Youngsholm: the Ohio home of Colonel Charles Young, a Buffalo Soldiers leader

Colonel Charles Young led Buffalo Soldiers, served as a diplomat and intellectual, and called a property in Wilberforce, Ohio home. The Young family named it Youngsholm. It was a residence and a gathering place for prominent African American intellectuals, performers and leaders, and the National Park Service now treats it as a cultural landscape.

A photograph from about 1908. The shrub-lined lawn beside the house was a common place for play and posed photographs. NPS.

The landscape

Charles and Ada Young bought the property in 1907, and its period of significance runs from then until Charles Young's death in 1922. The cultural landscape covers about 60 acres: the house, agricultural fields, woodlands and several small features. Youngsholm is in Greene County, Ohio, in an L-shaped parcel facing roughly south and parallel to US Route 42.

The Youngs bought the house in 1907. It and its immediate grounds formed the core of the property they developed. NPS.

The house has two stories, late-Victorian embellishments and painted brick walls. A porch of textured concrete blocks wraps around the front, and a wide central staircase leads up to it. Oldtown Creek and a tributary flow to the north and west. During the period of significance the family and hired help farmed and raised livestock. Small features include historic wire fences and a concrete bench on the west patio, decorated with foreign coins and medals that allude to Colonel Young's travels.

Central West Field, looking northwest from South Central Field. Fields made up most of the land cover. NPS.

The man

Charles Young was born to enslaved parents in Kentucky in 1864 and showed an aptitude for languages and music early. After the family moved to the free state of Ohio he attended public school in Ripley, graduated with honors and taught there for two years before taking the entrance exam for West Point. He was the ninth African American admitted and the third to graduate, and he had to overcome pervasive racism and discrimination there.

Congress established separate African American regiments in 1866: the Army's 24th and 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries, which Plains Native American tribes called "Buffalo Soldiers." They were considered exceptional servicemen. Young, a second lieutenant, was first assigned to the 9th Cavalry in 1889. In 1894 he was sent to Wilberforce University in Ohio to teach military science, became a respected professor and developed a friendship with W.E.B. DuBois. After an assignment in Cuba, in 1903 Captain Young became the first African American national park superintendent, at Sequoia National Park in California.

Making a home

About 1910: two young maple trees behind the metal fence that replaced a hedge near the road, and Charles Young at the porch among planting beds. View north. NPS.

The Young family around 1911. Left to right: Charles Noel, Marie Amelie, Ada and Charles. NPS.

Charles Noel was born in 1906. In 1907 Charles and Ada Young bought Youngsholm from M.J. Harley and N.A. Fulton, and later that year purchased 38 acres next door. They soon renovated, adding a front porch and a conservatory and ornamental and productive plantings. Historic photos show they grew several exotic species. The family and hired help raised sweet potatoes, turnips, onions, beans and peas, and the property had fruit trees, mostly cherry and peach.

From 1907 to 1922 Young continued his military career, with tours that included Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Hispaniola and Liberia. After his death in 1922, Ada kept up the home and property.

After the Youngs

In 1983 the Omega Psi Phi fraternity of Howard University acquired the property and funded rehabilitation in partnership with the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center. President Barack Obama signed the proclamation establishing Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument on March 15, 2013, and the National Park Service acquired the property. Visitors can learn about Young's life and the Buffalo Soldiers' legacy, and the landscape holds evidence of the time the family lived there.

Landscape features of the 1922 homestead, from the Youngsholm Cultural Landscape Report and Environmental Assessment. NPS.

Sources

• National Park Service, Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers Cultural Landscape, Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument; rewritten in hubnx's own words.