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Below is a complete listing of all Ohio Historical Markers. To find a detailed marker listing including text, photographs, and locations, click on a county below. Our listing is updated by the markers program as new markers are installed and older markers are reported damaged or missing.

This marker was given a transposed, non-Hamilton County number. It will be corrected to 66-31 when possible.

66-31 The Eliza House

Side A: Three hundred yards east of this location on Oak Road, overlooking the Miami & Erie Canal, was the house of abolitionist John Van Zandt (1791-1847). For years this house was known as one of the most active “stations” on the Underground Railroad. In 1842, two bounty hunters from Sharonville caught Van Zandt helping eight runaway slaves who had escaped from owner Wharton Jones of Kentucky. Defended in court by Salmon P. Chase, who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1864-1873, Van Zandt was convicted and fined. Chase appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he tested the constitutionality of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law. When writing her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe used Van Zandt as the abolitionist character John Van Trompe. Van Zandt’s house became associated with the book and was known as “The Eliza House,” named for one of the novel’s main characters.
Side B: Same
Sponsors: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Villages of Evendale, Glendale & Woodlawn; The Ohio Historical Society
Address: 10653 Chester Road, 
Glendale, 
OH, 
45215
Location: Landmark Baptist Church, at the intersection of Oak & Chester Roads
Latitude: 39.2620800
Longitude: -84.4506300