Built 1870 NRHP Reference # 80003203 Area 12 ha | Architect Tobias Shaw Opened 1870 Added to NRHP 8 February 1980 | |
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Location State Route 146, east of Sarahsville, Ohio People also search for Huffman Covered Bridge, Abner Williams Log House, Samuel Caldwell House | ||
The Young-Shaw House is a historic farmhouse located near Sarahsville, Ohio, United States. A simple building originally home to a wealthy farmer, it has been passed down through numerous generations of the original owner's family, and it has been named a historic site.
Born at Lippitt, Rhode Island in 1819, Henry J. Young came to present-day Noble County with his family in 1825. Although the land was then in a wild state, he carefully acquired enough money to buy 40 acres (16 ha) of land and marry a woman from Pennsylvania, and he moved to the site of the present house in Center Township in 1846. Center Township farmers had been growing tobacco since circa 1835, and war conditions only heightened demand for the township's leaf. Tobacco commerce was centered in the community of Sarahsville, which remained active in the trade into the late 1880s. In such a context Young began growing and dealing in tobacco, and by the 1880s, he had made himself one of the county's wealthiest men. In addition to his commercial activities, he was a community pioneer; he was among the founders of the Fredericksdale United Brethren Church, although for much of his life he was a member of and a lay preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
After nearly a quarter of a century in their original farmhouse, Young and his wife arranged for the present house to be erected in 1870, hiring contractor Tobias Shaw of Senecaville to oversee construction; Shaw's son ultimately married Young's daughter, and the property has remained in Shaw ownership through several generations of the family. Two and a half stories tall, the house is a wooden balloon framed building covered with weatherboarding. The front is divided into five bays with a doorway in the center of the first story, while the largely windowless ends rise to gables. Chimneys pierce the slate roof at either end of the roofline, and the entire structure rests on a stone foundation.
In 1980, the Young-Shaw House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; it qualified because of its connection to Henry Young and his prominent place in the history of the area. Five agricultural outbuildings were included in the historic designation, which is one of nine such locations in Noble County.