Dublin Historical Society president preserving the past

January 27, 2018

12:00 AM

Photo by Amanda DePerro

“These good people, who once neighbored, labored and prayed together have, too soon, been forgotten – nothing left but the stones that bear their names.”

Tom Holton, president of the Dublin Historical Society, reads the quote aloud. He’s seated at the head of the kitchen table of the Fletcher Coffman Homestead, surrounded by furniture and decorations that might look like the Coffman family’s in the mid-late 1800s.

The quote was taken from a 1960 piece titled “Them Was the Days…” by Carolene Tuller. In it, she recounts growing up in Dublin with the people who made it what it was.

She, like Holton, feared that the town she loved would one day forget its past.

“I see my role, through the historical society, as to preserve the photos and the documents and the stories of as many of these good people as we can, so they won’t be too soon forgotten, but for the stones that bear their names,” Holton says.

The U.S. Marine Corps veteran’s voice cracks, his eyes well up. This time, the words are his own. Holton’s devotion to Dublin’s history is heavy and fierce; just ask anyone on Dublin City Council. But he wasn’t born here. The 67-year-old hails from London, Ohio, and met his wife of 45 years, Gayle, at Miami University.

“In Dublin, you can stand where it all started,” Holton says. “The historic district … you just stand there, and it’s quiet, and it’s peaceful. The residents love it, and I love it. It’s unlike any other place in Dublin."

After traveling around the U.S. for seven years with the Marine Corps and a stop in Washington, D.C., Gayle and Holton moved to central Ohio in 1984 for Holton’s job at Wendy’s International. At that time, Holton’s sister, who lived in Worthington, gave him sound advice: move either to Dublin or to Worthington, because those were the only two communities with good schools. With only three days to find a house, the Holtons chose Dublin for their son, Jason.

“From the beginning, it’s been a small town where you can do almost anything you wanted to. You could be involved as much as you wanted to,” Holton says. “All of a sudden, you just found yourself getting involved in stuff. People would call and say, ‘Can you do this?’ and you’d say ‘sure.’ It was just easy.”

Photo by Amanda DePerro

Holton credits much of his involvement to Gayle, who has always been heavily involved in Dublin herself. They were named Grand Leprechauns of Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 2006, then Grand Marshals of Dublin’s Independence Day Celebration in 2016.

It would take far too many words to list all of the organizations in which the Holtons have been involved, but among them are the Dublin AM Rotary, Dublin Arts Council, Syntero and Leadership Dublin (of which Holton is a founding member). In fact, the Storyteller Series – now two years old – began in large part due to Holton.

On top of their incredible community involvement, both Holton and Gayle have balanced their own businesses, Tom Holton Consulting and Gayle Holton Design, respectively. But Holton’s passion for Dublin ultimately grew because of its residents.

After Herb Jones, Holton’s predecessor as head of the historical society and husband of former Storyteller Leona, took Holton on a walking tour of Historic Dublin, Holton was sold.

“I loved that guy,” says Holton. “Just by getting to know Herb, I joined the historical society.”

Not five feet away from where we sit in the Coffman homestead, a sign posted on a closet door reads “KEEP DOOR CLOSED.” It’s signed by Jones himself, who died in 2015. Holton says, as he began to see Dublin losing longtime residents, he realized he needed to preserve as many memories as he could, as quickly as he could.

Holton organized a program called Dublin Memories, in which four unique Dublin residents tell stories of growing up in what used to be a poor farming community. The videos cover the founding of Dublin City Schools, original zoning, the role women played in Dublin’s early days and creation of the Dublin Charter. He’s also teamed up with the Dublin branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library and the city to curate a database of photographs, documents and videos – including Dublin Memories – that capture what Dublin used to be like.

“In Dublin, you can stand where it all started,” Holton says. “The historic district … you just stand there, and it’s quiet, and it’s peaceful. The residents love it, and I love it. It’s unlike any other place in Dublin. There’s no traffic, you can hear the birds and you can feel the breeze, and the light coming through the trees. It’s a special place. It’s unlike any other place that I’ve been, except my hometown.”

Holton is particularly focused on preserving the historic homes in Dublin, and this focus has given him a name as the local expert on historic Dublin architecture. He’s been invited by historic home owners, developers and even the City administration to give advice on how to preserve a part of a home or an old barn, or how to put an addition on a historic home to make it period-accurate.

“I guess that means I’m just the expert. The only expert left. It puts a lot of weight on my shoulders, unfortunately, but it means I’ve got to be on my game. I’ve got to study a lot harder,” Holton says. “Someone has to speak for the house.”

As Dublin moves into the future, its longtime residents refuse to let it forget the past. You’ll find Holton at City meetings, passionately defending the historic architecture in Dublin. As we sit together in a house built in the 1860s – one that I still remember touring on a class field trip in third grade, thanks to the Tom Holtons, Herb Joneses and Carolene Tullers of Dublin – Holton leaves me with inspiration.

“Everybody is so passionate about Dublin, that you can’t help but to share in that passion,” he says. “Like Carolene Tuller was saying, you’ve got to do something so that there’s more left than just the names on the stones.”