Honoring WWI Veteran Tom Bacon - Resident of the Edgemont Inn Boarding House

1930s image of 2950 Gilbert Avenue as the Edgemont Inn, a boarding house.

Today we honor WWI Veteran Tom Bacon – a resident of the Edgemont Inn Boarding House.

During the 1930s and early 1940s, the House now called the Harriet Beecher Stowe House was a long-term boarding house for African Americans and a tavern, called the Edgemont Inn, listed in the Green Motorist Book.  The same home that the Beecher family called home in the 1830s and 1840s continued to be a welcoming place for African Americans a century later.  Clearly, buildings change over time.  A 188-year-old structure cannot be expected to serve the same purpose and the same individuals for its entire existence. 

---

Burial document for Tom Bacon

Since we have the census records from 1940, we have been able to start the process of learning more about the lives of those inhabitants.  Tom Bacon was one resident.  He also served his country during the First World War and was stationed in France on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.  Tom was born in 1892 in Mississippi.  After his military service, he ended up in Cincinnati during the Great Depression.  

---

Application for veteran's headstone

Using primary source records collected by a volunteer, I set out to find Tom’s last resting place.  We know that he passed away in November 1948 from pneumococcal meningitis and at that point, he lived in a house across the street at 2947 Gilbert Avenue.  He was buried in the American Colored Cemetery, located on Duck Creek near Kennedy Avenue.  (It is now known as the United American Cemetery).  Finding his gravesite was not exactly easy though. ​

---

During quarantine earlier this year, my family and I set out to find Tom Bacon’s grave.  On a Saturday in April, my teenage son and I ventured to the cemetery.  Armed with a plot number and map, we thought it would be an easy task.  When we got there, though, we discovered that the road was in poor condition, many of the smaller headstones were either overgrown or dislocated, and there were no section markings.  We had no luck when we searched in the back loop where we thought it would be located.  Connor and I decided to regroup.  

---

The following weekend, my husband Eric did some additional research on where WWI soldiers were concentrated in the cemetery.  The section numbering system may have changed over time because our new estimate was on the opposite side of the cemetery.  The two of us embarked on another try.  This time we searched an area close to the front entrance.  We discovered several WWI and WWII headstones located in that section and after a little perseverance, we found Tom Bacon’s.  We were able to document its location.  

​The Harriet Beecher Stowe House plans to continue research and illustration of the lives and stories of the occupants of the House over the past 188 years.  We are working on several partnerships that will help in this endeavor.  Today we honor Tom Bacon and thank him for his service to the United States and for “making the world safe for democracy.” ​​​

---

Author: Christina Hartlieb is Executive Director of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.