BLOG ENTRY – Aug 3rd

Time has flown. I’ve just finished my last weekend at the farm. My days lately have been filled with research. Some days are slow…looking for a possible tidbit of info that will flesh out the people or tell us the actual year of construction of the house. I have spent a lot of time at Greene County Records looking up deeds, verifying some of Nora’s information. Some of the deeds have been transcribed and are typed, making them easy to read. Most are the real deal – hand written in old time copperplate. Once you start to read them you can get into a groove.

I was grooving along, reading, and typing/transcribing the “lost” deed of the 5 from 1835. So I’m already pretty excited because I’ve realized the deed was there. It’s taking quite a while to read and type it – back then the boundaries used chains and links as well as “the hickory tree growing out of the stone wall”, and other interesting descriptions. I finally finish the very, very long boundary description to read the following sentence… “make up together the quantity of one hundred acres of land, which said Joseph Prentiss warrants to be contained within the boundaries set forth in these presents and to be hereby conveyed exclusive of the said road or highway passing over the aforesaid premises.)Together with all and singular the stone house, the stone barn, buildings, tenements, hereditaments, and appurtenances and thereunto belong to or in any wise appertaining…”

Wait – what did that say??? STONE HOUSE AND STONE BARN!!!! An actual reference to the existence of the house. Proof positive that these deeds really relate to our house. Of course, we knew intellectually that the house was there but finding the concrete proof that documents it is important. (And I think I’m more excited than Reggie and Nora!) But, this now gives me a little more incentive to continue my search…and that’s the thing of it. Just when you start to give up, a little nugget of info shows up and draws one back into the mystery trying to be solved.

The week ended in an even better way – the other part of research – getting to know the experts in your field. Friday night we had a dinner party. Due to the rain everyone trickled in slowly as they tried to exit NYC amid canceled trains and flooded roads. Our main guest was Rod Blackburn, who wrote Dutch Colonial Homes in America. Many of the homes he talks about in his book are in Greene County. He last visited Howard Hall Farm when it was a major construction zone. Now, we were able to have him for dinner. We spent the first hour after his arrival wandering the exterior of the house. I promptly confessed my novice status and drank in all the information he could give me. I had already read his book so was able to respond to some of his insights accordingly. (Yea me for doing my homework!)

The bottom line on “our” house is that we are no closer to dating it than we were before Rod arrived! It is a wonderful combination of very late Georgian and very early Federal architecture. Architectural styles tended to trickle down into the valley after they first appeared in the cities, so that information fits. The door details are very federal and those doors are original to the house. Rod was not familiar with some of the moldings, which complicates his ability to positively date the construction. The interior renovation Rod felt very confident as occurring in the mid 1800’s, which allows to positively attributing it to the Griffens, who lived here from 1835 to 1881. Throughout our fabulous dinner made by Nora, the conversation returned to the house, its owners, Dutch construction, and the Dutch as settlers, while we got to know one another and learn about other common interests. As Rod was leaving he began poking through the interior and although our evening ended without a formal interior tour he did give us great advice on where to continue our research.

Soooo, our search for a more specific construction date continues. Was this house built in the 1780’s or the 1790’s? Hopefully, we will find the documentation somewhere that will give us the answer. Until then…back to the hunt.

BLOG WEEK JULY 20, 2009

The last two weeks have been spent doing research for the National Register nomination. Part of the nomination process involves writing both the historical context of the area and the history of the house and the people who lived here. The history of the house and its owners starts with deed research. By looking at the deed of the property, one backtracks to the previous deed, supposedly arriving at the beginning. Sounds fairly straight forward but there is always a snag. The first snag that we hit was that the owner in the mid-1800’s had made 5 purchases, increasing the size of the farm to 326 acres. Which deed went to the 6 acre parcel we own? Often deeds will spell out what was included in the sale of the property. In our case one of the five deeds is missing…the first purchase, which appears to include the house. Assuming that is the correct deed, we go back to the late 1700’s. We still haven’t pinpointed who built the house but we have a fairly good idea.

So, who is our founding family???? It is a Dutch family whose name was originally Groen, but by the late 1700’s was now spelled Groom. The father of the family is William, born in Albany County in 1719. He married Sara and they had four children who lived into adulthood and married. When William passed away, in 1812 – at the ripe old age of 92 (having buried two wives) - he left his property to be shared equally between his two sons, with monetary gifts to his daughters. Tax assessment records show that in 1799, William Groom owned a house and land, as did his sons Edward and Joseph. However, his real estate value was much higher than the others, leading us to believe he owned this beauty of a house.

Lots of this info we knew from Nora’s great research. My job has been to look at her info and question if her assumptions were correct – and usually they were. I’ve just been fleshing it out. A Peter Groom has shown up, and I am trying to see where he fits in the family – if he is part of “our” Groom family.

Complicating the whole process is the reuse of family names. Dutch tradition calls for the first born son to be named for his paternal grandfather and the first born daughter to be named for her paternal grandmother. The second born son and daughter are then named for the maternal grandparents. Other children are named for aunts and uncles. Since most men had more than one wife – the women died young then – children can be born into the same family for more than 20 years – and by then the older siblings have married. Whew!!!

By the time I get done (hopefully) we’ll have most of the answers and be able to put up a real genealogy of our different families. Wish me luck in my sleuthing!

BLOG ENTRY WEEK OF JUNE 29

The job in Brooklyn is motoring along – doors, hardware, sinks, marble have all been transported and our Claverack project is underway. At the farm workers come and go as we also are under construction. This summer the focus is on the “veranda”; a huge deck that extends the whole back of the house and will wrap back around the south corner of the house when completed.

Right now the veranda looks like a rickety old deck. It is braced, the railings are three-quarters of the way removed, the paint is peeling and the edges are jagged from water rot. But this is my favorite place on the farm. From the front door you look down the wide central hall, out the back door to the most wonderful views across the river. You step out the back door onto the veranda. I can only imagine the river views before the trees grew up! Every morning I bring my tea up and head out the back door to sit outside and enjoy the view – and listen to the roosters crowing, the sheep bleating, the birds chirping, and Blossom barking. I usually bring my lunch up there as well. This year there is only a bench along the wall but already I can envision a hammock and porch swing out there next summer.

Below me in the afternoons is Harry, our expert woodworker. Harry is German, a man of few words but enormous talent. He is rebuilding the veranda – and remaking the main beam that runs the width of the house. As long as it is, it needs multiple joints and he creates these mainly using hand tools. All the rain we have had is slowing his progress but it is a joy to see his work. The exacting nature of a true craftsman is something we rarely see anymore. This is how this house was once created and Reggie and Nora are taking the time to restore it in the same way it was built – honoring its past and making sure it will stand another 200 + years.

As for my week, I am slowly chipping away at the people who have lived here. From the Dutch Grooms in the 1700’s to the wealthy Griffins in the 1800’s to the boarding house owners in the mid-1900’s, I am starting to flesh out who these families were and how they lived here. Nora has come to visit and we are comparing research, what we have learned and where we learned it. The official New York Historic Inventory form now has its requisite signature and is on its way to Albany. This is the first official paperwork step in listing the house on the National Register of Historic Places. My time here is halfway over and my list is still long but I’m learning so much, I know I made a great internship choice.

Progess Captured in Pictures

See Nora Johnson's work in recent New Yorks Times feature on the Town of Athens - 12-12-08