FOW - 2232 Market (Nesbitt House) & 2234 Market

Friends of Wheeling’s Jeanne Finstein & Joanne Sullivan along with realtor, Missy Ashmore, was given a tour of these buildings by owner Susan Shoemaker. Due to space limitations, Susan could not have members tour.

HISTORY
Sanborn Insurance maps from 1884 and 1902 show two vacant lots in 1884 and suggest that an “Iron Clad” frame building at 2234 Market Street was built between those dates. 2232 Market was still a vacant lot, according to the 1902 map.


The later 1921-22 Sanborn map, clearly shows both buildings – a one-story, frame (yellow color) “Paints & Picture Framing” building at 2234 Market and a brick (pink color) building at 2232 Market that is three stories tall on the front and two stories on the rear, with a two-story frame “Tin Shop” attached to the rear, alley side.

Deed records show the early owners of 2234 Market Street as Henry Schwarz (1883, purchase price $900), then Christian Lotz (1893 - $1550), and Frank and Kate Formella (1897 - $1600). Stone contractor Lotz (c. 1824-1897) lived next door, at 2230 Market. It may be that Schwarz built the building there, but his saloon was located further south, at 2246 Market.

The first Wheeling City Directory found showing a listing at 2234 Market was the 1901-02 directory, with Frank Formella having a paint and wallpaper store at that address, while residing next door, at 2236 Market. Formella (1854-1927) was a German immigrant, and his wife Catherine (Kate, 1850-1933) was the daughter of German immigrants. Her unmarried sisters Theresa and Mary Mertz inherited the property after Kate’s death.

Christian Lotz had purchased the property at 2232 Market Street in 1883 and sold it to William and Hannah Nesbitt for $2100 in 1901. It was probably Nesbitt who built the current building at that address and is listed as residing at 2232 in the 1903-04 city directory. Nesbitt (1868-1924) was the son of Irish immigrants and worked as a blacksmith and hardware store owner. His wife Hannah (1858-1926) was the daughter of English immigrants. Two of their ten children also lived at 2232 Market at the time – Miss Laura Nesbitt (music teacher) and William Howard Nesbitt (clerk at Wheeling Corrugating Company).

By the mid 1920s, the William Nesbitt Hardware was no longer listed at 2232 Market, and an apparently unrelated tenant lived upstairs. Isador and Fannie Block are shown as operating a ladies wear store at 2234 Market around the same time.

In 1925, the Nesbitts sold 2232 Market to Gerrit J. and Loubertha Van Westenbrugge and Cornelius and Gertrude DeKoning. The two couples operated the Wheeling Nut Butter Company (wholesale butter and cheese) at that address, while a tenant lived upstairs. Meanwhile Henry Vogler is listed as operating a roofing and sheet metal company at 2234 Market in 1930, and Edward Harrison had a second-hand furniture store there in 1934.

The Van Westenbrugges and DeKonings acquired 2234 Market from the Mertz sisters in 1937. Ownership from then on has been of both properties together.

In early 1947, George A. Cook (1898-1988) purchased the properties and operated George Cook Distributing Company (wholesale food). Marjorie Stullenberger and Shirley Reynolds, daughters of George and Freda Storz Cook (c. 1902-1994), inherited the properties after the deaths of their parents and sold it to Jeffrey Forster in mid 1995. Forster had “Artistic Metals” there until he sold it to the current owner, Susan Shoemaker, in the fall of 2008.

As of this writing, Shoemaker lives upstairs at 2232 Market and uses 2234 Market for warehousing, while a retail ladies shop rents the first floor of 2232 Market. The properties are currently for sale.

Prepared by Jeanne Finstein, April 25, 2025
Friends of Wheeling

Sources:
•Ohio County Deed Records
•Sanborn Insurance Maps
•West Virginia Vital Records
•Wheeling City Directories
•Wheeling News Register obituaries