Oakwood Historical Society, 1947 Far Hills Avenue, Oakwood, OH (2026)

09/29/2026

In 1866, Colonel Edwin A. Parrott purchased an existing rural 20-acre homestead, named Nasby, near the present-day southwest intersection of Maysfield and Haver Roads in West Oakwood.

Colonel Parrott had just recently married Mary “May” Thomas, and he renamed the home Maysfield.

The original home was thought to be built by Major Luther Giddings around the time of the Mexican-American War, or even prior to Giddings, by the Cincinnati-Toledo canal boat captain, George Owens— who bragged he built the house with winnings from a lottery.

The home was purchased by Parrott from Colonel James Findlay Harrison, who had resided in the home for several years. Colonel Harrison was a grandson of President William Henry Harrison and cousin of President Benjamin Harrison.

Colonel E.A. Parrott was President of Malleable Iron from 1870 until his retirement in 1882. He also served as Speaker of the House in the Ohio Legislature. The Parrotts resided at Maysfield for over forty years before relocating to Princeton, New Jersey, to be near their son.

Maysfield was greatly expanded and remodeled many times over the years. In 1906, Harry Haver Hatcher purchased the estate, along with 24 acres from the Parrotts for the sum of $35,000. Hatcher mainly continued to reside in downtown Dayton, but began spending his summer months at Maysfield in 1913. He started to develop and subdivide the acreage around Maysfield and was selling lots by 1910.

In 1922, Hatcher sold the Maysfield home to Harry and Rosamond Toulmin. Their son, Harry Toulmin Jr., took ownership of the home in 1946, and razed the legendary Maysfield in 1962.

09/18/2026

For those who attended and will be attending the Olmsted exhibit at our House museum (2nd & 4th Sundays until Nov. 8), here is an incredible video showing the restoration of our plan.

Again, we are so grateful for the grant that helped make this possible. Institute of Museum and Library Services and State Library of Ohio

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUqbe3ajZJh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

09/11/2026

Few people today know that the greater Dayton area, along with just a handful of other cities, had the highest number of commissioned landscape design plans completed by John Charles Olmsted in the nation— outside of the Northeast. And Oakwood boasted the largest concentration in the Dayton area.

The renowned Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm was founded in 1898 by John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. Olmsted Senior is recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture, and was the architect of New York’s Central Park, the Biltmore Estate, and numerous other beloved parks and cityscapes. He relocated his home and firm to suburban Boston in 1883, and it is now the site of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.

John Charles Olmsted first arrived in the Dayton and Oakwood area at the behest of John H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Co., in 1895. It was Patterson’s now-famous mission to provide a pleasing environment for his employees that inspired him to hire a talented firm to design his new factory grounds.

John Charles and his firm went on to design several landscapes in Oakwood, including subdivisions, private residential estates, and parks, including the Mead estate, the Adam Schantz subdivision and grove, the Oakwood Village School, Patterson’s Far Hills estate and numerous others. Olmsted was also the architect of Patterson’s Hills and Dales Park, and the estates of Governor James M. Cox, Colonel Edward Deeds, Charles Kettering, the Miami Conservancy District Building grounds, Carillon Park, and portions of the Dayton Country Club.

Olmsted visited the Oakwood area numerous times and wrote of his visits in his extensive field notes, which are now archived at the Library of Congress. His writings paint a very vivid and often colorful portrait of Oakwood citizens at the turn of the last century.

One of the Oakwood Historical Society’s most treasured artifacts is an original Olmsted plan. This plan was a joint commission of several prominent Oakwood residents, known under the name of the Oakwood Improvement Association. The members/landowners of this association as of 1904 included Eliza P. T. Houk, Rose Kramer, Sylvester H. Carr, Elizabeth Harman Porter, Colonel E. A. Parrott, John H. Patterson— many whose names and property boundaries appear on this plan.

The Society’s original plan has recently been returned to the Society after undergoing significant conservation and preservation treatment at the University of Cincinnati’s Preservation Lab. Funding for its restoration was provided through a generous grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), awarded by the State Library of Ohio.

The Oakwood Historical Society is pleased to announce our new special Olmsted Brothers exhibit at our House Museum, starting this Sunday, September 13, 1–3 pm. Our museum is open on the second and fourth Sundays each month through November 8.

Please join us to learn more about John Charles Olmsted’s influence on Oakwood’s lovely physical environment and this important, but often overlooked, chapter in the storied history of our city.

