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