Documented
Dates, architectural details, and public names are tied to records that visitors can open and read for themselves.
Sources and research
How we checked the story.
Old houses gather stories. Some live in public records, some are carried in family memory, and some still invite more digging. This is the working sourcebook behind the story told here. Together, these materials trace the house from Professor Allen and builder Truman Post through the Buell, Otto, and Kelso families to its present stewardship.
Research reviewed July 26, 2026
Our approach
Clear labels, honest history.
Remembered
Family stories and Janet Grams's account bring the house to life, preserving details that formal records rarely do. We identify their source so readers know where each story comes from.
Still unfolding
Historical evidence identifies Post as the builder. What remains open is whether he served as foreman or contractor, and why a 1910 recollection says “about 1838” when the house's established date is 1835.
Sources behind the story
Records, reporting, and recollections.
- 01Open source
1974 National Register nomination
The official district inventory describes the house, its Greek Revival details, and the arrangement of all seven porches.
- 02Open source
National Register property record
The National Park Service record identifies the Marietta Historic District and its 1974 listing.
- 03Open source
Dartmouth Libraries
Allen’s alumni file helps confirm his education and the timeline of his academic career.
- 04Open source
Henry Smith, Life and Character of Rev. D. Howe Allen (1871)
This near-contemporary memorial sermon recalls Allen’s Dartmouth and Andover years and his teaching years in Charleston, South Carolina. It also recounts his commitment to the West, his March 1834 marriage to Sarah E. Howe, his work at Marietta, and his later service at Lane Seminary. Because it is commemorative, the site attributes its personal recollections to Smith.
- 05Open source
Diarca Howe Allen frontispiece (1871)
The Harvard copy digitized by Google Books preserves the original engraved frontispiece. Its plate is signed “F. E. Jones, Cin.”
- 06Open source
Cincinnati directory entry for Fitz Edwin Jones (1858)
Printed page 137 lists Fitz Edwin Jones as an engraver at 148 Main Street. It supplies a contemporary Cincinnati record connecting his full name with the occupation on the signed Allen plate.
- 07Open source
Fitz Edwin Jones engraving record
The Library of Congress catalogs another nineteenth-century engraving signed “F. E. Jones” under the full name Fitz Edwin Jones, supporting the identification of the Cincinnati engraver who made Allen’s portrait.
- 08Open source
Marietta College biographical record (1928)
The college’s biographical record lists Allen’s education, Marietta teaching appointments from 1835 through 1840, later Lane Seminary service, and 1870 death.
- 09Open source
1834 Washington County memorial to Congress
This contemporary document records a March 1834 citizens’ meeting at the Marietta courthouse and includes Truman Post among the Washington County signers.
- 10Open source
Marietta College name citations
An American Antiquarian Society index cites Post as steward in Marietta College’s 1835 Second Annual Report and its 1838 Catalogue of Officers and Students.
- 11Open source
1838 Marietta College catalogue
The contemporary catalogue explains that the steward directed a manual-labor program that included farming, carpentry, bricklaying, and plastering. See printed page 31.
- 12Open source
The Tallow Light, vol. 53, no. 4 (2022)
William J. Showalter’s article, “Marietta College, the House of Seven Porches, & Post Toasties,” reproduces excerpts from 1910 Post-family correspondence and cites an October 16, 1956 Marietta Daily Times account. Together, they identify Truman Post as the builder of Allen’s house at 331 Fifth Street and place a second Post-built home for Professor Samuel Maxwell nearby. The correspondence leaves open whether Post served as foreman or contractor and recalls the work as “about 1838,” later than the house’s established 1835 date. See printed pages 94 through 101, especially 96 through 98.
- 13Open source
Harry P. Fischer photograph of the Rowena Buell home
Marietta College record pho001_00132 identifies the restored cover view as Fischer’s photograph of Rowena Buell’s home at 331 Fifth Street. The nitrate negative is cataloged 1899–1949 in the Harry Philip Fischer Collection, with rights recorded as Marietta College.
- 14Open source
Marietta College photograph collections
The Special Collections guide describes the Harry Philip Fischer Collection and provides institutional context for Fischer’s extensive record of Marietta from 1901 through 1949.
