Abandoned farmhouse in Ohio
Andrew Sheets House, Elizabeth Ohio
The Andrew Sheets House is an example of early 19th-century vernacular rural architecture in Miami County. A two-story three-bay hall and parlor frame farmhouse,, displaying Federal style details including narrow first floor 9/6 windows with slender muntins, flush facade, and original hardware and woodwork including simply detailed Federal style fireplace mantels.
Andrew Sheets, an early settler and farmer in Elizabeth Township, was originally from Bedford Pennsylvania, until 1807, when he moved to Tennessee. Settling in Miami County in 1812, he owned and farmed several 80-acre tracts of land in Elizabeth Township. In 1837 he purchased the northeast quarter and east half of the northwest quarter of section 16 in Elizabeth Township and built this house. According to county histories and tax records, Sheets moved to Champaign County in 1840 and died in 1844. However, this land is owned by Sheets and his heirs until c. 1847. It can be speculated that this frame vernacular farmhouse may have likely been built as a tenant house.
George Mumford bought the land in 1853. It remained in the Mumford name for 131 years. The Mumfords built an adjacent house and moved in 1914. The old place has never had inside plumbing or electricity. The Andrew Sheets House is essentially as built. The Weisenborns bought the adjacent farmstead as an investment property.
While the long abandonment of the Sheets House since 1914 provides the building with its greatest significance, it has also presented some substantial physical problems. The building has areas with siding missing, and the back addition is in particularly poor condition due to water damage. On the other hand, the Sheets House is extremely significant due to its lack of change. While not an elaborate house, its physical integrity makes it significant. The building, mostly due to its long abandonment, retains, in an original state, interior floor plan, wood flooring, plank ceiling and some walls, plaster walls, and other details such as a beaded chair rail, 4 and 6 raised panel doors and Greek Revival style mantel, door and window surrounds which reveal useful information pertaining to the stylistic influences of this period and the characteristics of this vernacular building form. The interior of the original building is in remarkable condition, and with the exception of turn-of-the-century changes from fireplace to stove heating, narrow wood wainscoting, and wall papering, has seen few alterations. The building has never seen the introduction of electricity or running water. Thus the building maintains sufficient integrity despite some physical problems to the exterior and the addition. No other examples built at this early date are known to exist in such original condition within the township and immediate area.
Building Description
The Andrew Sheets House is a 2 story 3 bay hall and parlor wood-sided farmhouse of braced frame pegged beam construction. It displays slender muntins in the 9/6 double hung windows, narrower first-floor windows, and flush facade associated with other vernacular and high style interpertations of the Federal style in early 19th-century Ohio architecture. Despite its neglect, it retains a high degree of integrity, being practically unaltered since its original construction. The rectangular house sits on a rough-cut limestone footer. The facade has a four-panel center door with a seven-light transom and two bays of 9/6 double-hung sash windows with blinds on the first floor and 6/3 on the second. The weatherboard decreases in surface to the weather as it ascends the facade. The gable roof verges extending with standing seam metal over shingles. The east side has a door and exterior chimney. The back section is a very early one-story addition constructed in the same manner.
The interior is possibly the most outstanding feature of the house. It is in miraculously good condition considering its virtual disuse since 1914. The plan has a parlor left and two bedrooms right. An enclosed stair has the original rail at the top in the left of two rooms. The interior partitions are vertical beaded plank. The doors are six panel. The large fireplace has been plugged, but appears to be intact. The Federal-style ceilings are planked on the first floor and plaster on the second, all relatively sound. A beaded plank dado has been added to the parlor and back room addition. Paint work gives every indication of being early 19th-century and is in unbelievably good condition. The back two-room addition is in deplorable condition (the roof failed) but is restorable.
The house stands off to itself near the farmstead which includes the house into which the family moved in 1914.
View from the northwest, facade and west side (1986)
View from the southeast, east side and rear (1986)
Parlor northeast corner with fireplace (1986)
Parlor southwest corner bedroom, rear and stair doors. Plank ceiling (1986)
Front bedroom northeast corner with chair rail and sash (1986)
Back bedroom, plank partition and back door (1986)
Into the addition from original back door (1986)
East upstairs bedroom with stair tail (1986)
West upstairs bedroom partition door. Note hardware (1986)
