Architecture Is the Best Revenge

Neatorama has a post on spite houses: houses "built or altered for the sole purpose of exacting revenge."

The Skinny House in Boston is pretty well-known, at least in the area. The story goes that in 1874, a couple of brothers had a fight over the land they had jointly inherited from their father. Instead of properly settling the fight, one brother built a large home on the land while the other brother was away in the military. When the traveling brother returned home, he decided to spite his greedy brother and build a small house on what was left of the land they both owned, blocking his brother’s nice view.

The house does, though, offer a lovely view of the Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

So That's What Rebels Smelled Like

The Graffiti House in Brandy Station, Virginia, was occupied by both Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. They left behind names, dates and drawings scribbled on the walls, discovered during a renovation in 1992. New graffiti came to light just last summer.

[Paint-removal specialist Kirsten] Travers ... uncovered a large piece of graffiti in the JEB Stuart room - where the Confederate Army General signed his name. The new image is a full-size figure of a man with a head resembling a pumpkin. On his torso is the phrase: “President J. Davis. Good on the boots.”

Neither Travers nor Edrington know what the phrase means but they suspect it is a sarcastic comment, perhaps about Davis’ efforts in providing adequate footwear to soldiers.

Besides the date and the pumpkin head, Travers found another image of a horse standing in front of a man who had been revealed previously.

Edrington said the volunteers thought the man was a standalone image but now he is seen behind the horse and above him are the words, “He smells a rebel.” [Link]

Standish Home Damaged by Yobs

The ancestral home of one of the Pilgrims is in dire need of a makeover.

The 17th century lodge at Duxbury Park, off Bolton Road, has been neglected for years, and yobs have smashed windows, scrawled graffiti on the walls and started fires.

The lodge, a former coach house and an ancient barn are all that remain of the ancestral home of the Standish family.

Their most famous son Myles Standish, born 1587, became the military captain of the Pilgrims and was one of the first settlers to land in America. [Link]

Built Like a Brick S***house, But When?

The Adam Thoroughgood House in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was once thought to be the oldest English brick house in America.

The city used to claim it was, for decades. Just think: Jamestown was founded in 1607; the Adam Thoroughgood House was supposedly built only 29 years later. The city even gave the house an address to match its alleged birth date, 1636 Parish Road.

Experts in the 1980s determined it was probably built about 50 years later, around 1680. Other experts last year dated the house to about 1720.

These expert opinions matter little to 81-year-old W. Paul Treanor.

He has no special background in historical research and only a high school diploma. But he is a 10th-generation descendant of Adam Thoroughgood, and he has spent 15 years pulling together every scrap of paper he can find on his ancestor.

Treanor is the last true believer in the oldest-English-brick-house theory.

He loves to proselytize, but he expects to die before he convinces the experts they are wrong.

Treanor knows he ticks off the experts in Williamsburg. He smiles at the thought. "I frankly don't give a damn," he said. [Link]

Celebrity Sells

An Ancestry.co.uk survey shows that 20% of adults in Britain are researching the histories of their houses.

The report said a number of urban myths are fuelling the interest, such as a suggestion that John Lennon lived in a yet-to-be identified house in Blackpool and a rumour that Bob Dylan once had a house in Crouch End, north London. [Link]

The head of an estate agency adds that having a celebrity among its past owners can increase a home's value by up to 10%. If the celebrity was a serial killer, subtract 10%.

Every Bullet Hole Has a Story

David and Helen Sandfort of St. Charles, Missouri, have a bullet hole in the frame of their front door. They didn't know how it got there until David's brother did some digging at the Missouri State Archives.

On the night of June 10, 1862, two members of the State Militia Cavalry were returning home to St. Charles accompanied by four armed soldiers. After drinking at a tavern for a couple of hours, they passed by the house in question—then owned by Daniel Griffith.

As they approached the Griffith home, riding on the spot near where the north service road exists today, two of the Griffiths' dogs ran towards the soldiers, barking. Several shots rang out — it's still not certain who fired — but at least one bullet went through the right side of the front door frame, whizzed through the hallway, tore through the back door, hit a back porch post, glanced off a brick wall and fell to the ground.

The homeowner was not pleased, and—bullet in hand—filed a grievance with the battalion commander. The men were arrested and their statements taken.

The stories varied: Some denied firing their guns, one said he thought he heard two guns firing, another said he had fired his gun but so did the others.

"I was not drunk," Pvt. Hermann Koehne wrote. "I was drunk," Pvt. Franz Steinmann wrote. "I never was drunk when a soldier and this was the first time." [Link]

Bad News For the Balches

Test results appear to prove that the Balch House of Beverly, Mass.—named, as I mentioned before, for one of my ancestors—is not the oldest wood-frame house in America. Tree-ring samples show that it was probably built in 1678—much later than the Fairbanks House of Dedham, Mass.

Among the Balches, whose ancestors first settled in Beverly in the 1620s, there has been a sense of loss and sadness, mixed with stern defiance. "It is still one of the oldest, probably still in the top 10 or 12, even with these later dates," said Stephen P. Hall, a 12th generation descendant of the Balch House's original occupant, John Balch.

Among the Fairbanks, who first arrived in the colony in 1632, there has been a fair bit of gloating.

"We always knew it," said Lynn Fairbank, a 13th generation descendant of the Fairbanks House's first occupant, Jonathan Fayerbanke. "I have to say that every once in a while, a house crops up and says they're the oldest house, but it never pans out. We're the oldest standing wood-frame house." [Link]

Papered-Over Profile Puzzles Prolific Parents

A couple in New Salem, Pennsylvania, discovered a man with a big head hiding in their home.

