Memories of Hahn’s Grove

The Hahns' big house and surrounding cottages, pictured in 1960.

My best memories of Hahn’s Grove are from driving in the car west on Lake Road through Rocky River or buying ice and pop at Serbs gas station. I remember, in the summer, reaching Avalon Drive and starting down the dip (hill) in the road when like magic the temperature in the air got 10 degrees cooler and a nice summer breeze floated in through the windows of the car as Lake Erie came into view.

At the bottom of the dip was an area I grew up knowing as Hahn’s Grove (today it is called Bradstreet‘s Landing). The driveway to the water filtration plant runs south through the property and there are apartment buildings today. There was a beach for swimming and a fishing pier. The Serb family had a gas station and ice house on the south side of the road near the township lines between Dover and Rockport. At the time I didn’t know any more than that.

The Hahn family were early settlers of the near west side of Cleveland, arriving from Bavaria in 1850. The only information we have on the father is that his name was Frederick and he had two boys named Charles (Karl) and Joseph. We know this because the boys married two of the Rentschler sisters, also from the near west side.  

Regina Lapp Rentschler and Jacob Frederick Rentschler immigrated from Germany about the same time as the Hahns. They also lived on the near west side. They had five daughters: Regina Katharina Rentschler Wischmeyer (married Henry Wischmeyer Sr.), Caroline Rentschler Wolf (married Alfred Marion Wolf), Adelheide Rentschler Hahn (married Joseph Louis Hahn), Sophia Wilhelmina (Mina) Rentschler Hahn (married Charles Hahn), and Fredericka Rentschler Kruger (no information available).

Mina married Charles Hahn on Aug. 26, 1855. Regina Wischmeyer’s will shows Mina inheriting everything from her mother. Wilhelmina died in Rockport, Ohio, on Dec. 30, 1900, leaving two children, Charles and Bertha Hahn Boylan. Her services were held at the residence of her brother-in-law, Henry Wischmeyer, in Dover, Ohio, followed by the funeral at Schifflin Christian Church, at the corner of Dodge and Superior streets. Her husband, Charles, died in 1893.

Adelheide Rentschler Hahn married Joseph Louis Hahn on Dec. 17, 1863. She died on Nov. 28, 1907, after a long illness. She returned from Europe while ill in September, that year after a prolonged stay abroad and had been in poor health since. She was the mother of Mrs. Vernon H. Burke, Joseph Oscar Hahn and SJ Hahn.

The Wischmeyer family is well known in the history of Bay Village. Henry Sr. and Regina Katharina Wischmeyer settled on two acres of Lot 96 along Lake Road, planted grapes, built a wine cellar and a hotel for serving summer tourists and merchants and eventually purchased the whole Lot 96. They lived on their property until their deaths. 

Being sisters and good friends Sophia and Adelheide moved west to Rockport Township to farm and be closer to Regina and Henry in Dover Township. Their property was situated on the north and south sides of Lake Road near the Dover Township line. The farm was in Rockport and on the west side was Dover Township, the railroad track was on the south, the top of the hill near Avalon Drive today was east and Lake Erie on the north. The interurban stop number was 9. They had a natural sandy beach.

The Hahn family were farmers. Most farmers had an orchard of fruit trees: apple, peach, plum, pear or cherry, hence the word Grove became part of the name. In the 1920s they built cottages like most of the farmers along the lake. The Hahn children kept the farm and worked it.

Mina and Charles’ son, Charles S. Hahn, married Annie Nurenberg and lived at Hahn’s Grove. Their children were Gertrude, Arthur and Carl. Charles died in 1918. He was killed at age 62 by an interurban train at Stop 9 close by to where he lived on Lake Road. Annie died in 1931.

Their son, Arthur, married Marie Loftus, who had emigrated from Ireland in 1912. They had two daughters, Annamae and Ruth. Arthur Hahn was a general contractor. He died in 1935 from burns/suffocation from a fire in his home. After his death, his wife, Marie, and his brother Carl Hahn were survivors of the Hahn property. Their sister, Gertrude Allen, passed away in 1943. Marie Hahn lived in the big house on the cliff and daughters and family members lived in the cottage on and off until the property was sold.

I’d like to thank Nancy MacKenzie for her help with this article. Her husband is the grandson of Arthur Hahn.

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Volume 10, Issue 24, Posted 9:55 AM, 12.18.2018