The way things were

BobC

This is from my Quora feed and i thought some might find it interesting -

What’s the coolest thing you found in a house that you purchased that was left behind?

Lawrence M
Nov 5, 2018

In 1978 I bought a home in Central Tacoma. It was built in 1918. I was the 2nd owner. It had sat vacant and furnished and heated for 12 years being maintained by the previous owners estate as the surviving children were at odds over the assets. I bought it with a lot of its original furniture. I got the pots and pans and dishes. It was a 4 bedroom bungalow story and a half with a full basement and detached garage on two lots. It was a very special house in its day. Now however it was in a lower socioeconomic area of the city. Right outside of downtown. I loved the place. I was 22 years old with a 2nd child on the way.
I couple years in I got bad roof leak. I had to tear through a wall into an large empty eave area. As I opened the wall I found several medium sized waxed fiber type boxes and several small wooden crates. In the wooden crates were old tins of roofing nails and a roofing hammer. But the cardboard boxes were filled with porcelin china. Each piece was wrapped in newspaper. The bottom of the boxes were lined with newspaper. Some dated as old as 1912. I sat for hours reading the old newspaper articles. Reading the advertisements. Some businesses were advertising that they could be reached by phone. 1 gallon tinned peaches for 10 cents. Men’s woolen suits $8.00.
When I bought the house their were payment ledgers as the owner I believe acted as the contractor. Carpenters $2.00 per day for labor. Electricians. Forty cents per hour. The Chimney was built for a couple hundred dollars. The fireplace was Wilkerson Stone. The delivery was from about 60 miles away and the charge was about 12.00 for transport. It was a 2 day trip.
I got to go back 3 generations to see what the was going on when this cool place was built.

nicholas bonham-carter

What a wonderful slice of history, and are you still there?—NBC

NY_Rob

Great find....
Sad thing is that 100yrs from now none of our digital records will be found in walls, etc.. by the next generations. Heck, people don't even print photos any longer... they're literally a hard drive failure away from losing it all

Fred

Great story, Bob

Gordy

NY_Rob said:

Great find....
Sad thing is that 100yrs from now none of our digital records will be found in walls, etc.. by the next generations. Heck, people don't even print photos any longer... they're literally a hard drive failure away from losing it all

Yes, and I’m guilty as charged. 3 different backups though.

The bad ones are phones have pretty much taken the place of cameras, and video camera. They also hold a lot of gigabytes worth of storage.


I suppose hard copies can get destroyed, or lost in floods,fires, and other catastrophic events.

GroundUp

One of my rentals, records show was built in 1945. There is a porch off the front that was obviously not part of the main house and did not have a connected basement to the main basement, I had just assumed it was a wood joist crawlspace like the rest in the area. Last winter, my tenants were having an electrical issue which ended up requiring a new main panel in the basement. Upon removing the old panel from the wall, I noticed an Andy Dufresne type tunnel behind the panel, about a 2 foot thick field stone wall. Curiosity got the best of me, so I squeezed my noggin in there and found a creepy little basement under that porch inaccessible from anywhere else besides the little tunnel that was far too small for anybody but a child to crawl through. I could see some newspapers, boxes, what appeared to be a cot type thing and a chair in there with a hat on the backrest. I'm a foot too thick to fit through the hole and didn't have any kids to send in there, but there is still a whole lot of wondering what went on in there and why there was no entry. The porch is all original hardwood so I wasn't about to start tearing that up to get in there, but it definitely crossed my mind. Maybe some day I'll have a reason to check it out. Maybe just a kid's hangout back in the day, but how the heck did they get the cot and chair in through that tiny hole?

Steamhead

They didn't. There had to be another way. If there is latticework surrounding the space under the porch, one part of that might have been arranged so it could be moved.

GroundUp

Steamhead said:

They didn't. There had to be another way. If there is latticework surrounding the space under the porch, one part of that might have been arranged so it could be moved.

