Hats off: Girard’s history displayed

By John W. Goodwin Jr.

The historic hat display will run through September.

GIRARD — Girard Historical Society members want to show the community how much history can be held under a hat.

Colette Chuey, historical society member, walks through the historic Barnhisel House in the city touching hat after hat. She knows the history behind some; others she may not. The point is that each headpiece carries its own bit of history.

The historical society is featuring dozens of historic hats and handbags through September in the Barnhisel House. The house on U.S. Route 422 was built by the Barnhisel family in the early 1800s and recently restored by the historical society.

Chuey said the display, featuring some hats as much as 100 years old, fits into the overall mission of the historical society.

“We are always trying to think of something different to place on display. We had hats from our own families and other places, so we decided it would be nice to just do a display on all these old hats,” she said.

Making the display even more befitting to the house and historical society is the fact that Eve Anna Barnhisel’s father was a premier hat maker in the area. Society members believe they may have found a piece of his work.

In what was once the dining room of the home stands a display case containing a slightly crumpled, greenish-gray top hat that Chuey refuses to handle because of its delicate nature. That hat, believed to have been made by the family hat maker, was found crumpled inside a wall of the Barnhisel House during restoration.

It is unclear how the hat, dating back to the early 1800s, ended up inside the wall.

The same display case containing the newly found hat also contains two “comb caps” once used to keep a lady’s hair out of her face and looking neat. A member of the Barnhisel family can be seen in a nearby photo wearing one of the comb caps.

The Barnhisel House display also contains a miner’s cap, a Quaker bonnet from 1840, a beekeeper’s hat, an 1890s Bowler, a leather football helmet from the 1940s, Civil War dress hats and a list of other pieces of headwear.

There are displays of other antique accessories such as arm-length gloves for ladies, fans made of feathers, purses and very small handbags. Old hat boxes from Strouss-Hirshbergs, Livingstons and Carlisles are also on display.

The collection brings back fond memories for Chuey and her husband Ralph Chuey.

“You just never went into downtown Youngstown without a hat and gloves. That is just the way it was,” said Colette Chuey.

Ralph Chuey, holding a small white hat with a veil across the front that once belonged to his mother, reflects on a time when fancy headwear was the norm. He said many other people in the area can relate to those memories.

“I can still see my mother wearing this hat. She would pull the veil over her face just a little bit. It would be the hottest day of the year and my mother would have on a hat, gloves, and nobody ever went to church without a hat and gloves,” he said. “They call them the good old days and that is the darn truth.”

jgoodwin@vindy.com