Kelton House

When Fernando Cortez and Sophia Stone Kelton built this house in 1852, it was the last residence on East Town Street and stood amid pastureland. Ardent abolitionists, the Keltons belonged to the local antislavery society, and family tradition holds that runaways were hidden in the barn behind the house, in the 300-barrel cistern just east of it, or sometimes in the servants' quarters. No one knows for certain how many fugitive slaves passed through here on the way to freedom. One documented story is that of Martha Hartway, a 10-year-old runaway born into slavery in September 1854 in Powhattan County, Virginia. She and her sister Pearl fled the plantation, and Kelton family tradition says that Mrs. Kelton found the girls under a shrub next to the house. Martha was too ill to move, so the Keltons took her in, and she remained for 10 years, while Pearl continued north to Wisconsin because she felt Ohio was not safe. In 1874, Martha married Thomas Lawrence in the front parlor of the house. The son of free-black parents, Thomas worked for the Keltons as a cabinet-maker, and the Lawrence family named their children after Martha's Kelton family playmates.

Columbus, Ohio · United States