2013 Bricks...to be continued

The adventure of restoring a 170-year old home is full of challenges, frustrations, surprises and humbling presentations.

There are crooked walls, floors, ceilings and leaning windows that now slant into the wind. There are drafts where the wind will challenge a burning candle, and the source of the draft lies hidden in the wall, floors and ceilings that will never reveal their secrets. Upon close inspection during the cleaning of board by board, one finds a scratch, a carving that spells the name of a little girl that lived in the house over a hundred years ago and a rusted tin flap in the kitchen floor that provided a point of entry and exit for the house cat that kept mice, or worse, out of the precious grains that helped the family live through a cold winter during the Civil War...you close your eyes for a moment to think of that time and wish you had a looking glass into that world, if only for a moment...and realize you live in the looking glass.

The challenges are often in the obvious, a leaking roof, the rotted floor, or the infrastructure things that never had to worry about 'meeting code' decades and decades ago. The frustrations surface when you pull away an floor plank from 1843 or a heart pine board from 1870, only to find dry rot or skeletons of animals that found their final resting place in a warm wall behind the wood burning stove, Better yet, you realize that floors 170 years ago never needed to worry about the weight of a refrigerator, gas range, dishwasher, or refurbished cast iron tub with beautiful claw feet...forget about a washer and dryer. So you must strategically reinforce the floor to support the things that will carefully be integrated (or hidden) into this perfect place that you now call your home.

What you learn through this process is that each setback, each challenge becomes a new layer in the foundation you are building for the future, your future and the future of the home that will also outlive this generation. You know you need to work through the challenges and, just when you get discouraged, you realize that you have just laid another brick in that foundation. The stress makes way for a sense of accomplishment or a feeling that you are one step closer to breathing new life into a wonderful piece of history...a history in which you are now part of the story. That's why we do this; that's why we keep solving the next problem and trying to laugh as we work through the next restoration surprise. The other Ploughman and I now refer to these 'speed bumps' as 'bricks.' We've recently completed the installation of a shake roof like the one that would have graced the house in 1843; it's a fine hat. And the new restoration windows with 9 over 9 lights have been installed to mimic the one remaining window of the original 1843 construction. Through the windows the golden light shines outward to the pasture at dusk, but it looks much like brand new pair of 19th century spectacles through which the house sees the world around it.

As we fix or solve another surprise, we realize we are one step (brick) closer to bringing the 'old girl' back to her glory. It's really an adventure and a love story...one that we stumbled upon on an unintentional drive through the country. Remember: a curving gravel driveway can be a seductive thing...for sure. 

Ploughman 2

A Little Red Flag on the Fourth

We agreed that it seemed like a good day to put up a new mailbox. The Fourth of July. A country road. A new place we would build together. It's about the farthest thing from a new independence... acres to look after, a ramshackle house to put back together, animals to be tended. But that's what it felt like. A fresh start. And while we are five miles from a shopping mall [what isn't anywhere near Atlanta?], we felt as though we had thrown everything into our wagon and were setting out to a new frontier.

So, although it wouldn't actually be ours for several more weeks, we put in our new mailbox. It may not seem like much to most, but it made us feel, well, planted.

A Fireside Chat

The first kitchen fire

Our farmhouse has two fireplaces. The first, in the 'hall' portion of the house [the living room today], was built of native stone in 1843. The flue is large enough to stand up in, if you want a head full of soot. The second, in the kitchen, was rebuilt at some point, probably in the 1950's, after the original fireplace was damaged. While we believe the interior hearth and surrounding stones were reused from the original, this fireplace is otherwise modern, with firebrick and [badly] veneered stone over cinder block on the exterior. We'll get to that one day.

To be honest, the fireplaces helped sell us the house. When we would spend long hours discussing our imagined future here, roaring fires in these fireplaces and thoughts of fall and winter nights illuminated by the dancing flames were always mentioned. The kitchen fireplace, too, would have been a working one. That is, used for cooking and warming bath water in addition to providing light and heat. It was our great hope that it might function like that again.

