Hannah Neil worked to help Columbus’ poor in 1800s
She was always a bit in the shadow of her flamboyant husband and the other outspoken leaders of a capital city in a frontier state. Hannah Neil took no offense at any of this but rather turned her attention to the tasks that needed to be done in her hometown.
She was later called a “ministering angel” by a close relative. She was just that and probably a bit more.
Hannah Schwing was born in Virginia in 1794. She moved with her family to Kentucky when she was 6 years old. At the age of 22, she married William Neil of Clark County, Kentucky. Young “Billy Neil” was a man of irrepressible energy and endless ambition. Quiet Hannah Neil became the peaceful counterpoint of the Neil family.
The Neils came to Columbus in 1818 after a brief sojourn in Urbana. William Neil was hired to be clerk of a new bank. But he also rapidly developed other interests. Constructing a two-story log house on High Street directly across from the Statehouse, he opened a tavern.
Leaving the tavern in Hannah’s hands, Billy Neil opened and operated several short haul stagecoach lines. Over time the short lines were consolidated and Billy Neil became known as the “Old Stage King.”
While Billy Neil was busy with all this, Hannah Neil had been busy as well. Many years later, Hannah Neil was remembered by her granddaughter, Lucy Neil Williams.
“The old homestead, where the Agricultural College now stands, ever stood with wide open doors in true Kentucky hospitable fashion. I have often heard of the many sleighing parties of young people that would come by unexpectedly, and the gay times they had, but it was among the poor that her life was passed, and that she is remembered and thought of.
“I remember the old house with its wide halls, large open wood fireplaces, high brass fenders, and heavy old mahogany furniture, and it seems a pity that it should have been its fate to be destroyed by fire, thus removing one of the old landmarks …
“The Hannah Neil Mission (founded in 1855), named after her, is a home for friendless women and children, to whom her heart was always open. She was one of the original founders of the Female Benevolent Society (in 1839). I remember seeing my grandmother giving away every dress, but the one black silk in the wardrobe, and of protesting with her one cold day, for even taking off a heavy quilted skirt which she had on and parting with her feather bed to give to some poor woman.
“Very often in the fall, she would lay in large supplies of provisions, and have pork and sausages and hams packed in barrels, to distribute among the poor in the winter. Her old horse, Billy, was much the most at home among the ‘byways and hedges,’ and always wanted to
turn down an alley where he spent so much time, whilst my dear grandmother, like a ministering angel, was in the home of some poor person, always cheerful and making everyone happy around her.
“Her true Christian spirit always shown in her sweet face, and I almost used to imagine sometimes, as I looked at her, that I would see a shining light around it. Her whole life was given up to doing good, and working among the poor, and in her church.
“She died on March 13, 1868, of pneumonia. She passed away quietly and looked as if she had fallen into a sweet and peaceful sleep. As the funeral procession left the church, I remember the crowds of poor people who, with tearstained faces, and lining the streets on either side (since the church could not hold them all), had come to pay the last tribute of love and respect to one who had been a dear and true friend to them.”
By the time of Hannah Neil’s death, the tavern had been replaced along High Street by a magnificent Neil House Hotel. That hotel burned in a spectacular fire in 1860 but had been replaced by an even larger and more spacious new Neil House that Hannah Neil lived to see. William Neil, the “Old Stage King,” died in 1870.
His children sold the old farm north of town to the new Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College – which now, of course, is known as Ohio State University. They laid out a fashionable residential subdivision in the heights and ravines east of High Street across from the campus, with streets named for Civil War battles at places called Indianola and Iuka.
The Hannah Neil Mission, according to the Ohio History Connection, is “now known as the Hannah Neil Center for Children, (and) provides specialized counseling services for young people. It is located in south Columbus as a program of the Starr Commonwealth Schools.”
Hannah and William Neil are in the family plot in Green Lawn Cemetery.
Local historian and author Ed Lentz writes the As It Were column for Thisweek Community News and The Dispatch.