Reverend James Kemper

I recently visited the Heritage Village Museum located in the Sharon Woods Park and was so fascinated I decided to dig a little deeper into some of the history presented at the site.  All the historical buildings on the site originated in various locations in the Cincinnati area and were re-located at this living museum. The Kemper Log House, built by the Reverend James Kemper and three of his sons, is the oldest house in Cincinnati.

Kemper was born in Virginia in 1753. He was a surveyor but eventually studied theology and was licensed by the spring of 1791. He arrived in Cincinnati in the fall of 1791, a mere three years after the city's founding.

In 1794 Kemper founded a farm on a hill outside of Cincinnati, calling it Walnut Farm. The farm was located in what would later become the neighborhood of Walnut Hills. Built in 1804, the Kemper Log House is a two-story, double pen log house, and was originally located on what became Kemper Lane in the Walnut Hills neighborhood. It is one of the oldest houses built in Cincinnati, Ohio that is still standing. It was occupied by members of the Kemper family until 1897. The house was moved in 1912 to the Cincinnati Zoo and then relocated to Heritage Village Museum in Sharon Woods in 1983 where it now stands.

Kemper House in Heritage Village today

When I went inside the Kemper House I sat on one of the benches in the common room to the right of the front door and tried to imagine seventeen people living comfortably in this house. Fifteen children and two adults lived in this house, According to all historical accounts they did fine. 

Kemper's history is fascinating. "In his life of 80 years, Kemper was a farmer, teacher, surveyor, catechist, elder, and a pastor of over 43 years. He had lived in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. He owned five residences in Kentucky and Ohio. Kemper started more than twenty Presbyterian churches in Ohio alone. In fact, James Kemper is arguably the founder of Presbyterianism in Southwest Ohio." Southwest Ohio History, Reverend James Kemper by Steve Preston

He fathered fifteen children and was married to his wife, Judith Hathaway, for sixty-two years.  

Names native Cincinnatians are familiar with to this day, Kemper Lane and Walnut Hills, originated from Kemper settling here. Kemper's history is the definition of the word persistence having been knocked down and starting over several times in his life. 

The story of  Reverend James Kemper is long and rich with the history of Cincinnati. I highly recommend you explore further. Here is a list for further reading from Southwest Ohio History, Reverend James Kemper by Steve Preston

Life’s Review, James Kemper 1753-1834, James Kemper

The Old Kemper Home, Robert Ralston Jones

Historical Register of Virginians in the Revolution, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, 1775-1783, James H. Gwathmey

The Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin, Volume 37, Winter1979, No. 4. The Founding of the Lane Seminary, Lawrence T. Lesick.

Queen City Heritage, The Journal of the Cincinnati Historical Society, Vol-ume 50, Spring 1992 No. 1, A Calvinist of the Old School: Joshua Lacy Wilson in Cincinnati, 1808-1846. Robert C. Vitz

Queen City Heritage, The Journal of the Cincinnati Historical Society, Vol-ume 45 Fall 1987 No. 3. William Henry Harrison Comes to Cincinnati, Hendrik Booraem V

The First Description of Cincinnati and Other Settlements, The Travel Report of Johann Heckewelder (1792), Edited by Don Heinrich Tolzmann

Kemper Records, 1946, A Supplement to the Kemper Family, 1899. Com-piled by Virginia M. McComb

Stockades in the Wilderness, The Frontier Defenses and Settlements of South-western Ohio, 1788-1795. Richard Scamyhorn & John Steinle

 

The Hill We Climb

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman speaks during the inauguration of President Joe Biden at the U.S. Capitol, on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

 

I have never felt so traumatized in my entire life than I felt during the hundred years of the trump presidency. When Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020 I was jubilant. What uplifted me even more was this amazing young woman, Amanda Gorman, reciting her inaugural poem The Hill We Climb at Joe Biden's inauguration.  

 

The poem and the talented young woman who wrote and performed it give me hope. Here is the full text. 

2021 Inaugural Poem, The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Live in the present...