Photographs one and two are courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, and the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.

UC Libraries Ohio Preservation Council Olmsted Network

08/28/2026

Soon after the incorporation of the Village of Oakwood in 1908, the citizens of Oakwood realized the necessity of establishing their own school. The first Board of Education members were elected that June and sworn into office by Harry E. Talbott, the Village’s first mayor.

In June of 1909, the board acquired a portion of land near the present-day intersection of W. Dixon and Harman Avenues through a $7,000 bond issue. This property included an existing building, once a barn converted into living quarters. The board converted the building into the first Oakwood Village School. It opened to its first students that same fall with 25 students.

The Green Barn, as it was referred to by parents and school children alike, contained two upper classrooms— one for first through fourth grades and the other for the fifth through eighth grades. The two classrooms could be combined by opening folding doors to allow for one large gathering space. Restrooms were located in the basement in former box stalls.

Miss Muriel Self taught the younger students and former student, Dean Miller, recalled her fondly, “We worshipped her and thought she was wonderful.”

The student population began to rapidly increase. To alleviate the overcrowding of the Green Barn, Col. Harry E. Mead offered a bungalow on his estate to house the first Kindergarten classes in 1911. Soon after, Katharine H. Talbott opened her third floor ballroom at her Runnymede estate to house some 20 of the youngest students. But Katharine apparently neglected to inform her husband, H.E. Talbott. He watched from his home office at Runnymede as he saw “one- two— three— and finally— twenty— small children walk solemnly across the front hall and file up the stairs.”

“You’d be surprised how quiet they are,” Katharine told him.

“I’ll be surprised all right,” her husband responded.

The children attended classes at Runnymede for the next 18 months.

Mabel Creager, the daughter of the Village’s Marshall, reminisced in her oral history, “I was very fortunate. I got to go there [Runnymede] for a couple of years. A chauffeur by the name of Harvey in a big Packard limousine would take groups of us right to our door on bad nights.”

In 1912, the esteemed architect, Louis Lott, was hired to design a new, permanent brick building on the same site as the Green Barn. Costs soon soared to nearly $20,000, and the difference was donated by an anonymous resident—rumored to be Oakwood resident, John. H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Co.

The new school opened in 1913, but the student population continued to soar. In 1915 another election was held to fund the addition of an auditorium, gymnasium and library— and to add a playground. Dexter & McCure was hired as architects, and the famed Olmsted Brothers as the landscape designers.

In 1922, a $175,000 bond was approved by the Village for the “enlargement and modernization” of the school. This improvement, designed by the architectural firm of Schenck and Williams, includes, among many others, the now familiar front-facing colonnade, the courtyard— and a wading pool!

The Oakwood Village School is now known as Harman School. Oakwood Schools

08/14/2026

One hundred years ago, the Shafor Boulevard School officially opened the doors of five cottages to the children of South Oakwood for the 1926 school year. A sixth cottage was soon added.

The new elementary school was necessitated by the Village of Oakwood’s annexations of more land extending to the present-day southern corporation line during the summer of 1926. These southern annexations resulted in a new housing boom—and a huge increase in population. The Village purchased a portion of the former farm of Emma Long Conover for the site of the new school.

The cottages housed kindergarten through fifth grade classes, and first year pupils numbered 110. By the end of the 1928–29 school year the total number of students had more than doubled.

The cottages were erected in a row along Shafor Boulevard, between the then dirt roads of Aberdeen and Telford. Each cottage included a small cloak room and the “classroom” was warmed by a potbelly stove. Toilet facilities were in a separate building, accessed by a boardwalk, which one teacher recalled resulted in “the children to be outdoors a lot.”

One oral history recalls that only one teacher drove to the school in a car, whereas most others arrived by the trolley that ran along Far Hills Avenue. Another student recalled the noise from the construction work of the new building directly behind the cottages. “They were pounding and hammering and pounding and hammering, and oh, you never heard such noise!”

The new school building, designed by the esteemed architectural firm of Schenck and Williams, was noted in a news article as “a handsome English residence style, designed to fit the town planners’ belief that all the buildings should reflect the characteristics of a beauty-loving home-owning community.”

The new building, now named Smith Elementary, was completed in time for the 1929 school year, and the little cottages were sold at auction.

07/15/2026

On 15 July 1907, the people of Oakwood arrived at the second red brick schoolhouse on the Cincinnati Pike to cast their vote on whether to incorporate the tiny suburb as the Village of Oakwood. The vote was in favor, 76 to two.

