|
|
The year 1861 may have been the most traumatic year in the nations's history.
The nation was split by civil war, and that
first man from Waverly to be killed
in battle, John Barnes, had died in June, 1861. Waverly residents, caught
in the national war frenzy, still took time to admire the construction of James Emmitt's
new hotel at the corner of Water & Market Streets.
|
|
The Emmitt House was being constructed on the site of an earlier frame hotel,
originally
owned by a former business partner of James Emmitt, the town's main entrepreneur,
was building the hotel in anticipation of his
greatest political achievenment -
the transfer of the county seat from Piketon to Waverly.
|
|
|
|
Waverly is located along the route of the Ohio Erie Canal, which was completed
in 1832. Emmitt was the first to see the business potential of the canal,
and in the next two decades made a fortune
hauling grain, operating a mill and building
a whiskey distillery. He realized in the late 1850's that Waverly's growth
would always be limited as long as the court house was located in Piketon.
|
|
Emmitt organized a group of Waverly businessmen to finance the expensive process
of convincing the Ohio General Assembly
and, later, the citizens of Pike County
that the county seat should be moved. The final vote for removal would go
before the local voters in October, 1861 and Emmitt was sufficiently confident of
success to start building his new hotel, a structure he expected would be as fine
as any along the canal.
|
|
|
|
Among the craftsmen Emmitt employed on the project was Madison Hemings, who had first come to Pike County in the
early 1830's and was generally considered a master
carpenter. It was rumored,
and never denied by Hemings, that he was the illegitimate son of Thomas Jefferson
by a slave woman, Sally Hemings. A century later, Hemings' story would be
a central part of major historical controversy.
|
|
The Emmitt House when it was finished, quickly gained a reputation as one of the
Scioto Valley's finest hotels. It was a center for
the hardware & dry
goods salesman, who would open their sample cases in a front room set aside
as the "Drummer's Room." After the Waverly merchants had placed their orders,
the drummers would then hire a horse & buggy
and visit the rural storekeepers in Pike County.
|
|
|
Railroads supplanted the Ohio-Erie Canal in the 1860's, and in the late 1870's.
The Scioto Valley Railroad and the
Ohio Southern each ran several trains through
Waverly daily. The Emmitt House operated a
horse-drawn bus which met each
train, carrying passengers to and from the Emmitt House. Hotel guests could
also take the bus to performances at Emmitt's Opera House
on Walnut Street.
The Opera House, converted from an unfinished Catholic church in 1875, offered
traveling drama & musical troops
on a monthly basis well into the 1890's.
|
|
James Emmitt encouraged those who suggested he was Scioto Valley's first millionaire.
He was a self-promoter who lived pretentiously. His main source of wealth
was in his distillery, but heavy taxation and regulation wiped
out the profit for
small distillers after the Civil War. By the time of his death in 1893, much
of his fortune was gone. The Emmitt House remains a living memorial to his
memory over a century later.
|
In the Fall of 2000, a "Historical Marker" was erected outside the Emmitt House
entrance by the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, the Longaberger Company, the
Pike County Convention and Visitors Bureau
and the Ohio Historical Society, proclaiming its addition to the
National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
It underwent a year-long resteration project
in 1989 that retained its historical flavor and design. It continues to provide hospitality to both
residents and travelers to the present day.
|