Not unless it was poured concrete latticework. Poured, floor to ceiling with a rim joist on top. Siding covers the rim joist outside as normal with an exposed concrete foundation underneath

EBEBRATT-Ed

My grandfather came over from Ireland in 1912 with nothing. By 1918 he had bought a fairly new 2 family. He live to be 92. The house never changed he kept it up but never updated. Walking in there when I was a kid was like a time warp back to 1920. After he died we found papers like an invoice for 2 coal fired steam boilers and steam radiators for the two family $700.00 for the whole job. Also wiring for new electrical services change from 30 amp 120 volt to 60 amp 240 volt. I don't remember the price but probably due to my grandfathers frugality EVERYTHING was itemized down to the # of 8d nails. He also converted the boiler for the tenant to oil at some point but not his. He insisted on keeping the coal wasn't converted to oil until he died in 1970

Fred

@GroundUp, I don't know how that cot got in there (it may be collapsible) but my Brother-in-law's house, built around that same period has a very similar situation, with a small panel up, almost to the top of the basement wall. It was and remains a cistern. He has a drain in his that he keeps open to a floor drain in the basement to keep it drained. I bet somewhere in the side walls of that area you'll see where drain tiles are/were. They ran from the downspouts into that cistern.

BobC

That house is in Tacoma and I am 3,000 miles away in the north precinct of Braintree that was split of into the town of Quincy in 1792.

This area was settled in the first quarter of the 1600's so there are some old houses about. Unfortunately a lot of them have succumbed to the demands of "progress". There was a house a few blocks away that was built in 1630, it was a ramshackle affair that had been added on to a few times and was owned by someone who didn't seem to understand what upkeep means. I was in it once and it was interested to see the different building methods. The house was demolished in the 90's and replaced with condo's - what an ignominious end.

Bob

SlamDunk

I always try to leave something behind for someone to find.

In the late seventies, my father opened a wall on third floor of our house to stuff eves with insulation. Before he closed it, I triple wrapped in ziplock bag and a couple shopping bags, a newsweek magazine largely dedicated to the space shuttle program and what its future looked like and other news of the day.

While we were up there, we found an empty pack of cigarettes with a tax stamp from 189ty-something but it rapidly turned to dust from handling.

I wish I could see the next person that opens up that wall!

BobC

I remember helping my brother in law rehab their 1860's farmhouse in the late 70's. We found old newsprint that had headlines about the capture of Booth in that barn after he killed Lincoln. As soon as you tried to pick it up it disintegrated.

The old part of that house had floor joists made of split logs with cedar posts supporting them every 3 feet or so, it looked like a dark forest down there and in the corner was the 30a service with knob and tubing wire snaking away from it. I installed a new 100a service two weeks later and stripped out all the old wiring.

Bob

flat_twin

On the opposite end of our small Ohio town, a friend of mine was working in his attic and found a stack of old papers jammed onto a spike driven into the framing. The papers were receipts and orders for dry goods dated to the 1870-80's. Some were for shipments coming off of ships in Lake Erie, transported by rail to towns north of here and then delivered by horse and wagon. He found out his house had previously been part of a large two story business building in the center of town. When the highway was widened in the early 1900's, they cut off the front section, moved the structure to the edge of town and made a house out of it.

JUGHNE

Last summer, my grandson and I rewired the clock lights, added electric clock winder and wiring for auto bell hammers in our 100+ year old church.
The rooms were covered with names and dates from anyone who ventured up the 80 or so ladder rungs to get there.
As we had a ladder I climbed up to the top of the clock room and signed my name and the date in Roman Numerals.
I am sure the future visitors will be baffled by the MMXVII.
The grandson was forced to learn that numbering system BTY.

BobC

I remember being taught Roman Numerals in grade school. a lot of the kids hated it but even then I was a history buff so it just added to my understanding of the way things were.

Bob