By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Visitors to the Nature Center at Lowe-Volk Park were taken back in time as they received a lesson on what life was like in 1800s Crawford County.
Former Colonel Crawford superintendent Ted Bruner led the discussion of the Crawford Park District’s Tellin’ Tales series about the Dapper Cabin, which now resides at the school. During his discussion Bruner gave the history of the Johann Phillip Dapper and Eve Elisabeth Tracht families’ move from Germany to the United States.
“The Dapper family’s voyage to America took 72 days from Germany to Baltimore. The Tracht family had a more difficult time as they had hired a captain who had never been to America before, and they sailed into a nor’easter. With the ship going down the captain told the crew to drop the boat and leave the Germans,” Bruner said. “The Tracht family had guns and stopped them from jumping ship. Fourteen-year-old Eve Elisabeth said that they should pray to Jesus. The Germans and some of the sailors started praying then broke out in hymn.”
“The storm subsided and the boat slid up on a sandbar. African-American slaves had heard the singing, but didn’t recognize the language and helped the Trachts as they came ashore. They also gave them blankets and food.”
“The Dapper and Tracht families moved from central Germany and purchased cheap swamp land in Vernon Township” Bruner said. “At the time Tiro had the most expensive land in Crawford County, but after 10 years of work they had converted it to some decent farm land. The cabin was chinked together with mud straw and horse hair. It was black walnut sided, which was cheap wood, but it ended up as a two-story house.”
In 1940 the Dapper family sold the cabin and land to Art and Katie Hoover, who eventually donated it to Colonel Crawford. The Hoovers’ daughter Carol Kanable was in attendance to the Tellin’ Tales discussion she shared some of her memories of life in the cabin.
“It was a small house but it was full of love. My mom and dad bought it in 1940. My mom is Katie Hoover, my dad is Artie Hoover. We had a sister and a brother. Connie, Dale and I lived there until 1956 when they built a new house.”
Kanable noted that the first few years in the cabin her family was without electricity.
“I think it was in 1945 or it was right after the war when electric came in. Because my mom used an oil lamp, and they had a heating stove back then.” Kanable added.
During his presentation Bruner explained how the Dapper Cabin was disassembled and reassembled at its current location.
“We took three Saturdays to take down the cabin in the winter to avoid bees and other bugs with volunteers from all over the county. We stored the logs in the North Robinson Colonel Crawford School until it was set for demolition,” Bruner explained. “When we took it down we noticed that some of the logs had some damage, so we needed other logs. We were given the Brown Cabin and used logs from that which were made of oak and chestnut.”
“Why put the log cabin at the school,” Bruner explained. “If it were anywhere else it could become part of someone’s property and would deteriorate further. I am very proud of the companies and people who have put in work with the cabin.”
Bruner showed a 1938 penny from England as well as spear heads from the Adena tribe that were retrieved from the Finnegan Cabin chinking noting that those items can be then used to tie prehistoric tribes and World War II school lessons. Bruner also noted that lessons on the Underground Railroad could be used as well.
“The Underground Railroad avoided State Route 4 and Bucyrus due to fear of capture from Copperheads (Confederate sympathizers in the North). So they would travel 598 to travel to Sandusky. The Dappers told their children to never go into the barn at night,” Bruner said. “The kids found that their parents were helping fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad due to slaves helping out Eve Elisabeth Tracht’s family when they were shipwrecked off of Virginia, so we could teach them about that.”
Former Colonel Crawford school board member Norm Huber shared a few stories about of Johan and Eve Elisabeth Dapper’s children.
“Willie was the last of the Dappers that lived in the cabin. He needed his appendix out, but he wouldn’t go to the hospital, so they got him drunk, tied him to the table, and took his appendix out right there.”
“One of the boys became a preacher and graduated from Capital University, Huber said. “That’s how the Lutheran Church on the corner got started along with the cemetery and the whole deal with land donated by the Dappers,” Huber continued.
After wrapping up the discussion on the Dapper Cabin at the Nature Center, Bruner continued his presentation of the Dapper Cabin at Colonel Crawford by giving attendees a tour of the cabin.
Bruner explained the importance of preserving the Dapper Cabin.
“This is how our county got started. Not just this edge but the other edges. It was all log cabins, it was all people who were immigrants, many of them German. Everybody had a cabin in their family, so that is what is so important about it. It is just important just to look and see how we started,” Bruner said.
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