Photo submitted
Pictured is Winnifred Titus Sentel.

•June 5, 2019•
By Eden Martin
for the News Progress

Almost six decades ago a grand, old lady of Sullivan, Winnifred Titus Sentel, died, December 29, 1960, leaving her home to be used as a home for aged women. In recent years the home has been known as Titus Manor at Wyman Park.
Winnifred’s grandparents were George Washington (G.W.) Titus (1814-1864) and Elizabeth Bennett Titus (born 1820; died April 4, 1912 ). They moved to Moultrie County from Indiana in 1857. In the 1860 census G.W. was reported to have been born in New York and was listed as a farmer having real estate valued at $24,000. Unfortunately, G.W. died at the early age of 50 on September 28, 1864.
After G.W. died, his widow, Elizabeth Titus, lived in the Perryman building — a brick structure at the west end of the south side of the square. Mrs. Titus — the grandmother of Winnifred — was reportedly the first person in Sullivan to own a piano.
G.W. and Elizabeth had one son — Joseph B. Titus, a lawyer, landowner and important civic figure in Sullivan. Joseph B. (b.1838; died Sept 1919) — was known as “J.B.” He graduated from Miami University at Oxford and from the Cincinnati Law College in 1860. He then practiced law in Cincinnati for two years before moving to Sullivan.
After G..W. died in 1864, his widow Elizabeth was listed in the Moultrie County atlas as the owner of the Titus Opera House, built in 1871. Also, as shown in the 1875 atlas, the “E. Titus Addition” to Sullivan consisted of about 28 city blocks of residential property north of Jackson Street and west of Hamilton. The Tituses had acquired that Sullivan land when it was pastureland. It included the property where the first “North Side” school was built in 1874 as well as the later Powers school.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.