The Kern-Harrington House is located at 107 E. Granville Street in
the southeast Quarter of Plain Township, Franklin County, Ohio. The Society
owned this house from 1994 until 2004. It was certified as a museum in 1995.
In 2004, the Society entered into an agreement with
The New Albany Company to exchange the Kern-Harrington property for the Ealy house.
The Society continues to occupy the museum during the renovation of the Ealy house,
which has taken over two years.
Plans are in place to move out of the Kern-Harrington museum when renovation of the Ealy house is complete. However, this house remains a significant local landmark.
The Kern-Harrington
Museum has been a vital center for the activities and life of the Society for
twelve years and we cherish fond memories of our time there. Many volunteer hours
have gone into the renovation, decoration and upkeep of the museum. Its facilities have
been
used for many Society meetings and events. It has served as the location for cataloguing
and storing of the Society's historical collections. A brief history of this
property follows.
In the
1860's, Daniel Swickard put together a 75-acre farm where the house stands on
the south side of Old Route 161. He bought, also, a 5.7 acre piece of land
on the north side and had his residence there. Daniel was a prosperous
farmer. The 1872 Map of New Albany shows that he operated a cider mill.
He was also a Justice of the Peace, judging from the fact that a New Albany
columnist in the Westerville Public Opinion, writing in the 1880's, called him
"Squire Swickard." Daniel was a descendant of a pioneer family that came
to Plain Township from western Pennsylvania in the 1820's.
When in 1880, Daniel Swickard's widow died, his property was sold to Levi Dague,
Sr., another prosperous farmer. The sale had local interest. The New
Albany Columnist in the Public Opinion noted that Levi, "who now lives on the
Abraham Wagner farm," "contemplates" moving to his new property "this
Spring." If Levi did so, he moved into something other than the present
building. A transom in the Harrington House gives the date of construction
as 1881.
Like Daniel, Levi was a descendant of a Plain Township pioneer family.
Mary Magdalene Dague was the wife of the first Swickard to settle in the
Township. Other Dagues had arrived earlier. Mathias Dague (1761-1847), a
Revolutionary War veteran, is buried just over the line in Jefferson Township behind Hoggy's Restaurant. Mathias' daughter, Elizabeth, married Jacob Clouse
here in 1816.
The property passed from the Dague family in 1909: the 75 acres and brick
house to Ann and William Morgan; the 5.7-acre lot on the north side of Granville
Street to Nellie Swickard. The Morgans bought their share of the property
for $6500 and sold it in 1911 to Noah Kern, Sr. for $7500.
Walter Heischman, who grew up in New Albany in the early years of the century
and became a local hero as a Capital University athlete and later Superintendent
of Schools in Upper Arlington, earned money as a boy weeding Noah Kern, Sr.'s
extensive onion beds.
In the fall of 1994, Noah's daughter, Margaret Kern Harrington, sold the house
and 1.257 acres to the New Albany-Plain Township Historical Society. The
Society restored the house as a repository where artifacts from the
comfortable late-nineteenth-century life style in Plain Township could be
collected.
