History and lore
Harry Clarence Malott, always known as Bud, was born at Williamsburg, Clermont County, Ohio, on 11 June 1917, the son of Harry Malott Sr. and Olive M. Malott, and graduated from Williamsburg High School. In the Second World War he served in the U.S. Army, enlisting at Cincinnati on 10 July 1943.
In the 1950s he took over the family business from his father: the Buckeye Log Cabin, a restaurant and bowling alley on State Route 32 between Mount Orab and Williamsburg. A Brown County Historical Society photo feature tells its story: built in 1937 as a dance hall, it closed during the Second World War and reopened in 1946, run by Kate and Harry “Mussey” Malott. A roller rink was added, which later became the bowling alley; the dance hall eventually closed, and the “Cabin” became a restaurant, the place to go in Brown County from the 1950s through the 1970s. It was known far and wide for its “Sizzling Sirloin” and for Mussey’s collection of Jim Beam decanters, and its visitors included Loretta Lynn, Chet Atkins, Johnny Bench, Paul Dixon and Pete Rose. (The feature dates Kate and Harry’s running of the Cabin from 1946; Bud and Kate married in 1948, so the early years were likely his father’s.) He and his wife, Catherine Cora “Kate” Elliott, whom he married in 1948, lived right next door.
As a kid my dad would take me here. Cousin Harry would always greet and hug my dad.... and our meal was always free!
In 1972 Bud was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives as a Democrat, and he served eighteen years, from 1973 through 1990, representing the 77th District: Clermont County and, as the district lines changed, parts of Adams, Brown and Highland counties. He was a delegate to the 1976 Democratic National Convention. He lost his bid for a tenth term in 1990 by about 900 votes.
His longtime district office manager, Lois Hancock, remembered that he was proudest of his work on the environment and education, that he was known for sticking with his party, and that he gave her one instruction when she started: if someone came in asking for help, bend over backwards to help them, whether or not they were registered to vote or lived in the district.
While he was in office, Bud made the newspapers for another reason. Two burglars broke into the house next to the Log Cabin at about two in the morning, just after he and Kate had come home from Columbus. Bud met them with a pistol and ordered them to halt; they fired at him with silenced guns and fled across State Route 32, and he afterwards showed a reporter the bullet hole in his living-room wall. “I believe they wanted to kill me,” he said.
Outside politics he was a Freemason, a member of the Mount Orab Masonic Lodge, the Scottish Rite and the Syrian Temple of the Shriners, and belonged to the Mount Orab post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Williamsburg post of the American Legion. He loved gardening and was an avid sports fan.
Kate died on 22 August 1994. Bud died of pneumonia at Clermont Mercy Hospital in Batavia on Tuesday, 28 January 1997, aged 79. His funeral was held at the Maham Funeral Home in Williamsburg, and he was buried beside Kate at Mount Orab Cemetery. He was survived by his sister, Inez P. Gardner, and her family.
