- 1860-66
Sometime in this time period the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad
As Reorganized, acquires and builds tracks from Loveland to the
Millcreek, going through Sharpsburg. A newspaper article in April
1863 stated that Marietta & Cincinnati President Noah L. Wilson
had just returned from a trip to Europe, where he secured the funds
to continue the company's business. The next month, the newspaper
wrote how the new capital would allow the railroad to complete
expansions, including an extension from Loveland into Cincinnati.
The paper requested that land owners along the path of the railroad
sell the properties at reasonable prices without delay. (Indications
are that the tracks from Loveland to the Millcreek were completed in
February 1866. However, one source gives the date of completion as
1861; see [TRANSPORTATION]
page.) Soon developers and landowners are platting subdivision near
the tracks (Norwood Heights, 1869). Growth is slow, however, until
years later (ca. 1881?), a second railroad, the Cincinnati, Lebanon
and Northern, builds a narrow gauge commuter line diagonally through
Norwood.
- 1862 (January 5)
The County Commissioners pay $14 for 100 bushels of coal for the
Sharpsburg Road toll-gate to John Matthers.
- 1862 (October 5)
Sharpsburg Road toll-collector, A. McDonald, presented his
performance bond, signed by Richard Mathers and A. Handlin, to the
County Commissioners Board, which approved and filed it.
- 1863 (April 29)
On this Wednesday, at 2 p.m., the property of the late Charles B.
Ferguson was to be sold by Executor John W. Kennedy. The property
included 5.92 acres in Sharpsburg, including a "good two-story
frame dwelling, carriage-house, stable, good cisterns, well, a large
number of fruit trees, shrubbery, &c., all inclosed." Also,
to be sold was 2.17 acres of vacant land adjacent to Sharpsburg and
about 3 miles from Cincinnati (possibly in what is now south Norwood
or Evanston).
- 1863 (September 23)
The Hamilton County Commissioners paid S. Wright $33 for three
months rent of a gate-house on Sharpsburg Road.
- 1866 (February 18)
The first passenger train travels from Loveland to Cincinnati using
the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad's new line. Obviously, it did
not stop in Sharpsburg–a station had not been opened there.
- 1867 (March 19)
Sharpsburg Post Office is established; an 1869 map shows the
location east of the Montgomery Pike bridge, between Harris Avenue
and the M.&C. railroad tracks—possibly in the same building
used as the first train station in Sharpsburg.
- 1867 (June 17)
Maria Whetstone Hopkins (wife of
L. C. Hopkins) acquires 19.03 acres on
the east side of Montgomery Pike from Anthony Zanono and wife.
- 1867 (August 1)
L. C. Hopkins acquires 8.94 acres on
the west side of Montgomery Pike from Hiram Smith and wife.
- 1867
Hopkins Avenue is dedicated in 1867 and thereafter is improved by
the county. It appears that it originally ran through the (Columbus
or Rezin?) Williams farm.
- 1868 (January 1)
L. C. Hopkins sells his downtown
Cincinnati dry goods store to partner B. F. Turner and George R.
Littster, giving them permission to continue business with the name
L. C. Hopkins & Company. Hopkins directs his efforts to land
development, some of which is in what will become Norwood.
- 1868 (February)
On February 18th, a call for a vote on the establishment of a
separate Sharpsburg school district is issued and signed by
Sharpsburg pioneers. Ten days later, in a special election, Jackson
Slane, Columbus Williams, and John N. Siebern are chosen members of
the first independent board of education of the new district. There
are only 61 families in the district, with a population of 318.
- 1868
Although the area was known as Sharpsburg for a long time, it
appears that a development with that name isn't laid out until 1868,
just north of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, on land
previously owned by a Mr. Holt. The full name of the development is
"Joseph G.Langdon Subdivision at Sharpsburg." Across
Montgomery Pike, the Baker Addition to Sharpsburg is platted about
the same time.
- 1868
L. C. Hopkins places his land holdings
in Norwood, Cincinnati, Covington and other places under the control
of George Maxwell and Isaac Jordan, Trustees of the Estate &
Effects of Lewis C. Hopkins a Bankrupt & their Successors. (Some
sources have placed the year he lost his Norwood lands as 1872! But,
that was probably the year he re-acquired them.)
- 1869 A newspaper column stated that "six new
post-offices have been named "Norwood," since the
publication of Henry Ward Beecher's story in the Ledger"
newspaper. The Sharpsburg post office is renamed Norwood the
following year–not for the newspaper serial or the subsequent
book, but as a shortening of "north woods."
- 1869
Sylvester H. Parvin, Col.
Philander P. Lane and Lemuel Bolles purchase the William
Ferguson farm and develop an eighty-one acre subdivision to be known
as Norwood Heights. The development is not successful, as only one
house is built. However, it is influential enough that the name of
Sharpsburg is more or less replaced with the name Norwood.
- 1869 (May 3)
L. C. Hopkins' Norwood properties on
Montgomery Pike are sold at auction. A total of 15 lots totaling
43.436 acres are sold for $25,432.75 to seven individuals — W. M.
Mills, Louis Cordes, Henry Cordes, William J. Armel, J. B. Mitchell,
Charles Reakirt and C. Williams. The value of the land today may be
estimated at 10 to 20 million dollars. (Some sources have placed
the year he lost his Norwood lands as 1872! But, that was probably
the year he re-acquired them.)
- 1869 What may have been the first general map to show a
location as "Norwood" is Titus' Atlas of Hamilton Co.,
Ohio, 1869. It is at a platted area of large lots. This is probably
the Norwood Heights subdivision. Interestingly, another platted area
at the crossroads of Montgomery Pike and Smith Road/Carthage Avenue
and north of the M.&C. R.R. tracks is marked Sharpsburg. A
detail of Sharpsburg is drawn on the map, indicating it is more
significant than Norwood (Heights) at the time. Norwood Heights is a
newly platted residential area, while Sharpsburg has a general
store, post office, train station, etc. This may be J. G. Langdon's
Subdivision at Sharpsburg.
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