SHULL'S ROAD
The following letter addressed to the
Editor by John William
Scholl, professor emeritus in the
University of Michigan, contains
enough of historical data to warrant its
publication as a matter of
record.
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
April 6, 1946
Dear Sir:
I have before me a Road Map of
Montgomery County, Ohio, made
(revised) in 1936 by Victor C. Smith,
then County Engineer, which contains
an especially interesting error.
Near the northeast corner of the county,
in Wayne Township, there is
a road running east and west between the
Old Troy and Dayton Pike and
the Brandt and Dayton Pike, which is
designated on the Map as SHELL'S
ROAD. This name is incorrect. The road
is not made of crushed shells and
no man of the name of Shell ever lived
in that region or had anything to do
with the opening and construction of the
road itself. The true story is as
follows:
Shortly before Christmas in 1883 the
Rev. HARRISON SHULL
(name anglicized from the German
SCHOLL), a Dunkard minister and
farmer, moved with his large family from
Miami County to a farm owned
by Stephen J. Allen, at that time County
Treasurer with his office in the
Court House in Dayton, who had got it
some time previously from a man
named Hoover. This Hoover-Allen farm of
160 acres extended from the
boundary line of Montgomery and Miami
Counties southward to the County
Road in question. This quarter section
had its southeast corner at the small
jog in the road, as shown on the
Engineer's Map.
In 1883 this road was developed from the
Troy and Dayton Pike
eastward to the jog mentioned, though it
was so new in the portions along
the Hoover-Allen quarter section that
stumps of trees were still in it, which
wagons either drove around or straddled.
There was no public road eastward
to the Brandt and Dayton Pike. So the
public were permitted by Mr. Allen
to use a private lane which traversed
another of his farms. This lane ran
north from the jog along the margin of a
field for some forty rods, then
eastward for half a mile down a fenced-in
lane past the farmhouse and
barn to the Brandt and Dayton Pike. This
lane had been in use a long
time, but not quite the twenty-one years
needed to establish it as a public
thoroughfare.
Being but a private lane it was not
graded and had no artificial drain-
age. The deep ruts retained the rains of
summer and were bottomless mud
at the spring thaw.
The Post Office that served this entire
neighborhood was located at
Sulphur Grove, a petty village at the
point where the Taylorville Road
crosses the Brandt and Dayton Pike. The
farmers had Dayton as their chief
market center and could reach it
comfortably by going west to the Troy and
Dayton Pike, but this did not take them
by their Post Office. This was a
great inconvenience, because they had to come back by
the Brandt and
Dayton Pike and endure the private
lane's extra quarter mile and its often
intolerable condition.
293
294
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Now, HARRISON SHULL, a man of some influence, circulated a
petition among the citizens concerned in
Wayne Township asking to have a
road opened and constructed eastward
from the jog and between the lands
of Stephen Allen and John Hower. The
Township Trustees granted the
petition, but neglected the important
matter of purchase of the right of way.
They were promptly sued by Allen and Hower,
who, of course, won. The
Trustees, as private individuals, had to
pay for the land they took, and a
special election had to vote them later
a reimbursement. All this took a bit
of time.
In due time, after settlement of the
legal tangle, HARRISON SHULL
was elected Road Supervisor for the
district for two successive years, and
was charged with the expenditure of the
poll tax on the construction.
His eldest sons, Samuel and myself, with
a home-made theodolyte,
surveyed the right of way, established
the grades, calculated cuts and fills
through the hills so that no difficult
hills would be left for haulers of grain
and hay to Dayton. The grading and
graveling was finished by Supervisor
SHULL before his terms ended, and the
result was considered a model
country road.
Naturally some enmity was stirred up and
John Hower wouldn't speak
to SHULL for years thereafter.
When the road had been completed and
fenced in, somebody, with
satirical intention, painted on the
board fence near the junction with the
Brandt and Dayton Pike the legend
SHULL'S AVENUE. This name
stuck to it for years and continued in use locally long
after the painted
fence had disappeared. It is simply
ignorance on the part of some one that
has transformed this into SHELL'S ROAD. It is and should
be SHULL'S
ROAD.
I like to protest against this
distortion, because the Rev. HARRISON
SHULL, who was the instigator and
responsible builder of it, was also the
father of five sons who later attained
distinction as University Professors
and public servants, one of them being
Dr. George Harrison Shull, the
world-renowned originator of hybrid
corn, which has added so much to the
annual wealth of the world.
That road might well remain a modest
reminder of the family that was
responsible for it, as well as some
other things.
Sincerely Yours,
JOHN WILLIAM SCHOLL
(original form of the anglicized name).