One House’s Story: The Ditto Family

This modest home located near New Philadelphia High School was the home of a painter and his family. A working-class tradesman who became a pillar of the New Philadelphia community.

Joseph Ditto (1814-1889) arrived in Ohio around 1840 from his birth state of Pennsylvania. A painter by trade, he originally settled in Summit County where he eventually met and married Mary Osborne (1826-1891). When the family arrived in New Philadelphia before 1850, the household included three children, a painter’s apprentice, and a younger sister of Joseph. New Philadelphia, a growing city, was the perfect place for a tradesman with Joseph’s skills to work.

Four more children were born to the family after 1850, including a son named Edward T. Ditto (1854-1938). Joseph Ditto’s business came to an abrupt halt when, in 1861, Joseph volunteered in the 51st Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. After campaigning for a year with the regiment, Joseph was discharged due to a physical disability he acquired while with the until. When he returned to New Philadelphia he continued his painting business, now including the labor of a number of his sons, including Edward.

While the Dittos were painters by trade, they also undertook other related aspects including glazing windows, some carpentry work, undertaking, and various contracts for the city of New Philadelphia and Tuscarawas County. Joseph’s health deteriorated as the years went on and Edward eventually took over the family painting business that his father had established. Edward, working independently by the 1880s, met and married Mary Freatenborough (1852-1934). At the time of their marriage Edward, in addition to his painting business, was also serving as the postal clerk for the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railway.

Four years after their marriage Edward and Mary purchased the small house on North 6th Street (modern 3rd Street NW) for $1000. The house, built just a few years earlier, was a simple story-and-a-half, gable front home in a very simplified and popular Greek Revival style. The home had a porch that spanned the front face of the home that likely boasted simple, classical style posts. Less than a year later, and possibly the motivation for purchasing the home, Edward and Mary welcomed their first and only child, a daughter. Nine months after that Edward’s father passed away in November 1889 from complications from his Civil War service-era illness.

While Edward continued to undertake painting and maintenance work throughout the city and county, he also became very active in local politics and community service. He ran for, and was elected, as the Director for the County Infirmary in 1901 and served in the post until 1905. Additionally, he also was very active in the local Democratic Party and fraternal organizations as well. He was appointed to the post of Bailiff for the Tuscarawas County Common Pleas Court in 1914, a post he would hold until his death in 1938. The Dittos resided in their little home on North 6th Street for their entire married life.

The Ditto’s daughter, who never married, became a school teacher after graduating high school and eventually a school principal in Canton, Ohio. During the early fall of 1934 Mary Ditto started to feel ill and, six weeks later, passed away. Edward Ditto survived his wife by four years, eventually succumbing to heart disease in November 1938. The Ditto family, including their daughter, are all buried in the Fair Street Cemetery in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2023.