A House with a History

KELTNER, MCMANAMAN, PATTON, VOTE

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 2/17/2007 at 12:34:27

"Fairfield Ledger Weekly", May 4, 1881

A House With a History.

The destruction of the old “North American” building Saturday night puts our old timers into calling up many incidents connected with its erection and history. It was one of Fairfield’s old landmarks, and was erected in the spring of 1851 by Henry KELTNER, who died at a ripe old age in this city a few years ago. About that time the then new court house was just approaching completion, and with the idea that it would greatly enhance the value of the property in that vicinity – a similar thought was indulged in by some of our people of a later day when voting on another county building – and would be the center of trade, he thought it would be a splendid location for a hotel. The house was opened with a great flourish, by I. W. McMANAMAN, as the “Clay Hotel”, but its prosperity didn’t bear out the sanguine opinions of its owner. Later it was turned into a tenement house, but again Peter PATTON tried to make a success of it as a hostelry and failed. Again it was made a home for several families, and earned, and deserved, the name of the “bee hive” from the number of people to which it gave shelter. Along in 1860 the democrats of Fairfield used it as a club room, and made the old house resound with the shouts of coming victory, but failure followed, and the building again lay idle. Then the system of graded schools was begun in Fairfield, and in this building. After an occupancy of several years for school purposes, the building of the union school house destroyed its usefulness, and it was finally purchased by J. VOTE & Co., and transformed into a furniture factory, and was used as such at the time of its destruction, although several changes in ownership had been made in it. It was a massive wooden structure, and stood firm to the last, the heavy oaken timbers enduring, solid and strong, even after the heat of the flames had destroyed almost everything else. Our pioneers can tell you many tales of it in a better way than they can be printed.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.