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Shortly after the First Congregational Church, on the corner
of Maple and Center streets, was completed in 1890, the parishion-
ers began to make plans to build a parsonage nearby.
This house was built on land either donated or purchased
from neighbors on each side. It was completed in 1896, the year
after the street was paved with brick. No doubt some of the church
members gathered on this porch to watch the carriages and
wagons travel over the solid pavement and marvel about the great
improvement over the dust and mud that they used to contend with.
The neighbor to the south was Dr. Benjamin Myers, who with his two daughters, had moved
into his newly completed house the year before. Dr. Myers, who was a relative to the founders of the
F.E. Myers and Bro. Co., had married the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J.P. Cowan, who lived
in the home that is now the Manor House of the Ashland County
Historical Society. Mrs. Samantha Myers died early, possibly when
she gave birth to her second child.
The neighbors to the north in the big red brick house were
Mr. and Mrs. Philip Shearer. Together with David Shearer and
Martin V. and John Kagey, he operated the Shearer Kagey Lumber
Co., on the site of the present Scarborough Square apartments on
East Washington Street.
The home didn’t remain a parsonage for very long. By 1912,
the Rev. William Smith, pastor of the First Congregational Church, was living at 14 Maple Street, in a
house which later served as the parsonage for Peace Lutheran Church who had taken over the
Congregational church building.
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