Prospect Place

Infobox_nrhp | name =Prospect Place
nrhp_type =

---

caption = Prospect House in 2004
nearest_city= S of Trinway on OH 77, Trinway, Ohio
lat_degrees = 40
lat_minutes = 8
lat_seconds = 5
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 82
long_minutes = 0
long_seconds = 42
long_direction = W
locmapin = Ohio
area =
built =1856
architect= Blackburn,George
architecture= No Style Listed
added = May 10, 1979
governing_body = Private
refnum=79001913cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2008-04-15|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]

Prospect Place (also known as Trinway Mansion) is the 29-room mansion built by abolitionist George Willison Adams just north of Dresden, Ohio in 1856. It is the home of the non-profit G. W. Adams Educational Center, Inc. The mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Ohio Underground Railroad Association's list of Underground Railroad sites. It is located in Trinway, Ohio.

This home featured many new and, for the time, revolutionary innovations. It had indoor plumbing which included a copper tank cistern on the second floor which pressurized water throughout the house. Two coal stoves had copper tanks (under pressure from the cistern system) which heated water and allowed the home to have both hot and cold running water service. This was the first house of the era in Muskingum County to have indoor flush toilets (water closets). Fact|date=June 2008

This is the second house to stand on the same foundation. The original mansion was identical in every way and was allegedly burned to the ground by George Blackburn, a mason on the project with a notorious reputation, who burned the house to make more money for his crew and himself. Fact|date=June 2008 Court records of Blackburn's trial burned in the early years of the 20th century.Fact|date=June 2008 Mr. Blackburn did go to prison at the Columbus, Ohio, Penitentiary shortly after the house was destroyed. Fact|date=June 2008

The mansion was rebuilt after the fire, with modern fire stopping added to the second house. The interior walls of the current house are solid brick, and there is a two-inch layer of mortar between the first and second floors of the house to block fire.

Prospect Place also featured a unique refrigeration system to cool milk, cheese, butter, etc. A pit in the basement was cooled by ice and served as the refrigeration system. Fact|date=June 2008 A primitive form of "air conditioning" was created by bringing cool basement air into the living quarters during the summer months via ducts in the outside walls. The primary heating system in the house (until the 20th century) were coal-burning fireplaces in nearly all of the 29 rooms.Fact|date=June 2008

George Willison Adams

Born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 1799 to George Beal Adams and his wife Anna Turner, George Willison Adams (or G.W. as he was called) was one of thirteen children. His father was a plantation owner who gave up his land and home to move away from the slaveholding South. The family migrated to southeastern Ohio in 1808, freed their slaves and settled in Madison Township, Muskingum County near the town of Dresden, Ohio.

Like his father, G. W. Adams became a strong abolitionist. He and his brother, Edward, ran an Underground Railroad "station" from their mill at what later became known as Adams Mills, Ohio. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, G. W. and Edward moved their "station" to George's new home, the Prospect Place Mansion in Trinway, Ohio.Fact|date=June 2008

G. W. Adams was once a member of the Ohio General Assembly and worked with John Augustus Roebling to build a bridge across the Muskingum River near Dresden. [J. Hope Sutor, "History Past & Present of the City of Zanesville and Muskingum County, Ohio", 1909, available John Macintire Public Library and the Pioneer and Historical Society of Muskingum County, Zanesville, Ohio,]

Later in life, Adams was the President of the Stubenville and Indiana Railroad. He directed construction of the Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley Railroad. His land holdings totaled convert|14500|acre|km2|0 with the Prospect Place Mansion in the center of his plantation. At his most prosperous, G. W. Adams was worth 14 million dollars in cash and holdings. Fact}

G. W. Adams was an important figure in Ohio politics, the Underground Railroad and regional development of the southeastern Ohio area. His importance in these areas was a criterion used to include the Prospect Place Mansion on the National Register of Historic Places.

