Photo taken by Susan Huber in 1996.

The front door of the Hymer home as it appeared in 1996.

Going, Going, Gone......"Grassland Farm" just off the beaten path in Franklin Township stands apart of Putnam County history that is fading into the past. This was "Grassland Farm". Through the doorway you can see the remains of what used to be a beautiful entry with a stairway made of native walnut that spiraled up to the second floor. Or perhaps you may take the back stairs from the kitchen up to the servants quarters. The family that once thrived in this house were very well known in their day. Jessie P. Hymer came here in 1828 to claim land that his father had received for serving in the Revolutionary War. The structure was an outgrowth of the original log house which was built about 1831. The brick portion was probably completed between 1855 in 1860 as were so many other Federal style homes of that time. Jesse was one of the country's best breeders of Shorthorn cattle and also was a well-recognized member of the Shorthorn cattle Association which was organized in 1822 it is said that in the fall of the year Mr. Hymer held his annual cattle sales and it attracted buyers from a distance. Some people would pitch their tents in the yard and some stay in the house. There was a huge pit in the back of the house where they would roast a large steer that produced some very outstanding barbecue dinners. The coming of the B&O railroad in 1879 proved Mr. Hymer's sale to be even more popular and by this time his eldest son Samuel had become quite known for his fine breeding of Sulky horses in so much that he and his groomsmen, John, would put them on the train just south of the house and take them to various parts of the country side to show at various horse shows. One fall Samuel and trainer John headed out for a show in Ohio John, who was a colored man, took ill so Mr.Hymer sent him home early when Samuel arrives home days later anguish and despair had set in for it was typhoid fever that John had come down with and it had by this time spread to some of the Hymer children they're being 6 at the time and another to be born in December. Samuel and his wife Sarah Luccetta LaFollette lost three of the seven children they had. In March of 1879 two of the three dying the same day. Then in September of 1881 the fever took Samuel Hymer at the young age of 40 and also his wife Sarah ten short days later. If you can imagine the funerals, more than likely held in one of the two front rooms of the house, their bodies then being brought out of the front door and carried to their final place of rest on the little Cemetery on the bluff which Jesse himself had laid out a few rods from the house as most pioneers did in that day. Another son of Jesse's, John Thomas Hymer was also buried here in 1865 after suffering a head injury while ice skating. Only one of Jesse's sons lived on and became a grocer in Rochdale a billboard on the side of one of the brick buildings still visible today reads... "J. W. Hymer Grocery". This, along with the old remnants of a house and a little family cemetery are all that remain to whisper the tale of the Hymer family in there ever so loved "Grassland Farm".