The election was not without some contentions and much controversy. The first petition to incorporate was taken to the county commissioners, but it was discovered they did not have jurisdiction. A second petition, signed by 36 Oakwood men, was then submitted to the three-member Van Buren Township Board of Trustees. Two of these board members were very opposed to the incorporation, the third was in favor of the incorporation— that board member, incidentally, was a resident of Oakwood.

The Van Buren Board of Trustees initially refused to allow Oakwood an election, but were later forced by the courts—along with the strong influence of founder of the National Cash Register Co. John H. Patterson— to allow the people of Oakwood to vote on the matter.

One newspaper article that was published five days prior to the election stated “It was said today that if the election results in favor of the village scheme, injunction proceeding would perhaps be instituted in an effort to prevent the village from incorporating.”

The Village of Oakwood was officially incorporated on January 9, 1908.

Almost immediately following the incorporation began the discussions of the new village being annexed by the City of Dayton. This became a persistent and real possibility that led to serious discussions that stretched into the early 1930’s. In 1921 John Patterson reversed his earlier stance of keeping Oakwood a separate entity, and voiced his opinion to support the annexation of Oakwood by the City of Dayton. As did Orville Wright.

After the 1930 Census was completed— Oakwood’s growing population provided the pathway for the Village to be recognized as the City of Oakwood. By this time, the vast majority of Oakwood citizens were against annexation. A poll taken in October 1930 by the Dayton Herald resulted in 3,105 residents against annexation, 139 in favor, and 393 “doubtful”. Most residents opposing cited a favorable view toward their own governance, but the overwhelming reasoning against the annexation was due to a strong desire to retain an independent Oakwood school system.

07/10/2026

Only one more day!! We'll see you tomorrow. Make sure to enter the property via our center sidewalk. We will have a table set up for you to get your ticket to redeem for your scoop of Graeter's Ice Cream.

07/08/2026

A fun Saturday is coming your way. Please kindly RSVP so we can make sure to have a scoop of ice cream for you. :)

07/03/2026

One of the earliest known settlers in what Is now Oakwood was a man named Thomas Davis—and he had served in the American Revolutionary War.

Thomas Davis arrived with the famed Newcom party that reached Dayton in the spring of 1796. Davis was a native of Wales, and a soldier taken prisoner during the Revolution—later released in Philadelphia.

After he arrived with the Newcom party, he took up residence “on the bluffs, about three miles south of the city”. The “bluffs’ was the name then used to describe the heavily wooded “far hills” south of town, now Oakwood.

It is cited that Davis arrived in Dayton with his large family, including his wife, Mary, his brother, John, and sons. The brother and his eldest sons settled elsewhere in the surrounding Dayton area, but Thomas Davis is cited as having the “only settlement on the Cincinnati Road between Dayton and Hole’s Station” (Miamisburg).

Early Dayton history recordings mention that Davis settled on what was then the “Shroyer farm” when the histories were written, circa 1850-60s.

There are conflicting dates of when Thomas Davis died, but it appears that the most accurate may be 1805, and it is currently unknown where he is interred.

Thomas Davis’ name is included on the Revolutionary War Soldiers Memorial Marker at Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum, along with one of his sons, Lewis Cass Davis. Lewis Davis is also cited as serving during the Revolution with the 1st Virginia Regiment. He died in 1809 and his remains were re-interred at Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in 1845; his gravesite includes an impressive monument.

Another son of Thomas Davis, Owen, is also thought to have served during the Revolutionary War in Philadelphia. Owen settled near Yellow Springs after arriving in Dayton and opened the first mills in Clifton. He died in 1818 and is interred in the Clifton-Union Cemetery.

The brother of Thomas, John Davis, also arrived with the Newcom party, but he died in a tragic accident at Daniel Cooper’s mill in 1799, and it is unknown whether he also served in the Revolutionary War.

There is scant information regarding the family member’s service during the Revolution in the online archives. Thomas Davis is noted on the rolls, but with the brief citation that some Montgomery County war records were lost during the 1913 flood.

As we celebrate America250— we honor early Oakwood pioneer settler, Mr. Thomas Davis, and his family. May their bravery and service during the American Revolution not be forgotten. America 250-Ohio America250

06/23/2026

We have an exciting summer event coming up on July 11. We hope you can join us as we partner with our community. The City of Oakwood Ohio, Wright Memorial Public Library, and Green Oakwood.

Oakwood Historical Society

09/29/2026

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