Thankfully, the long, hot, sweaty and somewhat dangerous work of two men over two days has restored our beautiful fireplaces to working order and our once-blurry hope for their continued use has focused into a clear reality.

On Saturday, September 1, we had our first fire in the kitchen fireplace after celebrating our 10-year anniversary. It was the only light in the room. And, once again, the flickering light spilled from the windows across the yard. Just as it did in 1843. We installed a crane for cooking over the fire, too.

So y'all stop by, one cool fall night, for some fireside company and some homemade cornbread, 'hear?

The Rest Will Follow

It's not a farm, really, without a fence. There must have been a few here but nearly all evidence is gone now. We still have a rusty, leaning, wire fence that cuts through the pasture but it's not too old. It once supported a grapevine but it was relieved of that job when the privet and hickories and a hundred other volunteers grew large enough to provide a higher, wider perch for it.

We liked how the pasture rolled lazily from the road up to the house and paused, perilously close to slipping down the wooded slope in back. It was so open. But the dogs live here, too, and they are notorious for making bad decisions when squirrels or cats are involved. And then there are our imaginary sheep and donkeys and goats. They will be real enough next year and they'll need all the protection we can offer.

Norman Vincent Peale once said "Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow."

Well, now the dogs have room to roam. Safely. And while the livestock aren't quite secure yet, they aren't actually real yet anyway. So there's time for that. The pasture stops now, just north of the house but there is still a little eddy of it off to the side so it's never too far away. There's a bell to ring by the new farm gate, too, so we'll know when you come by to visit.

So now we have a fence. And we've already thrown our hearts over it. The rest, then, will certainly follow.

Michael Stays Put

Michael Housworth was born in South Carolina on April 27, 1798 to Philip and Hannah Housworth. By the time the family moved to Georgia, Michael, the eldest, would have been a young man of 21 or 22. His brothers, Abraham and John J., were about 18 and 15. His sisters, Jemiah, Susannah, and Mahalia, would have been about 20, 9, and 4. It could not have been an easy trip by wagon but Michael, at least, had found a permanent home.

In Georgia, Michael would court and marry Lucy Christian Oglesby, herself a Georgia girl born on Christmas Day in 1807. They would have three children: Sarah, born in 1835, John Milton, born in 1836, and Philip, born in 1839.

Of the Housworth brothers, only Michael would stay on what is now South Goddard Road.

By 1850, John had moved his family 65 miles west to Carroll County, Georgia. His parents, Philip and Hannah, would eventually join him there.

In 1852, Abraham would pack his own growing family into yet another wagon. After selling the farm he had built to his older brother, Michael, Abraham and Mary would move their seven children some 700 miles west to Upshur, Texas.

Michael and Lucy, though, would remain on the farm. Lucy passed in 1872 and Michael followed her in 1880. Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would continue to occupy the house and farm the land, generations of the same - the only - family to do so until today.

How We Got Here

The Internet is to blame. Before it arrived, daydreams were just that and idle hopes shared late into the night would lose their shape when daylight and sobriety returned.

Now, the casually mentioned thought of one day living in an historic home [not just an old home, an old home with history] is an easy thing to chase with the butterfly net of a computer. Add to that the need for space, for open sky, for peace and quiet, for fertile soil, for barnyard animals. The sum of these things can only be one thing and that would be an historic farm.

And where does one go to find an historic farm? One within driving distance to work and airport and family and friends and restaurants and theaters? It is easy to see how this small seed of a dream could lie dormant for ever and ever. That is, it would be easy to see how that might happen without the Internet.

Oh, it's still not easy. But given a computer and enough wasted hours when one should probably be working and, well, any number of needles can be found in a given haystack.

And so a small picture of a down-at-heel farmhouse not so very far away and the phrase "... such a well preserved farm complex is very rare..." can lead to a leisurely drive on a Sunday.

"Let's just go look. What can it hurt just to go see it?"

