27 September 2013

The Halderman-Van Buskirk Farm


Cornelius Halderman was born on May 30, 1815, in Preble County, Ohio, to John and Mary Kinsey Halderman.  At the age of 20 Cornelius began working for his brother in the printing office of the Register in Eaton, Ohio.  He worked at the Register for seven years, and then taught school for two years.  On November 12, 1843, Cornelius married Julia Reiner.  She had been born in Preble County, Ohio, on June 17, 1821, to Henry and Sarah Fouke Reiner.  The Haldermans purchased a farm near Camden, Ohio, in 1844 and remained there nine years, after which time he opened a mercantile in Green Bush, Ohio, and operated it for one year prior to settling in Roann in 1854.
Halderman constructed his first house and opened the first business establishment in Roann between 1854 and 1855; the store provided a full line of general merchandise.  He sold his business in 1857, but was still responsible for much of the town’s early growth and made subsequent additions to the town from his own acreage in 1872, 1881, and 1883.  According to oral tradition Cornelius Halderman began constructing this farmhouse in 1860, but due to a shortage of labor during the Civil War, the home was not finished until 1865. An historical account from the 1884 history of the county states that “his dwelling has been built nearly twenty years and is a substantial and comfortable residence of the style then in vogue.” The brick used in the construction of the home are thought to have come from a marshy clay pit area east of the farmstead.
 
Daniel Van Buskirk purchased the property on February 3, 1906.  The Van Buskirk name is inextricably linked to the development of the community of Roann.  Dow moved onto the farm in 1906; he was the son of Daniel and Martha Miller Van Buskirk.  Dow was born in Ijamsville (now Laketon), Wabash County, on July 18, 1875.  When Dow was two years old his family relocated from Laketon to Roann, where he remained his entire life. The Van Buskirk family was members of the Presbyterian Church, probably most associated with banking in Roann, and always at the center of civic improvement and duty for over 100 years in the small community of Roann and Wabash County.


 


 


 

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