Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Granville, Ohio for the first time. My childhood friends, Kelly and Nina were with me and wanted to go to the Avery-Downer House and Robbins Hunter Historical home. (Note: Museum link is not secure). I, of course was delighted to, not knowing about the connection to Victoria. This museum is next to the library and across the street from the Worthington Inn. We first determined to go to the writer’s store, Just Write (which also seems to be the gift shop for the home). Yes, this was an interesting journey. Just Write is run by a lovely lady, Stefanie Lauvray, who is a transplant from California, like myself. We had a great time catching up on favorite spots in Northern California. Before I got to the Just Write store though, I saw a placard outside the museum that said Victoria Woodhull. Now, this peaked my interest. I knew she was from Homer, Ohio, so what is this doing here?

One of the owners, I believe it was Robbins Hunter Jr. (not noted on website which), had a great interest in Victoria Woodhull and so he added this clock tower as an homage to her life. I need to go back to get the proper details of this. By the time we finished at Just Write, we only had a half hour to quickly visit the museum. You will see a photo of one of the two docents, below, who was gracious enough to give us a quick tour, prior to closing.

The house is sparsely furnished with antiques, but what is more interesting is the architectural design which is from the Greek revival period. I truly appreciated the back of the house, where Robbins Hunter Jr. added this beautiful room of mirrors and a lovely ceiling to add quite an ambiance to this remarkable interior. Looking at the outside, you have no idea what is in store for you when you walk through those doors (at the side of the house where the docent is standing). While I am not an architectural connoisseur (as you can tell from my writing), the grand entrance and the black iron fence are the two Greek features, otherwise to me, it looked like an ordinary historical home. I only knew the significance from reading the sign out front. Inside, the floors fascinated me even more. Original large hardwood boards (my 98 year old home has original thin hardwood boards) and a couple of the rooms (or maybe it was only one) had a lovely design stenciled on the floor. I only focused on taking photos of Victoria for this website and because Nina’s phone was out of charge. I really need to remember to bring a camera more often!

Also, in the home, there is a little room with information about Women’s Suffrage. This mostly is about Victoria and has, I believe, an original dress and hat that she wore. (images above and below).

This really is a great day trip, if you are within an hour or two from Granville (30 minutes east of Columbus). There is a cute little town to walk around in, in the same vicinity of this house. Of course, if you live even further away, you can plan to stay at the Granville Inn, which seems reasonably priced for a small town. We did not get a chance to eat here, but it appears to be more of a romantic place to have dinner. Perhaps a ladies luncheon room by day.

I did not mention yet, that this town is also home to the private liberal arts college named Denison University. One might wonder why this school, which does not have graduate degrees, is called a university. Upon further review of their website (post-trip), I learned that at one time they did and so the school decided to keep the name for historical reasons. Quite a number of celebrities have attended Denison, including Columbus historical favorite Woody Hayes.