonry Restoration Project will restore failing masonry, repoint bricks and repair damaged stonework. David Kridler, a stonemason specializing in historic structures, will complete the work.

“With a 200-year-old structure, ongoing maintenance is necessary so we can continue to share stories from Wayne County’s history,” project chairman Joe Slater said.

The residence has plenty of history behind it and now within it. It once was used as a women’s dormitory at the College of Wooster, named Bowman Hall. It was donated in 1957 by the college to the Wayne County Historical Society, which now occupies the building. The house was listed on June 7, 1976 on the National Register of Historic Places.

Born on the eve of the American Revolution, General Reasin Beall eventually made his way to Ohio. Built between 1815 and 1817, the Beall-Stibbs Homestead is the oldest surviving residence in Wooster.

Beall was a militia general in the War of 1812, during which he became a U.S. Representative, serving from 1813-14. He built his homestead soon after.

Once Beall died in Wooster in 1843, his home was taken over by his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Joseph Stibbs II, hence the second half of the homestead’s name. Beall’s grandson Reasin Beall Stibbs and his wife Emeline renovated the home in the early 1850s.

Reasin Beall Stibbs and Emeline had four sons who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Recently, letters home from some of them were discovered and the process of transcribing them has gotten underway.

Susan Zimmerman, a documents and archives committee volunteer, began a project of transcribing the letters. The letters were written to and from the Reasin Beall Stibbs family members. Copies of the family letters were provided by Stibbs’ descendants, Jack Stibbs and Ginny Stibbs Anami.

“Susan took on the task of transcribing the letters,” Vicki Slater said. “She’s typing up what the letters say. She said in one of the letters one of the grandsons talks about how it’s all different for him eating out of a tin plate and a tin cup. He was used to being at the house eating off of fine China.”

The letter-writing went on over several years, Slater said, and captures well what things were like in Civil War times for soldiers far from their homes. The letters also offer a glimpse of some impressive times in the history of postal service, with back-and-forth messages regularly reaching their targets.

It was a far cry from text messaging, that’s for sure, but all parties pulled their weight to make sure the transmissions were received.

One of the letters is dated April 19, 1861, exactly one week after the start of the Civil War. In it, one of the Stibbs brothers, already enlisted in the army, encourages his father to send the rest of the brothers to the fight, while also defending his decision to join the army.

“I am doing right and that when my Country needs my services to project her flag from dishonor and disgrace … my parents will be the last ones to object to my enlisting,” wrote John H. Stibbs.

The letters were in the possession of Tulane University in Louisiana, where a descendant of Beall’s was a ranking administrator at one time and donated the papers. The letters eventually made their way to Zimmerman, who with the help of modern technology was able to decipher much more of what they said than had been possible before.

“So now we are working to put all the Stibbs family Civil War-era letters back together again in chronological order and in a modern-day readable format that we hope to be able to share,” Zimmerman said.

Not unlike the way they’re putting the Beall-Stibbs homestead back together. One piece at a time, with tender loving care.

Tours are offered of the Beall-Stibbs House and the Wayne County Historical Society campus on Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. Admission is $5 per adult; children get in free.

For more information about the Beall-Stibbs House, contact Vicki Slater, Beall-Stibbs House committee chair, at 330-201-1935 or beall@waynehistoricalohio.org.