I want to wish a Happy 175th Birthday to the stuccoed, frame building that I was born in – before the advent of hospitals. At about 2:00 AM, Thursday Sept. 21/1944, my Mother gave birth to me in the front (North) East bedroom. We were given care and support by my Grandmother, and two aunts – and the house was already old, then.
The above number is an educated guess. We had tax receipts from 1848, which read, Barn and sheds, and from 1852, which read, House and sheds. Sometime in those four years, the barn was torn down, and the house erected. 1850, and 175 years old seems a reasonable assumption. It may be the oldest, surviving building in the town. It has endured a lot of modification. It sat on the flatlands, up the hill from the lake, about half a mile from the commercial area
It was constructed by – or for – a well-to-do, gentleman farmer. The rooms had towering, 12-foot ceilings, barely kept warm in the beginning by two pot-bellied stoves. It was a bitch to heat, even after my Father added a forced-air gas furnace. Room by room, year by year, he and a local handyman put in false ceilings, down to the tops of the windows – which were only 8’ 6”. The steep stairway to the loft area was more like a ladder.
With apparent income from other sources, this was just a hobby farm for the first owner. The property comprised a quarter of a square city block. He had a few apple trees, some pear trees, some grapes, a small bed of asparagus, and room for plots of potatoes, peas, beans, carrots, and beets. The three-foot thick fieldstone foundation was fabricated from rocks that were pulled from the soil, and support beams were Mountain Ash trees cleared from the property.
Reconstruction continues. The current, long-term owner has added a dormer window, and finished living area in the loft at the top of The Stairs of Doom. She’s a tired, but still impressive, old dowager. I fondly remember her occasionally, but, except for possibly one last, quick, look; I don’t want to go back.
Archon's Den 