From the road, the house would appear pretty but well-worn. The broad pasture in front was off-set by the dormant trees and the rising hills behind the house. A curving gravel drive can be a seductive thing. Certainly a change from the short asphalt driveway from our intown house and its shallow front yard.

We parked on the east side, as we always will. A noble granite and found-stone chimney. Return cornice molding. The evidence of the dogtrot. Everything as it was and will always be. Perhaps the best way to view a house is with cupped hands, face pressed against windowpanes. The view is just enough to want more, more, more. Where does that door lead and what might lie beyond that door? It was love.

We can tell you what it can hurt to go see such a property. Your own house seems small and inadequate. The beautiful garden you left just and hour or two before seems small. Certainly, it's not a pasture with imaginary sheep and goats. We have no creek here, no big open sky, no stone fireplace, no mountain.

Suddenly, we are having an affair. On our perfectly lovely home.

So an appointment was set with the realtor. Imaginary furniture is arranged in imaginary rooms. An imaginary Christmas tree is decorated. Imaginary Summer parties are planned in the imaginary barn to amuse guests with imaginary barnyard animals. Then, tragedy.

The house tilted. Walls leaned. Water dripped from the ceiling. The kitchen had housed wild animals, at best guess. Awful. And the price? Astronomically impossible given the condition.

Forget about it. Try try try to forget about it.

No dice.

Two years later, foreclosure. Housing slump. Real estate Armageddon. Thank God.

What seemed insurmountable seemed insignificant. Leaning walls? So what? Dripping ceiling? Who cares? Did you see the fireplaces? The pasture? The imaginary imaginings? It's perfect.

We'll take it.

The First of Many Housworths

In 1843, Abraham Housworth was 41 years old. His wife, Mary Talley, also from South Carolina, was 39. When they built their small, three room house they had four children: Thomas, Huldah, Jonathan, and Elizabeth. Miranda, Abram and Aspigena would follow in the next five years.

At ages 13 and 11, Thomas and Jonathan would have been old enough to help with the construction. By this time, the log barn had been built and a log corn crib, too, stood just to the southwest of the homesite. The girls, at 10 and 6, could have helped as well, perhaps bringing water from the creek some 50 yards away. Certainly, with such a large family and slaves nearby there were plenty of hands to help, both white and black.

In 1843, large, old-growth pines must have been plentiful. Many would be felled to build the house - trees of tremendous size. Taken by wagon to a nearby mill, they would return as fragrant lumber. These boards, some 19 to 20 inches across, would be used as horizontal paneling within the main room, single bedroom and kitchen. Wide boards cover the walls and ceilings, narrower boards line the floors. Common for the time, the kitchen stood some 10 feet from the body of the house, connected by an open dog-trot or covered area of the same unpainted pine. Less wide lumber would be used as siding and roofing supports and wood was split to shingle the small house. Square nail heads peppered the unfinished wood.

Certainly stones were not hard to find, being so close to Arabia Mountain. Great and small stones would be cut or shaped to stack the large chimneys in the main room and kitchen. Others would be used as piers to support the large beams beneath the house.

Windows and doors were likely made nearby, as nearly everything would have been. Nine panes of wavy, hand blown glass over another nine panes. Ten windows must have been an expensive addition for such a modest house. Perhaps the five wood doors were made on-site from the same wood that had grown nearby for one hundred years or more. Two wooden panels were secured in their pegged stiles and rails for each door.

It is easy to imagine that the little house was built between the busiest planting time in spring and the equally busy harvest time in late summer. Perhaps it would have grown up from the ground as the crops did around it. Candle or lantern light would spill from the windows in the long evenings as work progressed.

At last there would be the first night of many nights when Abraham and Mary would tuck their children into their beds in their own new home. In the two rooms of the farmhouse, beds would be pushed towards the walls wherever space allowed. The help and slave labor would have walked or traveled by horse or wagon to their own homes nearby. Perhaps fires would have burned in the fireplaces for heat or in preparation for coals to cook breakfast in a few hours.  A quick puff and the last candle would be blown out and the house would fall silent, knowing and protecting its first Housworth family from so much dark wilderness outside.