This old postcard from the Brice and Linda Rush collection shows just one of the many elegant houses and stately buildings that found their way onto postcards after Greene County’s first gas and oil boom ushered in the 20th century. Wildcatters and lucky leaseholders brought their sudden riches to Waynesburg’s west side and converted pastureland and turkey farms into dream castles. Richhill Street became just that, a street for the newly rich with money to splurge. Wildcatters like Carhart Bowlby built mansions with ballrooms, bedrooms, grandiose bathrooms, and elegant front rooms to display their status and good taste and the race was on to be the most statuesque house on the block.
But the more practical tastes and business practices of Thomas Jefferson Huffman, (1849-1937) who built this castle of stone at the bottom of the hill in 1907, can be found in the obituary that family descendent and genealogist Shar Huffman sent me.
When T.J. Huffman died at age 87 “due to diseases incident to his advanced years,” he was listed as one of the county’s most well known men. His obituary in the Washington Observer notes in the byline that he was organizer and CEO of Huffman Furniture and Undertaking Company until his death.
It also notes that he was born in Ruff Creek and was a successful farmer specializing in livestock for nearly 50 years.
Huffman moved to Waynesburg in 1900 and showed his practical side by getting into real estate and joining the board of the newly minted Citizens National Bank of Waynesburg. In 1902 he bought a shoe business, sold it two years later and by 1907 had his house built by the finest artisans and craftsmen of the day. The next year he started his own business offering what everybody needs – furniture, funerals, and something beautifully inspiring to look at while shopping for either. When T.J. died, the house and business passed to daughter Inez and her husband C. W. Parkinson. The next generation would know Huffman’s house as a stately funeral home operated by the Parkinson family. When lawyers Glenn Toothman Sr. and sons bought the property and turned the house into law offices in 1987, the elegant interior with its massive staircases, stained glass windows, hand painted walls and ceilings and inlaid floors would be marveled over and long remembered by anyone who came there to do business.
After the law offices moved, the house sat vacant, waiting for a new generation to see its historic value and be inspired to open it to the public once more. Pam and Kent Marisa became the new owners this year and restoration work has already begun. Another beautiful piece of Greene County’s historic past has been saved to live another day.
And for those of you with a taste for genealogy and a hankering to know more about the Huffman family whose great greats came here from Germany by way of the early colonies, Shar Huffman and Susi Pentico invite you to explore the Hoffman/Huffman Family in America Facebook page and also www.ourfamilyhistories.com/hsdurbin/huffman/huffman1.html