“It was really quite a surprise to come out and see this,” said owner and funeral director Richard Dunbar. “Generally when an incident happens with a wall of this magnitude it’s usually just a scrape or a small chip off the wall so to see this type of damage was really quite upsetting.”
The damage stretched for about three to four car lengths. In parts the wall was crumbled, with large boulders too large to move without machinery. In other spots it appeared intact but was buckled.
“The wall is an iconic piece of the while property here, and it’s is a great property and one of the most architecturally significant buildings in the state,” he said. “People notice the wall as much as anything.”
Dunbar’s wife and funeral home co-owner Anne Dunbar said the funeral home has insurance, but what is unknown is how much the policy will cover.
“As you can see it’s going to be a major undertaking, no pun intended, to get this cleaned up,” she said.
Aside from cost, she thinks it will be difficult to find a skilled stone mason familiar with 19th century construction methods.
“It’s going to take somebody who’s a real artisan and really determined to do the right job … it will have to be restored exactly the way it was constructed originally,” she said. To stay on the National Register of Historic Places, “we have to repair and replace exactly as it was done in 1888.”
The Dunbars were alerted to the incident not by law enforcement, but by employees who found the damage Sunday morning. From what they pieced together, a driver in a pickup truck sometime between 2 and 2:30 a.m. hit a couple parked cars and crashed into the wall. Reports were not yet available from the Ohio State Highway Patrol or Springfield Police Division, and it’s not clear whether the driver was hurt or had insurance.
Meanwhile there were visitations Sunday and funerals planned for today at the funeral home, which is frequently the site of indoor tours and walking tours.
“It’s just embarrassing,” Anne Dunbar said of the damage. “When there’s a loss here, damage, it hurts the entire community.”
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