Moment in Time (September 28, 2021)

James Spencer Ricketts was born in Perry County, Ohio, in 1844, one of twenty children (four died at birth or in early childhood) of Rev. Daniel Ricketts and Lucy Wickiser. After fighting in the Civil War, he returned to Ohio and worked as a carpenter before becoming a Methodist minister, serving in southeastern Ohio.

It was in Athens County that he met and married Helen Malintha Goodspeed in 1867. They had five children (Merrill, Ernest, Lucy, Mary, and Harriet) born in Fairfield, Hocking, Athens, and Vinton counties, which helps support the historical record of his service as an itinerant minister.

Rev. J. S. Ricketts was a traveling minister and a local Grandview real estate developer, and the first mayor of Marble Cliff after it converted from a hamlet to a village in 1903. His son O. E. Ricketts was a partner in his real estate venture and an attorney in Columbus. (1896 & 1895 photos)

In 1888, citing ill health, he retired from the active traveling ministry. He and his family settled in Columbus, where he had developed expanded personal interests. Even though he retired from his active ministerial responsibilities, he remained involved in church leadership. It was Rev. Ricketts that was instrumental in the founding of both the King Avenue Episcopal Church and the West Fifth Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, which would become Trinity United Methodist Church.

According to the history of the King Avenue church, Ricketts created and organized the first Sunday school in 1889 in temporary quarters on Henry Street, which is now called Sixth Avenue. Members in the neighborhood of King and Neil Avenues met in a two-story frame building until the church was built. He was appointed by the Columbus District to act as pastor for the newly organized church and served in this capacity until the annual conference, when the position could be filled.

The West Fifth Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1891 at the intersection of West Fifth Avenue and North Star Road (the building was most recently an animal hospital and was recently razed.) Rev. Ricketts sold to the church the two lots on which the church was built for $1. It remained on this site until 1913, when a larger church was built at First and Ashland Avenue in Grandview Heights. In the 1950s the Grandview church was sold, and was replaced by the new Trinity United Methodist Church at Cambridge Boulevard and West Fifth Avenue.

Ricketts also opened a real estate development business that would become Ricketts & Son, a partnership with his son E. O. (Ernest Osman) Ricketts. Ricketts operated his office in what is known as the Short North and lived on Third Avenue near Neil. E. O. and his wife and daughter lived on West 10th Avenue and was admitted to the bar in 1891. For three years, he was a member of the law firm Rankin, Thrailkill and Ricketts, before that firm was dissolved and Ricketts engaged in the profession by himself, with offices in the Columbia Building. He also became active in the real estate firm founded by his father.

J. S. Ricketts purchased large tracts of land in the northern part of what would become Grandview Heights and created a number of subdivisions that would make up the developing community. The locations of his 1890/91 additions are as follows:

• Fairday: Haines Ave. north to Fourth Ave. (now Thornwood) and Walcutt Rd. (now Grandview Ave.) east to Sunrise (now Avondale). When Ricketts first purchased this land, Third Ave. did not yet run west to Grandview Ave.
• Runnymede: the alley just north of Third, north to Fifth, and Ashland east to Oakland (now North Star).
• Summit Plain: Fifth north to King and Procyon (now Andover) east to Northstar (now North Star).
• Meridian: King north to Flenniken Pike (now Chambers Rd.) and Nectar (now Kenny Rd.) east to Concord.
• White Rose: Sixth north to Clinton Avenue, and Boella (now Meadow) east to Queen (now Virginia).

The Ohio State Journal reported on Aug. 9, 1901: “The residents of Arlington, Marble Cliff, Grand View, Sellsville, and the immediate vicinity decided by a practically unanimous vote to incorporate as a hamlet.” The designation ‘hamlet’ meant that there was no mayor, but three trustees, a clerk, a treasurer, a marshal, and a supervisor. Several years later the State of Ohio changed the law, Marble Cliff became a village, and James S. Ricketts was elected mayor.

As a Methodist minister and ardent anti-liquor advocate, Ricketts was disturbed by the activities of the saloons that lined Fifth Avenue between the rivers, frequented by the Italian quarry workers and the Sells Circus employees, and by alcohol served at the local country club. He therefore pushed an agenda to make the entire area dry. He also, in the words of the newspaper, “issued an ukase forbidding labor of any kind on Sunday.”

These blue laws pitted him against the saloon owners, members of the Arlington Country Club, and even his own village marshal, C. E. Herrel, who took every opportunity to undermine the mayor's authority. As an example, press coverage at the time indicated that when the mayor ordered the arrest of a local saloon keeper, the marshal retaliated by impounding the mayor's cow and calf which had "escaped" from their corral. The temperance controversy and pressure exerted by influential village residents culminated in the arrest and jailing of Ricketts and a near revocation of the village charter in June of 1904, although he was eventually vindicated.

He served almost two terms before abruptly resigning in 1905. The headline in the Columbus Press on Feb. 3, 1905 read “Mayor Ricketts Resigns - Marble Cliff’s Strenuous Chief Executive Quits Politics to Sell Books”.

Ricketts son E.O. Ricketts played a prominent role, as an attorney, in the most sensational trial ever to take place in Columbus, that of Dr. Howard Snook, respected OSU Veterinary professor and 1920 Olympic gold medalist in Pistol. Snook was convicted of brutally murdering his mistress Theora Hix, a 25-year-old medical student, during a tryst at the New York Central shooting range at Fisher Road and McKinley Avenue, just outside the city limits, in June of 1929. E. O. Ricketts was a member of the defense team for Dr. Snook.

An interesting side note related to the trial was that the Columbus prosecuting attorney was 31 year-old John J. Chester, Jr., son of John J. Chester, who purchased 300 lots south of First Avenue, east of Lincoln Rd. to Elmwood and south to Goodale Boulevard, and named the development Chester Heights, at almost the same time as the Ricketts subdivisions. The elder Chester was a prominent Columbus attorney and in 1892 became a charter member of what would be the Arlington Country Club in Marble Cliff, the first country club in central Ohio. He was a part of the strong opposition to the Ricketts blue laws.

Portions of the research for this article were undertaken by former Historical Society trustee Terry Smith.