MANSFIELD — Artise Anderson wants more Mansfield children to know the name Sarah Daisy Barker Thomas.
Anderson said he only recently learned about the history of Barker Thomas, a music teacher and civil rights leader who called Mansfield home.
Standing at the site of her former residence Wednesday afternoon, he urged the small crowd of people gathered there not to forget her impact.
“We need to continue to teach our children Black history and what that means to this town. Because we are part of building this town,” said Anderson, the president of the Mansfield chapter of the NAACP.
“We have to make sure that this these grounds are protected, because these are sacred grounds.”
While the house she lived in was demolished two years ago, a newly-installed historical marker pays homage to house and the family who lived there for nearly 150 years.
The Ohio History Connection marker is one of nearly 1,850 across the state recognizing important people, places and events in Ohio’s story.
The historic brick building was said to be the one of the first homes in Richland County built and owned by Black residents.
The house was built by George Barker, who was born into slavery in Virginia and emancipated at 13. He settled in Mansfield by 1870 and purchased the plot four years later.
Barker built the house with three-brick-thick walls. He resided there with his wife Harriet and his mother-in-law. The Barkers eventually welcomed two children, Sumner (who did not survive to adulthood) and Sarah Daisy.
Barker Thomas helped found Mansfield chapter of NAACP
Sarah Daisy graduated from Mansfield High School in 1896 and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music four years later.
She taught music in Kentucky’s Eckstein Norton Institute, a school dedicated to educating Blacks, and served as the institute’s music director for about two years before returning home to Mansfield in 1905.
Barker gave lessons from her Mansfield home and became a notable music and piano teacher. In 1920, she married Captain Walter S. Thomas, a Spanish-American War veteran two decades her senior, who worked as a clerk in the Ohio Senate and trustee for Wilberforce University.
The couple remained in the house and were active Civil Rights leaders. In 1961, Barker Thomas helped establish the Mansfield chapter of the NAACP.
Barker Thomas was a lifelong member of First Congregational Church, which was founded by local abolitionists in 1833.
The historic brick residence was sold after Barker Thomas’ death in 1973. She willed more than $100,000 to the Richland County Foundation when she died, according to historians.
“She was an artist, but she was also an activist,” said Yolanda Allen, a member of the Mansfield NAACP who attended a ceremony celebrating the new marker.
“You don’t have to just be concentrating on one thing. You can be involved in so many things, so many parts of a community,” she said. “She’s a good representative of years gone by.
“We have to get some young ones to keep it going.”
Michael Brennan of the Ohio History Connection unveils the Sarah Daisy Barker Thomas house historical marker. 
Artise Anderson, president of the Mansfield chapter of the NAACP 
Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Stan Jefferson 
William Quillen, Dean of the Conservatory Music at Oberlin College and Conservatory 
Ted and Ellen Stiffler of First Congregational Church 
Michael Brennan of the Ohio History Connection and America 250 Ohio Commission presents a proclamation to Alan Wigton of the Richland County Historical Society. 
Michael Brennan of the Ohio History Connection and America 250 Ohio Commission presents a proclamation to Amy Hamrick, executive director of the Richland County Land Bank. 
Michael Brennan of the Ohio History Connection and America 250 Ohio Commission presents a proclamation to Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry. 
Michael Brennan of the Ohio History Connection and America 250 Ohio Commission presents a proclamations to the David Falquette and Sue Butler of the Mansfield Historic Preservation Commission. 
Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry
Historic home was demolished in 2024
The Sarah Daisy Barker Thomas House was razed in 2024 due to ongoing structural issues.
The building, boarded up for more than 25 years, had been condemned by the city in early 2022 and was owned by the Richland County Land Bank.
The land bank board worked to find an individual or group willing to take on the project of stabilizing and restoring the building in the years leading up to its demolition.
Various organizations looked at the site, but there ultimately were no takers, according to Land Bank manager Amy Hamrick.
Hamrick said key issues were a roof not properly maintained over the years and a lack of electrical service that prevented a basement sump pump from working.
“There was five feet of water in that basement for five years,” she said.
In August 2022, a local engineer hired by the Land Bank estimated it would cost at least $200,000 just to stabilize and weatherize the building.
The land bank is in the process of selling the vacant lot at 89 Wood Street to a neighbor, with a deed restrictive covenant prohibiting the property owner from removing, moving or altering the historic marker.
