Straight From The Hart

Straight From The Hart By Joan Rowden Hart Oakland Mansion Part 2 Last week’s story about Jacob  Blickensderfer  building the Oakland Moravian Church and mansion brought more comments than I’ve had on any other column I have written. This week I want to give you a look inside the mansion as Jacob designed and built it.  Although I pastored the church Jacob built for 12 years, I have never been privileged to see inside the house so I can’t attest as to changes or renovations that have been made over the years by different owners. All of the information I am writing this week comes from a book entitled “Old Trails & Iron Rails” written by Jacob’s great-granddaughter, Norah Lee Brown.   Her information was taken from his diaries and letters. The house was built with three stories with an astronomical dome on top.  The dome observatory was enclosed by a wooden railing and had cannonball posts at each of the four corners.  It was accessed by a short flight of stairs from the 3rd floor.

Straight From The Hart By Joan Rowden Hart Jess  Easley , Lebanon Historian and StoryTeller I’ve been trying to trace a place called Railroad Pond from the early days of Lebanon.  Perhaps some of you “old-timers” will have more information, but I found a reference to it in Jess  Easley ’s recollections of Lebanon. Jess talked about skating on Railroad Pond when he was just a kid, and also working to cut ice on it during the cold winters that Lebanon experienced.  The grocery stores which had meat markets would hire people to cut ice from the pond to put in their ice house and store for the summer. Jess was one of Milan’s favorite customers when Milan started working at the barber shop with Fred Pitts in 1968, and he quickly became one of Milan’s mentors in collecting oral memories and memorabilia of Lebanon history. Jess was born in Lebanon in January of 1891, and died here on March 1, 1983 at the age of 92 , and had a good strong mind right up to the very end, so he had many memories