In 1883, Joseph L. McVey (1846-1915) bought two lots of land separately from Aquila Treadway (1826-1887) and others and Jesse Hilles, Jr. (1828-1914) and Mary C. Hilles, his wife. Treadway was a florist and a member of the City Council and Hilles served as a Town Commissioner before moving to Baltimore, when he sold one of these lots to McVey. It is believed that Joseph L. McVey and his wife, Josephine T. McVey (1854-1934) built this house.

Joseph and Josephine McVey raised five daughters and four sons in this house—Mary Elva McVey Thompson, Elnora McVey Werntz, Carrie McVey Barnhart, Beulah McVey Logan, Myrtle McVey; and Willliam Clinton McVey, Walter McVey, Joseph Nathan McVey, and Benjamin H. McVey. Remarkably, McVey family members and descendants owned and continued to live in this home for 131 years after the McVeys built this home. Other relatives lived in nearby homes over the years.

Joseph was a “horseshoer, blacksmith, and wagon builder” who ran The Keystone Shop at this location and advertised in “The Electric Light” newspaper in 1883 that the Keystone Shop was “the place to get your Blacksmith and Wheelwright work done.” He also had a business at the Canal Basin on Conesteo Street and served a few terms on the City Council, sometimes as president. Joseph McVey had to give up blacksmithing due to health reasons and for three years prior to his 1915 death he served as a Justice of the Peace, having been appointed by Governor Phillips L. Goldsborough.

In January 1911, Beulah McVey hosted a small group of women (including her sister, Carrie) in this home who formed a Equal Suffrage Club and dubbed themselves the “H.D.G. Suffs.” They established an executive committee and voted for Bertie White as President and Beulah as Vice President. At least one of Joseph’s sons, Benjamin H. McVey (1889-1949), was a blacksmith like his father originally. In 1925 Benjamin advertised carpet cleaning for the Eureka Carpet Cleaning Company of which he was Manager. Benjamin in 1935 also served as a captain in the Susquehanna Hose Company and was elected to the City Council.

Joseph McVey predeceased his wife, Josephine, who lived here until 1934 with some of the large family. As can be seen from the 1940 Census, sons Joseph Nathan McVey (1886-1958) and John Walter McVey (1882-1956) lived here along with their sister, Carrie McVey Barnhart (1889-1965), her husband William Clarence Barnhart (1886-1972), and their two children, Weldon Barnhart (1921-1997) and Thelma Barnhart Springer (1923-1986). Alternative spellings for Barnhart over the years were Barnheart and Barnhardt. Jay McSpadden says his grandparents were Elam and Eleanor Werntz (1884-1932), and their daughter, Erma Werntz McSpadden, was only about 12 when her mother died. Consequently his mother, Erma, was sent to live in this house with the McVeys (who were cousins) until she graduated from HDG High School. Jay says he went there often when he was young and also spent time with the Lowes, who also were cousins, and lived across the street from this house.

It is not known whether Josephine McVey died with a Will or died intestate; as sometimes happened back then, whoever lived in a home simply continued to do so until someone wished to sell the property. In this case the question of ownership reached the Circuit Court in 1960 in Barnhart vs. Thompson, when William and Carrie Barnhart sought ownership as did Carrie’s sister, Mary Elva Thompson, wife of George Thompson of New York. The court ordered the property sold at public auction, but after insufficient bids were received a court-appointed Trustee sold this home in private sale to Charles Boone Lowe (1919-2010) and Vera May Lowe (1921-2000), his wife. Vera was the daughter of Beulah McVey and Malcolm Logan; granddaughter of Joseph and Josephine McVey. In 1963, Vera Lowe’s widowed mother, Beulah Logan, was living with Charles and Vera when she died. Charles was a 60-year member of the Methodist Church, a contractor with his own company, Charles B. Lowe, Inc., and worked as a volunteer with many local organizations.

After more than 40 years of ownership, and following the death of Vera Lowe, Charles Lowe deeded the home in 2003 to his son, Charles Miller Lowe and his wife Judy Churchman Lowe (1952-2013). Ten years later, after Judy’s death, Charles Lowe sold this large property to Clark P. Turner, a real estate developer at that time. The house appeared to be unlived in for a period of time after that.

In 2016 a Bankruptcy Court Trustee for Clark P. Turner sold this two-lot property to Bangs Properties, LLC (Brian and Lisa Bangs). Two years later, Bangs Properties, LLC, sold this property to Brian’s parents, John Bangs and Deborah Ann Bangs (1950-2019) of Bel Air. The latter had subdivided the property in March 2019, with the house retaining this address, and they sold the unimproved lot (843 Ontario Street) to Allen J. Fair, a local real estate investor.

This historical home with two separate living units appears to have been an investment property for the owner and is back on the market in April 2022.

County Records
Built 1890. 2088 sq ft. 2.5 stories with basement, 2 baths, 6,300 sq ft lot.