Our feature OKI Wanna Know seeks answers to those questions that lots of people wonder about but maybe don't know who to ask. This week, WVXU's Bill Rinehart looks into one of the city's first reverends.
Tim Werdmann of Terrace Park noticed something a lot of people have probably seen: "Driving around in Cincinnati and its neighboring environs, there seem to be a lot of roads and other things named Kemper," Werdmann says. "They're not all in the same place geographically, so I just was wondering, was there a significant Kemper somewhere in the history of Cincinnati, and if so, what was that person doing?"
There's Kemper Road, which runs almost the length of northern Hamilton County, and there's Kemper Lane, in Walnut Hills.
Jim Smith is the lead docent and a tour guide at Heritage Village in Sharon Woods. He says Reverend James Kemper and his wife Judith first moved to Cincinnati in 1791, with their then 10 children. (That number eventually climbed to 15.) They lived at 4th and Sycamore, in what is now downtown Cincinnati.
"They stayed there for two years, but they decided it was too crowded and too noisy and too expensive," he says. "Remember, we're talking 750 people, but it's all relative, right? And so they bought 160 acres up on the hillside to start a farm. They had so many walnut trees on their farm they called their farm Walnut Hill, and that part of Cincinnati is still called Walnut Hills today."
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Smith says by 1804, Kemper built a log home on what is now Kemper Lane.
That house is now at Heritage Village in Sharon Woods, but Smith says it had a roundabout way of getting there.
"In 1912, the Daughters of the American Revolution moved the house to the Cincinnati Zoo. In 1954, the DAR sold the house to the Colonial Dames of America and Ohio, and in 1980, the Colonial Dames moved the house here to Heritage Village," Smith explains.
And that's where it sits today, open for tours, and not far from East Kemper Road.
Heritage Village Executive Director Steve Preston says Reverend Kemper was well known in Cincinnati's early days. He was the first pastor of the first Presbyterian church in the new community, and served a number of nearby congregations.
"He would go to such places as Duck Creek, Columbia..." Preston says. "And on some days when the Baptist minister was not available, he would do a Presbyterian service for the Presbyterians in attendance, and then he would do a Baptist (service.)"
Jim Smith says Kemper founded about 100 churches across the country, including Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church. He also donated some of the land that was used for Lane Seminary.
"And as you may know, Lane University was involved in the debates over abolitionism," Smith says.
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Preston says "The Lane Seminary debates were quite big. In fact, it caused quite the controversy. The student bodies actually had debates over the moral legitimacy of slavery."
Preston says James and Judith Kemper were both abolitionists.
But, Kemper's greatest contribution may have come before all of that. Preston says the Kemper family arrived in Cincinnati just days after General Arthur St. Clair's defeat near what is now Fort Recovery, Ohio.
"Basically, 80% of (the) United States Army was combat ineffective after that battle. That was Little Turtle and Blue Jacket and the confederated tribes, consisting of Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, Lenape, Wyandot, some what we call Mingo — which are the western end of the Iroquois — or Haudenosaunee bands," Preston says.
He says the surviving U.S. troops limped back to Fort Washington.
"People were terrified of what was going to happen. Are those tribes and their warriors going to follow them down? Are we going to be under attack?" Preston says. "And here, James Kemper has just arrived in town, and he's literally going door to door, tavern to tavern, talking to people, getting them to remain in Cincinnati. So he didn't know anybody yet, but here he was talking to everybody about, 'You gotta see this through.' "
And see it through they did. The attack from Indigenous peoples never materialized, and Cincinnati stayed on the map.
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Reverend Kemper died from cholera in 1834. Judith Kemper lived until 1846. They're buried together in Spring Grove Cemetery.
Today, Preston says the Kemper home gets visits from descendants.
"The descendants that we have as visitors here have never come from Cincinnati, oddly enough," Preston says. "You would think that some descendants who maybe have not traced their lineage or just aren't intrigued by the past of their family would probably be around here still."
The Kemper House and Heritage Village are open several days a week, with guided, and self-tours.
If you're feeling lost with your question about the area, ask OKI Wanna Know by filling out the form below.
This story has been updated.
