The Rose Taylor Dryer House

In 1999 local developer Joe Ciminello deeded the house, large barn, and some smaller buildings at 7569 E. Walnut Street, together with three acres, to the New Albany Plain Township Historical Society. The property is part of the quarter section (160 acres) John Clouse bought from the Federal Government in 1814. One of two Revolutionary War veterans who settled permanently in Plain Township, John Clouse is buried nearby in the Smith Family Cemetery on Route 62.

Sometime after John Clouse died in 1822, John Alspach, then residing south of Pickerinton, bought from John Clouse's heirs about ninety acres of the original Clouse purchase. After Catherine, John Clouse's widow, died in 1844, John Alspach bought from the heirs the rest of the quarter section.

John Alspach, descendant of a German family domiciled in this country in the eighteenth century, was a prosperous farmer who acquired over two hundred acres. In time he deeded to his sons the greater part of his holdings. The deed of most interest is one dated 1868 in which John deeded to his son Jacob thirty-five acres of the Clouse purchase on which the Dryer House stands. The 1856 Map of Plain Township shows no house at the Dryer House location, but the 1872 Map does. Thus from all of these documents the Dryer House can be dated tentatively within narrow limits between 1868 and 1872. The dates are consistent with the oral tradition among later non--Alspach owners that the house was built in the Civil War era.

In the early twentieth century, the Dryer house was extensively remodeled to give it what some might have called a "colonial" look. However, originally it must have resembled another Alspach house on Peter Hoover Road pictured in its original state in the accompanying photograph and erected, according to an Alspach descendant, at the time of the Civil War. Missing are the proportions and decorative detail of the Greek Revival style both houses might have had had thay been constructed twenty years earlier. The photograph indicates that the Alspach houses were plain buildings with ornamental front stoops similar to other modest brick farmhouses built in Plain Township at mid-century.

The large barn on the property may be the oldest barn surviving in Plain Township. The simple roof line (as opposed to a gambrel roof), some hand-hewn beams suggest that the barn was owner-built and may be contemporaneous with the house.

The Historical Society intends to use the house and its spacious grounds as a headquarters and center for non-museum activities.

Copyright © 2006 NAPTHS. All rights reserved.