- 15Open source
C.W. Post: The Hour and the Man
Nettie Leitch Major’s 1963 biography and genealogy draws on the Post family Bible, letters, Cornwall land records, and Illinois court records. Printed pages 269 through 276 document Truman’s 1834 move to Marietta, his family, his later farm near Waverly, and his 1847 death.
- 16Open source
History of the Town of Cornwall, Vermont
Lyman Matthews’s 1862 town history records Truman Post’s December 11, 1796 birth and his place in the Cornwall community before the move west.
- 17Open source
Historical Marker Database
The marker record preserves the 1835 date and the Allen, Buell, and Kelso names associated with the house.
- 18Open source
Washington County Recorder deed indexes
Washington County deed indexes sketch a path from Allen through Mills and Cram toward the Buell family. Reading the full deeds may fill in the exact dates and confirm how that path connects to Block 42, Lot 2.
- 19Open source
1890 Marietta city directory transcription
A public transcription of the 1890 directory lists William H. Buell at 331 Fifth Street during the years the Buell family owned the house.
- 20Open source
University of Chicago A.B. degree record (1898)
The university’s official convocation record lists Rowena Buell among the recipients of the A.B. degree.
- 21Open source
University of Chicago alumni directory (1910)
Printed page 93 places William H. Buell’s daughter Rowena at the family home at 331 Fifth Street.
- 22Open source
The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (1903)
The title page credits Rowena Buell with compiling and annotating this collection of Putnam’s memoirs, official papers, and correspondence.
- 23Open source
Marietta Historical Commission roster (1918)
The commission’s publication, Ohio in the Time of the Confederation, lists Rowena Buell as a sustaining member.
- 24Open source
Ohio Attorney General Opinion 2116 (1928)
Printed pages 1205 and 1206 identify Rowena Buell as one of four trustees in a deed transaction involving Campus Martius, representing the Woman’s Centennial Association of Washington County.
- 25Open source
Washington County grantee index (1944)
The March 29 entry records Rowena Buell’s transfer of the property to J. Herbert Otto and points to Deed Volume 226, page 36. Its Block 42 lot references align with the house’s later legal description. Reviewing the full deed may add detail about the terms.
- 26Open source
1950 U.S. Census, ED 84-42, Sheet 13
The schedule begun April 22, 1950 records John H. Otto, Jeannette C. Otto, and Janet H. Otto at house number 331 on Fifth Street.
- 27Open source
Yale Obituary Record: John Herbert Otto
Yale’s institutional record supplies the family’s full names, identifies Lynn Kelso as John’s stepson, and records John’s education, retail career, 1933 marriage to Mrs. Jeannette Chamberlain Kelso, and 1951 death.
- 28Open source
Washington County affidavit, Deed 605, page 7 (1987)
The recorded affidavit recounts a November 29, 1962 deed that kept the house with Jeannette C. Otto for life, then passed it to Kenneth Lynn Kelso and Jeane Wilson Kelso.
- 29Open source
Janet Otto Falk obituary (2025)
The family obituary independently recalls Janet’s early years at Walnut Hills Farm, the family’s move to Fifth Street, and her later life as a teacher and community member.
- 30Open source
The Marietta Times
A 2019 interview records details of the Ditchendorf family’s preservation work and the house’s jib openings.
- 31Open source
Washington County Auditor sales report
The county’s July 2023 sales report confirms Janet Grams’s purchase of the property.
- 32Homeowner-supplied history
Current homeowner history
Janet Grams’s account traces the Buell family ownership from William H. Buell to his daughter Rowena. It also adds first-hand context about the Kelso hospitality years, her earlier preservation work at Larchmont, and her decision to make the House of Seven Porches her home and next preservation project.
What comes next
There is more to learn.
The most useful next steps are the full nineteenth-century deeds and tax records for Block 42, Lot 2; the two twentieth-century deeds cited here; John Herbert Otto's probate file; and the original Post-Mills correspondence at Marietta College. Local newspapers, photographs, and restoration files may add the human details that formal records miss.
Return to the sourcebook