Martin Luther Edwards House

This house is Greek Revival in style, with a simple east-west gabled roof with returns. Evidence of an early center chimney, as shown in a sketch of this house in the 1874 Combination Atlas Map of Summit County, can be seen in the basement. The front windows are replacements, the originals having been recycled to the family room. Greek Revival window frames and doors are preserved in the parlor. Particularly noteworthy is the lovely clapboard siding, which was discovered in excellent condition after aluminum siding was removed during a 20th century restoration.

Martin Luther Edwards, a cabinet maker, was born in 1781 in New Milford, Connecticut, the son of Edward Edwards, who came to this country in 1764 from London. He moved his family to Canfield, Mahoning County, Ohio, in 1827, and to Hudson some time before 1837. One of his sons, Pierpont Edwards, a prominent Canfield businessman, bought at sheriff’s sale the house at 175 Aurora Street when the financial panic forced the sale of the Day’s Addition houses. Because of the coincidence in given names, places of origin and settlement areas in Ohio, it is probable that Martin Luther Edwards was related to Jonathan Edwards, the famous minister and theologian, and his son, Pierpont Edwards, an original investor in the Connecticut Land Company and proprietor of Mesopotamia Township.

In 1844, Edwards bought the William Hanford House at 145 Aurora Street and the 1850 census lists his occupation as “keeps boarding house.” Seventeen persons were listed as living in his house. The Hanford House was sold in 1853 to one of the developers of Day’s Addition; Edwards built this house on Church Street the same year.