Campbells to be discussed June 14

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George and Elizabeth Campbell will be the topic presented at the Big Walnut Area Historical Society meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, at the Myers Inn Museum in Sunbury.

Debbie Shatzer and Paul Hammock will portray the couple and will tell of their accomplishments.

Horticulturist George Campbell, part owner of the Blue Limestone Quarry, was a well-known businessman in Delaware. When he married Elizabeth Little in 1846, her father, William Little, gave them land at the corner of Winter and Elizabeth streets.

In 1854 an Anglo-Norman house of blue limestone was finished with the terraced hill in front for George’s greenhouses. George brought a small pinkish grape from New Jersey and perfected it to become the Delaware grape that was well-known for making wine. Although the greenhouses are gone and few of the grapes survive in Delaware, the Campbell home is now known as the Delaware County Arts Castle.

Debbie Shatzer is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where she worked for 15 years before becoming the first director of the Delaware County Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1996, a position she still holds 20 years later.

Shatzer has portrayed Lucy Hayes, the first girl admitted to OWU and the wife of the 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes. She wrote a play about Annie Oakley and portrayed her at Sunbury’s Buffalo Bill re-enactment and will do so again on June 25 as part of Sunbury’s bicentennial celebration.

Paul Hammock has a degree in education from Bowling Green State University and a master’s of divinity from the Methodist Theological Society. After 30 years of teaching he has served as a docent at the Columbus Museum of Art and volunteers for the Ohio History Connection as an interpreter at many venues.

The George and Elizabeth Campbell presentation is open to the public at no charge.

The Myers Inn Museum is at 45 S. Columbus St., Sunbury.

George and Elizabeth Campbell’s home in Delaware. The Anglo-Norman style home was completed in 1854, and today houses The Arts Castle at 190 W. Winter St. in Delaware.
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2016/06/web1_ArtsCastle.SUBMITTED.jpg George and Elizabeth Campbell’s home in Delaware. The Anglo-Norman style home was completed in 1854, and today houses The Arts Castle at 190 W. Winter St. in Delaware. Courtesy photo | Debbie Shatzer

By Lenny C. Lepola

For The Gazette

Lenny C. Lepola can be reached at 614-266-6093. Email: [email protected].

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