Village Housing: 62 N. Pleasant Street

Date

ca. 1900-present

Location

62 North Pleasant Street

Architects/Collaborators

Builder unknown

Style

Vernacular

History

City directories and Sanborn Fire Insurance maps do not indicate this house at 62 N. Pleasant Street prior to 1939. However, the historic style of the house (simple Queen Anne) and building materials (sandstone foundation) indicate that the house may have been moved to its current location from some other lot. The house is quite similar to that at 168 North Main Street in Oberlin, which was built circa 1903.

This is a simple vernacular house, given names after two of its residents: Tuck and Goerlich. By 1943 the African American Tuck family moved in and remained through 1961. Henson C. Tuck (b. 1856, Berlin, Ohio; d. 1960) once attended Oberlin College Preparatory School (1878-1879) and was a retired decorator, contractor, merchant, painter, and paperhanger at his H. C. Tuck and Co. Paperhangers and Painters, which was located at 36 E. College. He lived here with his wife Ella C. (nee Hale; b. 1869 Ohio; d. 1965). They had three children: Archibald Rayfield (1892-1986), Helen Hale (1894-1957), and Dorotha Marie (1898-1994). After Henson passed away, Ella continued to live here for at least one year. Mrs. Matilda (nee Toth) Goerlich was a resident from at least 1973 through her death in 1997. She had three children who did not reside in this house: Beth, Sue, and Alfred. Around 2003 Alfred Goerlich sold the property to Oberlin College, which now offers the house to students in its Village Housing program.

Source

Ohio Historic Inventory by Liz Schultz, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, November 20, 2009. Accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, June 26, 2015.