323 Third Street
Marietta, Washington County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
This handsome structure dates back to the days of President Grant. It was built as a residence in 1873 by William Roeser, Sr., a boot and shoemaker who was born in Baden, Germany in 1821, and came to Marietta from Philadelphia in 1855. It was restored...
The Story
Built in 1873 during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency, this Marietta residence tells a quintessential Gilded Age story of immigrant striving. William Roeser, Sr., left Baden in southwestern Germany and, after a stop in Philadelphia, settled in this Ohio River town in 1855 to ply his trade as a boot and shoemaker. Marietta was then a bustling commercial river port, and craftsmen like Roeser formed the backbone of its growing middle class. The handsome house he raised for his family still stands as a testament to the prosperity a skilled tradesman could build in nineteenth-century America.
Why it matters
It preserves the everyday story of a German immigrant artisan who put down roots and prospered in Gilded Age Ohio, a pattern repeated in river towns across the American heartland.
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Related people
- · William Roeser, Sr.
Themes & tags
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