Ride Through History: Portaging Along The Portage Path

Stan Hywet Hall anchors this ride through history.

For the last ride through history I talked about Twin Oaks Dr. which runs from W. Market St. to N. Portage Path.  Today we'll turn left onto Portage from Twin Oaks and continue our ride through Akron's history.

Portage Path is actually the oldest road in Summit County.  In fact, it was a road long before the settlers arrived in the area.  Prehistoric peoples used this pathway for millennia to portage their canoes from the Cuyahoga to the Tuscarawas River.  Except for that stretch of the Portage, the American Indians could travel from Lake Erie all the way to the Gulf of Mexico by water.  Therefore, the old portage was a well known landmark when the first European settlers began to arrive in the area.  It was so well known that the Portage Path was incorporated into the westernmost boundary line of the United States in the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785.  Today the Portage Path is marked by bronze "arrowhead" markers along the route and the northern and southern termini are indicated by large statues of an American Indian carrying a canoe.

In Akron's early history much of the land on North Portage Path (W. Market to Portage Trail) was undeveloped farm land.  Today this section of the road is lined with stately old homes.  Like I talked about before, this area of Akron was (and remains today) an affluent neighborhood.  The movers and shakers from Akron's industrial period preferred this area of West Hill over the smoggy old neighborhoods at Fir Hill.    The man that started the mass migration of the wealthy was none other than Francis A. Seiberling, founder of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.  He began building his incredible Stan Hywet Hall in 1912 which remains one of Akron's most important landmarks.  Soon after, the rest of Akron's bigwigs began to slide over that direction.

There are tons of historic homes on the stretch of North Portage from Twin Oaks to Stan Hywet Hall (the front gate of the manor is at the corner of N. Portage and Garman).  I'll just touch on a few of them.

Heading north on Portage, you will see the grounds of the Portage Country Club that I talked about last time. After passing the intersection of Memorial Parkway, the road widens out and that's where the history begins.

The first house on the left past the country club was built in 1928 by Judge Augustine F. O'Neil a rather prominent member of society.  His family remained there until recently when the family estate sold the home.  It is currently being remodeled.  The house next door was built in 1920 by the unfortunately named John T. Johnson who ran the Akron Pump & Supply Co.  Next door to that is the Walker & Weeks designed home of George W. Merz who was a bank executive.  We'll skip the next house, but across the street there is a colonial stucco house that sits well off the road.  That house was built by J. Penfield Seiberling, one of F.A. Sieberling's sons.  J. Penfield worked for his father at Goodyear and eventually the Seiberling Rubber Company.  The rest of the homes on the west side of the street were all built in the early 1920's by bankers and company executives.

We will eventually pass a large estate on the left named "Witchwood."  This massive stone house was built in 1914 by Edwin C. Shaw.  That name may sound familiar...  Edwin Shaw was born in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1863 and arrived in Akron in 1893 to take a position with Akron Electric Light & Power Company.  He then took a position with B.F. Goodrich, eventually becoming vice-president of factory operations in 1912.  He was active in the community and several organizations, especially Akron City Hospital and the Summit County Tuberculosis Sanatorium, which was eventually renamed the Edwin C. Shaw Sanatorium in his honor in 1934.  The sanatorium later became a world renowned rehab hospital.  It is now run by Akron General.  


Next door to Edwin Shaw lived Robert C. Wilson, the vice-president of Goodyear.  Next door to Wilson lived Allan C. Johnson and his wife Katherine.  Allan was a manager at Firestone Tire & Rubber and his wife helped found the Akron Garden Club.  Next door to the Johnson home is the Garman-Babcock house, the oldest house on the street.  It was built around 1904 as a simple farm house by Benjamin Garman.  Garman owned a 150 acre farm that stretched over this entire area.  The property was portioned off over the years and the house was sold in 1924 to the Babcock family. A large edition was eventually added so you would never know this was a simple farm house.  


The unassuming colonial directly next door belonged to John Rudolph Gammeter.  His wife, Susan, was a daughter of the Garmans.  This house was built in 1911.  John was an inventor who was awarded 266 patents by 1952.  His inventions covered everything from ice cream scoops to joints for roads.  His most famous invention was the machine that created the first thread rubber golf ball, developed by Bertram Work of Akron and Coburn Haskell of Cleveland.  Perhaps those new golf balls were tested at the Portage Country Club up the street.  After retiring, Gammeter conducted numerous experiments with latex in his laboratory located in the house.


Across the street is the illustrious Sisler house.  Louis Sisler was born in Manchester, OH in 1860.  He studied medicine and opened a practice in Akron.  In 1896, he was elected auditor of the state and was one of the founding members of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company.  The last I heard, this house still had the original pipe organ that Louis Sisler had installed.   The Sisler-McFawn Foundation is an organization that was started by his daughter and son-in-law.


Next door to the Sisler house is the Maurice Knight house, also known as the "7/11" home because of the address.   It was owned by the Knight family, founders of the Maurice A. Knight Co, which manufactured stoneware.  The home remained in the family until recently when it was put on the market.  You can't see the house from the road except in the winter.   Next door to that house, on the corner of Portage and Gennesee, is the Henry Shaw house.  Henry Shaw operated successful jewelry stores and clothing stores in the area.

Of course the Knight and Shaw houses all face Stan Hywet Hall.  While the manor house sits far off the road, the "Gate Lodge" is right at the corner of Portage and Garman.  In 1923, Fred Seiberling (son of F.A.) and his wife Henrietta moved into the Gate Lodge.  In 1935, Henrietta arranged a meeting with Mr. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith that would set down the founding principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Every year Stan Hywet hosts Founder's Day which celebrates the anniversary of that meeting.  In 1949, F.A's daughter Irene took up residence in the Gate Lodge.  She lived there until her death at 108 in 1999.

That wraps up this ride through history.  Once again there was quite a bit of it crammed in a short stretch; this section is only a mile long.  If you have a chance to ride on this part of North Portage, I highly recommend it.  The homes are beautiful, it is shady, and the road is straight and wide.

Definitely worth a pedal.