Dayton observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day with myriad events, including a citywide march. Citizens gather at designated points in each of the four cardinal directions and walk together downtown, meeting at Courthouse Square. The event is symbolic of Dr. King’s vision of community, equality, and unity.
Historic Huffman is situated approximately one mile east of downtown Dayton, off Third Street—an important connection between the east and west sides of the City, symbolically and literally.
For several years, participants representing the east side of Dayton have gathered for the march at St. Paul United Methodist Church – in the heart of Historic Huffman. At the appointed hour, they set off toward Third Street [passing in front of our house], where they turn west toward downtown.
This year, I thought about how apropos it is that a symbolic march honoring Dr. King begins in Historic Huffman. In the late 1800’s, William P. Huffman also had a dream. He envisioned a tightly-knit, economically diverse community where artisans, craftsmen, executives, city officials, community leaders, and average Joes lived and worked together.
He built homes in a remarkable variety of styles, indicative of the era, and offered those homes to the employees of his company [the Davis Sewing Machine Company, a precursor of today’s Huffy Corporation]. Envisioning a corporate family, he established Huffman School where the children of factory workers and executives learned and played together. He also built a trolley so that citizens of his ‘planned community’ could have easy access to downtown Dayton.
It’s not clear from my limited historical research if William P. Huffman exactly shared Dr. King’s dream of racial equality, but they certainly shared a vision of community and unity. It was Mr. Huffman’s vision that inspired us to make our home in this neighborhood, and Dr. King’s dream that keeps us motivated to do our part for the future of Dayton.
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2 Responses to “William & Martin”
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January 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 PM
Actually Mr. Huffman was a Civil War Democrat – he was against emancipation.
Dayton History Books On-Line:
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/page/page/3446003.htm
He like many other prominent business leaders in the Dayton area relied on Southern goods for their stores transported through the canal system. Although Ohio banned slavery at the time of the Civil War, many Ohioans supported it due to business reasons.
It should be noted that a famous “return” of a slave to his KY owner was here in Ohio (KY was a “Union” state that permitted slavery mostly due to the tobacco trade). It was a major national story that highlighted the difficulty of slaves escaping their bondage.
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/page/page/3931840.htm
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:25 AM
Emily, I didn’t see in the links you provided that William P. Huffman was against emancipation. I saw that he was known to be a war democrat, but was not a strict partisan. Since war democrats supported the Lincoln-Johnson ticket, wouldn’t that most likely either have made him approving of emancipation or at least indifferent to it? Obviously, we’ll never know for sure without some record that specifically shows what he believed. But, it makes sense that his business interests would influence his political beliefs. Anyone want to do some more digging to try to clarify this? Where are those History Detectives?