Keep Vogt House where it is

The group at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Sylvania that led the drive to demolish the Vogt House, and now has agreed to move the structure, shouldn’t pat itself on the back. Anybody with a sense of history is pleased the house won’t be razed, but moving it isn’t much of an improvement.

Prominent families have lived in the house, in the 5300 block of North Main Street in Sylvania. It is believed that the 19th-century owners of the 166-year-old house played a role in the abolitionist movement. That little more than oral tradition substantiates the belief that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad shouldn’t surprise anyone. Maintaining written records about fugitive slaves’ movements would have been too risky.

The 120-day moratorium on razing the historic structure does nothing for the future of the house, also known as the Lathrop House, as the church now wants to move it about 200 yards north. But moving it will compromise its historical significance. Runaway slaves hid in the basement before going on to Ten Mile Creek and to freedom. It is believed that one of the two large ovens in the basement covered a secret passage to rooms that led in and out of the house.

Still, St. Joseph’s wants the house out of the way for new buildings with classrooms, recreational facilities, and meeting rooms on the property across from the church and school. Indeed, the house could have been rubble and the basement filled with earth by now. Luckily those disturbing thoughts are not reality, and the Sylvania Historical Society should be commended for trying to save the house.

But moving the house is the lesser of two evils. For a while it seemed as though the tear-down and uild-new approach was waning because communities try to save and find new uses for old buildings. Fortunately, the Friends of the Lathrop House have raised $20,000 toward the $115,000 needed to move the house. That’s an important gesture, but the house shouldn’t be moved.

The Vogt House isn’t some old dilapidated building with no ties to our past. Some at the church share no sense of responsibility to save and to keep the Vogt House where it stands. That smacks of elitism and arrogance, which cannot be the message that a church, of all organizations, wants to send.