“We thought this (park) was the best use for the property if we could make it happen ... .”
Jason Gabbard
Family donated farmland for park
By Lawrence Budd
Staff Writer
CLEARCREEK TWP., Warren County — For more than 100 years, Harbaughs and their descendants have farmed land along Springboro Road.
That family history will now live on as Harbaugh Park and Diane’s Sycamore Preserve.
“I’m thrilled to see it happen,” Diane Harbaugh, 65, said last week, as she sat on the porch of a 90-year-old farmhouse. “My family would love it if they were all here.”
Clearcreek Twp. purchased about 140 acres from Harbaugh’s children, while her youngest son, Jason Gabbard, will continue to live in the old farmhouse with his wife, the former Traci Hertenstein of Springboro and their children, Charlotte and Lydia.
Their ancestors, the Harbachs, entered America in 1879 at Ellis Island, N.Y., and traveled to Dayton, Harbaugh said.
They moved first onto land also sold for the park, most recently known as the Gitzinger farm. They sold this farm and acquired the Harbaugh farm, which runs off both sides of Springboro Road, just outside the city of Springboro. During World War I, family patriarch Henry Harbach changed the family name to Harbaugh.
His son, August, married Amanda Allen, who lived next door. Their son, Leonard, born here in 1911, and his wife, Phebe, adopted Diane in 1949 from Mary Haven, a home for children in Lebanon. Leonard Harbaugh served on the township zoning and county school boards.
With Earl Gabbard Jr., she raised their children Shelli, Jeffery and Jason on the farm and other homes where they lived during assignments for NCR.
Four year ago, Jason’s family moved home from Westerville.
“It was a dream of mine to live there,” he said.
Gabbard and his siblings decided to put part of the farm on the open market, while preserving the rest as a park.
“Ultimately we didn’t want to sell any of it,” Gabbard said. “We thought this (park) was the best use for the property if we could make it happen.”
Total purchase price: $1.5 million, with the township making payments on $886,284 for about 80 acres bought from Gitzinger.
Township Administrator Dennis Pickett said sports fields, hiking trails and picnic shelters are in early planning stages. Meanwhile the township is leasing fields to farmers.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2261 or lbudd@DaytonDailyNews.com.