G. W. Adams died on August 11, 1879 at the age of 79.

Genealogy

Researchers have attempted to identify ancestors of George Willison Adams. It is known that George Beal Adams was the father of G. W. Adams and that George B. Adams' father was one John Adams of Maryland.Fact|date=June 2008 Opinions differ as to the ancestors of John Adams. Some researchers believe that his father was one Francis Adams who came to America on or about 1642. Fact|date=June 2008 Others believe that John was the first family member of his line to come to America. If Francis was the original immigrant of this line, the Adamses are connected to the Massachusetts Adams political family. If the history of John being the first immigrant is correct, then the Adams' line may be descendants of William the Conqueror, King of England. Fact|date=June 2008

Between 1978 and 2005, roughly two dozen descendants of John Adams and Elizabeth Naylor collated family lore from distant branches of the family in such places as Montana, California, Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana and Kentucky. Going back into the mid-1800s, they identified roughly 6000 descendants of this couple. All family history contradicts any connection with the Francis Adams family. Outside researchers failed to provide any evidence of such a connection. Fact|date=June 2008

Records of the two families in Charles County, Maryland, and in Fauquier and Loudon Counties in Virginia show some similar names but no actual common transactions or contact between the two families. More information on this controversy is available in digital or hard copy format from [e-mail] Verify credibility|date=June 2008 Or|date=June 2008. Detailed discussion of the origin of the G. W. Adams family is to be found in Adams Family Newsletters # 10 and 11, available at archives in the Library of Congress, the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the LDS Library in Salt Lake City. An essay by Robert Adams Gaebler entitled "Bad Genealogy" is available from the above email address. Verify credibility|date=June 2008Or|date=June 2008

Underground Railroad operation

The Underground Railroad operation conducted by G. W. Adams and his brother, Edward, was a huge undertaking. The brothers operated a flouring mill on the Ohio and Erie Canal and owned warehouses, a boat yard and cooper shops in Dresden, Ohio. When men from the Adams company would take flour to New Orleans, Louisiana, they would return with refugees (runaway slaves) beneath the decks of their boats. This implies there was a network of Underground Railroad conductors operating in New Orleans at the time and coordinated by the Adams brothers although no record of this exists (as was common at the time). Fact|date=June 2008

Recent history

The mansion passed through the Adams-Cox family to George Cox, a grandson of G. W. Adams, who owned the property until the 1960s. In 1969 the home was sold to a distant relative of George Cox, Eugene Cox. Eugene operated a gravel mining company, the Cox Gravel Company, which proceeded to mine the remaining convert|275|acres|km2|1 associated with the estate. Cox's wife Peggy convinced him to purchase the Edward Adams home in Adams Mills, Ohio, as well. The Cox family lived at the Adams Mills home until Eugene's death in the 1990s.

While the Cox Gravel Company owned the Prospect Place mansion, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The deterioration of the mansion increased due to lack of maintenance and vandalism. The interior of the building was all but gutted by thieves and vandals. The estate was scheduled to be demolished in 1988. Local businessman Dave Longaberger purchased the house to prevent its destruction.

Dave Longaberger installed a new roof on the structure and increased security with the intention of restoring the home as a future Longaberger Company headquarters building. Upon choosing to construct the current headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in Newark, Ohio, he placed the mansion restoration project on hold.

Dave Longaberger died of cancer in the 1990s. The Longaberger Company continued to maintain security on the property until 2001 when the great-great-grandson of G. W. Adams and Longaberger relative, George J. Adams, purchased the home with the goal of finishing the restoration.

George J. Adams had investors for the project, to include adaptive reuse with a restaurant in the building. After the (September 11, 2001) attacks, the investors backed out.

Adams created a non-profit, the G. W. Adams Education Center, Inc., which has owned the building since 2005. The educational center has continued the restoration.

G. W. Adams Educational Center

Currently headquartered at the former home of G. W. Adams, Prospect Place Mansion, the G. W. Adams Educational Center, Inc., was founded by his descendant George Jeffrey Adams in 2003. The center operates as a historical and educational resource center for the southeastern Ohio area. The primary focus of the center is the history of the mansion, restoration of the estate, and providing educational activities and seminars which relate to the 19th century Underground Railroad and Civil Rights in America.

ee also

* George W. Adams House, built 1842, located south of Trinway on Bottom Road, also on the National Register

References

Source: The G. W. Adams Educational Center, Inc.

External links

* [http://prospectplace-dresden.com/ Prospect Place Official Website]
* [http://www.zanesville.com/zhs/ The Pioneer and Historical Society of Muskingum County]
* [http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/hp/detail.cfm?ID=79001913 "Prospect Place", Ohio Historical Society]