Family built two grand Hamilton homes | Our History

By Brent Coleman

HAMILTON ? Dick Scheid knows the Benninghofen family history about as well as anyone. Afterall, he and John W. Benninghofen?s great-great-grandaughter, Christin Carroll, wrote the book on it.

When asked about a ghost named ?Sarah? being connected to the 19th- and 20th-century Hamilton wool manufacturing family, he balked ? not because of any disbelief in ghosts.

?I just don?t recall a Sarah is what I?m saying,? he said.

The Benninghofen House at 327 N. Second St. in Hamilton houses the Butler County History Museum. / Photo provided by Greg Hume

John Benninghofen immigrated at age 29 from Prussia to Hamilton in 1848. He married fellow German Wilhelmina Klein six years later in Cincinnati and built a woolen mill with partner Asa Shuler in 1858.

The Shuler & Benninghofen factory, which was rebuilt twice and ended up at 2346 Pleasant Ave. (Ohio 127) in Lindenwald, thrived. The Benninghofens had five children: Pete, Christian, Pauline, Caroline and Wilhelmina. The two boys eventually took over for their father, and the company stayed in the families until 1967, when it merged with Orr Felt Co. of Piqua, Ohio.

Carroll wrote the family history part of the 2010 book ?Benninghofen: A House, a Family, a Legacy.? Scheid, a Hamilton native and retired science teacher who is a volunteer docent and researcher for the Butler County Historical Society, wrote about the family?s Hamilton houses.

Today, Scheid works in one of those houses, a Civil War-era brick Italianate at 327 N. Second St. that John Benninghofen bought in 1878. Since 1947, it has been the Butler County Historical Museum, home of the historical society.

A thrifty man, Scheid said, Benninghofen bought the house after its second owner, former sheriff Maj. Alfred Phillips, got into trouble with the law.

?Maj. Phillips hadn?t paid his back taxes, and there had been a big panic in 1877 that did a lot of people in,? Scheid said. The story goes that Benninghofen outbid the former sheriff in ? twist of irony here ? a sheriff?s sale.

The Benninghofen children grew up on Second Street. Second son Christian married and built a large Victorian mansion at 807 Dayton St., where he and his wife, Anna, raised their children: Elsa, Paul, Mark and Margaret. Great-grandchildren of John Benninghofen included Mark?s daughters Eleanor, Margaret Anne and Christine.

Christian also had a summer house with stables and trails built for his family in the southern part of Fairfield.

The family tree related to the three Benninghofen houses includes three generations down from John, none of whom were named ?Sarah,? the name of the alleged little ghost haunting the summer home in Fairfield.

Ghost stories aside, the Benninghofen?s took great care of their properties. All three houses and the factory still stand and are occupied.

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Source: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/ourhistory/2012/03/19/family-built-two-grand-hamilton-homes/

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