One House’s Story: The Shaffer Family

I have walked past this house so many times and wondered who occupied it when it was a new, and attractive home in New Philadelphia. The home’s history is connected to a family that originally settled on the banks of the Ohio River but made New Philadelphia their home for over sixty years.

John D. Shaffer, Sr. (1854-1916) was born in Bavaria and arrived in the United States sometime before his recorded marriage in 1872. John made his way to southeastern Ohio where he took up residence in Meigs County, Ohio. John’s occupation on census records recorded his occupation as “laborer” and, given where he decided to initially settle, it is likely that he worked in one of the many coal mines in Meigs County or on the other side of the Ohio River in Mason County, West Virginia.

The Shaffer name is occasionally spelled differently in the historical records, sometimes Schaeffer, Shafer, and Schaffer.

When John married Meigs County native Emma Huff (1849-1887) in June 1872, they did so in Mason County, West Virginia. John claimed to be 21 years old on the marriage license despite that he later, regularly, reported his birth date as being in 1854. It’s possible that, during the first few years of the couple’s marriage, they may have lived on either side of the Ohio River depending on where John found work. The family, now including three children, was recorded as living in the 3rd Ward of Pomeroy, Ohio in Meigs County in the 1880 census.

One of the Shaffer sons, also named John Shaffer (1878-1941), was born in 1878 and what education he received as a young man is unclear but later census records record that he was able to read and write. John moved to Dover, Ohio in the late 1890s and found work in the local iron and steel industry. There he met Sabina “Vina” McCoy (1879-1960), the daughter of a New Philadelphia steel worker, and the two married in June 1899. The couple moved from Dover to New Philadelphia around 1902, first living on Front Street before purchasing the property on North 6th Street (modern 3rd Street NW) in 1910.

Whether the house was already on the lot when the Shaffer’s purchased the home is unclear from readily available records. If not, the Shaffer’s built the home in an architectural style, Queen Anne, that was in the waning years of its popularity. It was a variation on the hipped-roof form cross gable style, though the Shaffer home had a large central gable instead. The home originally had a front porch that spanned the entire front façade of the home and boasted leaded-like windows in the gable ends of the home. It also, originally, had two smaller back porches as well and likely included more decorative elements that have since been either removed or covered up.

Shortly after the Shaffers acquired the home, a newspaper reported that John may be the recipient of a large sum of money from his late mother’s estate. Apparently her father had sold a large portion of land in West Virginia to the Standard Oil Company and that money was set aside for his four daughters. The amount John may have received was in the neighborhood of $45,000 (the equivalent of $1.4 million today). Given that John never stopped working as a Roller at the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, it is unlikely that he ever received that amount of money.

John and Sabina lived in the home, and raised their two daughters there, before John’s death in November 1941. At the time of John’s death one of his daughters was also living in the home with her husband and children. Sabina continued to live in the home for the remainder of her life and was recorded on the 1950 census as being the only resident of the home. Sabina died in July 1960 and she and John are both buried in the East Avenue Cemetery in New Philadelphia, Ohio. The Shaffers had lived in the home on 3rd Street NW for half a century when Sabina died.

© Noel B. Poirier, 2023.