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MADISON TWP. — Before Vernon House bought the abode along Ohio 122 near the old Elk Creek Cemetery, he wanted to confirm a suspicion he had after reading a historical account on the Madison Twp. Web site.

He went over to the old house in the 1700 block of Middletown-Eaton Road and slipped his hand under its siding. His suspicion was confirmed after feeling the logs and the chinking underneath.

House and his wife, Patricia, bought the house at a bank sale with an idea to one day restore it inside and out.

The couple rented it out for awhile with the hopes that whoever was renting the house would also help to do some of the restoring.

Vernon House said after the last tenants moved out, he started pulling down the plaster walls that had covered the structure which he believes to have been built in the early 1800s.

The main room is about 18 feet by 25 feet, in which House has found numerous old handmade nails.

Some of the logs appeared to have been damaged by termites over the years, but the original mud and horsehair chinking between the logs are still "hard as rock" in 2006.

"This could be nice with a lot of work," he said.

According to a Middletown history column written by the late George Crout, the old house, located just south of the Elk Creek Cemetery, "was once a stage coach stop and tavern, where passengers on the Cincinnati, Hamilton, Eaton and Richmond line once rested and stopped for refreshments even before the Madison House opened in 1846, and the coming of the railroad to West Middletown."

According to Butler County land records that Vernon House found, the old log cabin house was owned by Jacob Snyder about 1825 and the deed was recorded in 1826. Snyder was born in 1764 and is buried in the adjacent Elk Creek Cemetery, which can be seen from the kitchen window.

In another column, Crout wrote that Snyder, owned a grist mill down the hill along Elk Creek. Crout wrote that "the Snyder mill at one time manufactured more flour than anyone along Elk Creek, some of it was flat boated down the stream to the Great Miami and the Ohio to New Orleans."

"In the early 1900s, Edward Lehler and his wife lived in the old house. Around 1920, it was purchased by Flora Selby, a widow, who reared her large family there," according to the Crout column.

"The family included eight girls and a son, Sam Selby, who played for Ohio State on the football field, and later became a coach, and is now remembered by being in the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame. One of the girls, Alice Selby Walker, built a house across the road and a sister lived in the old house. It wasn't until around 1990 that the Selbys left," according to the Crout column.

Donna Walter, who is now president of the Madison Twp. Historical Society that was just formed in April, said she's very familiar with house — it was the first place she and her husband rented for about five years after they were married in the mid 1960s.

Walter said she was told then it had been a stage coach stop and tavern. She said Alice Selby Walker James and her sister lived across the road and later moved to Otterbein Home outside of Lebanon.

While Vernon House, a locked-out AK Steel Corp. worker, says he doesn't have to sell the house, but "thought it was time to get rid of it." The property has been listed for sale with Sawyer Realtors.

"I'd like to see it go to a county agency like MetroParks or the historical society who could possibly restore it," he said.

The location of the old stage coach stop and tavern about a mile away from the Madison Local Schools campus makes it an ideal location for a living history museum, House said.

Walter said the that idea is something that the new township historical society won't be taking on anytime soon. The new group was just organized in April and doesn't have any money.

Their activities are limited to sharing information, learning more about the township's history and listening to guest speakers at meetings. The group is also contacting elderly residents of the township to scan in photos into computer files for posterity.

"If we get a museum, that will be sometime into the future," Walter said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2871 or erichter@coxohio.com.