The drawing was discovered under two layers of wallpaper and glue, said Susan Wood, who lives in the home -- at 38 E. George St. -- with her husband, Robert Wood, and nine of their 10 children.

The writing beside the man's profile reads "Papered by M.H. Glatfelter 1911 Sep 24," Susan Wood said.

Until the family can find the true identity of the man on the wall, he will be called by another name.

"We call him Ghost Glatfelter," Susan Wood said. [Link]

Lincoln Slept Uncomfortably Here

The Sterling-Rock Falls Historical Society in Illinois has purchased a house where Abraham Lincoln once spent the night. It was owned by Sheriff William Manahan on July 18, 1856.

When Manahan escorted his guest home in 1856, he might have offered Lincoln one of the family beds. Lincoln, accustomed to austere accommodations from years as a circuit-riding lawyer, accepted a night on the couch instead. However, it was too short, so two chairs were placed at the end to support Lincoln's long legs, according to Manahan family legend. [Link]

Woman Discovers Indians in Bathroom

Barbara Forgas found possible evidence of her Native-American ancestry while tearing down walls in her late grandfather's Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, home.

Did John Gross use pieces of an American Indian mural as insulation because he was thrifty, or was he hiding a valuable artifact he feared would be destroyed by racism?

Maybe he hated the reminder of his ex-wife, Sara Slaseman, and hid her family heirloom out of spite.

Barbara Forgas does not know why her grandfather put 8-foot-wide panels - with painted images of American Indians - inside the walls of a bathroom he built about 70 years ago in his centuries-old farmhouse. [Link]

Historical Society Has Cabin Fever

The Campbell County Historical Society in Kentucky has set out to document all the surviving log cabins in the region. Some are rotting away in the woods, but others are hiding in plain sight.

The white frame house in Grants Lick bought in 1990 by Randy and Kathy Teegarden turned out to be a 150-year-old cabin. After years of labor, the Teegardens have restored the original cabin and created a new addition.

"It was a white frame house, everybody thought," Randy Teegarden said. "Even the older people thought it was a white house. They kept adding layers. I took four or five layers off outside. I knew it was a log cabin immediately when I walked in the kitchen. That doorway was 15 inches thick." [Link]

Appraising Bigotry

While demolishing a wall in a 200-year-old Northborough, Massachusetts, house, Betty Tetreault's son discovered a medallion bearing the initials of a despicable organization.

Tetreault brought the medallion, about the size of a silver dollar, to an appraiser at the Historical Society's Main Street building Friday night. In cut-out words it reads "in good standing," with the letters "KKK" in the middle.

"It's bizarre because this is a northern state," said Marie Nieber, who is also the chair woman of the town's Historical Commission. "Maybe someone tried to hide their past. Who knows? " [Link]

A Humble Home in Maine

Yet again, I've missed the deadline for the Carnival of Genealogy. An idea for the current topic—"Shelter from the storm, stories of the home and hearth"—didn't come until a few minutes ago.

This morning my 94-year-old grandmother left her home in Locke Mills, Maine, perhaps (I've just learned) for the last time. Her late husband bought the house from his sister in August of 1936. My father was born in the back bedroom four years later. Every Saturday evening of my childhood was spent at the dinner table there over a plate of baked beans. (My mother tells me this was my first solid food as an infant.) Before dinner, while the grownups talked in the kitchen, I would play in the living room on a floor so uneven that all my marbles and Matchbox cars would roll to the northeast corner.

The house is one story with low ceilings, small but not cramped. It was built according to no particular style in about 1853, the year the house lot was first sold. The land was sold "reserving the building on the same," but whether the present house is referred to is difficult to tell. It was sold to a young widow in 1854, who, after remarrying, sold it to another young widow in 1865. It was probably after her tenure that a second, larger house was built immediately next to the first. That house was still standing in the 1970s, and was home to my great-grandparents after they moved off their farm in 1941. There was scarcely room for a driveway between the two buildings, and in many instances the two were conveyed by the same deed. The larger house was demolished in about 1977, and my aunt now owns both properties.

Even if my grandmother doesn't return, the house will stay in the family. My aunt still lives there and has no intention of leaving. If she ever did leave, I would find a way to buy it. And I wouldn't fix the floor.

Retirement Has Much in Store for Him

Dick Rudisill's great-grandfather ran a small general store in North Carolina. Now that he's retired, Rudisill is turning his Syracuse, N. Y., home into a small general store.

Dick calls his hobby "close to addictive." The Rudisills' home is almost completely decorated with "store items." Fortunately, Cindy's a fan of the old-time things, also.

Above the fireplace mantle, for instance, is not a peaceable landscape or an ancestor portrait, but a piece designed to steal your heart: a large metal sign for None Such mincemeat, made in Syracuse until recently by Merrell-Soule and later Borden. [Link]

Never Surrender a Stone-Ender

Anne "Pete" Baker is heading efforts to preserve what's left of the Waite-Potter House in Westport, Massachusetts—a stone-ender built in 1677 and mostly destroyed by Hurricane Carol in 1954. Only its unusual chimney remains standing.

Ms. Baker said the house is a prime example of a Rhode Island Stone-ender, one of few that "crept over the border." Thomas Waite came from Portsmouth, R.I., where he likely developed an interest in this unusual Rhode Island architecture.

"It's too bad there's not more of it there," Ms. Baker said of what remains. But at least the town can save the chimney.

"The main thing is to prevent it from falling further apart," Ms. Baker said. [Link]