If Walls Could Talk...

I've always loved old houses.  The house I grew up in (where my parents still live) was built in the 1790's.  It has so much character, beautiful original beams and wood floors and I've always loved imagining what the lives of the families who lived there before us must have been like.  My parents did their fare share of tearing down bright blue peacock wallpaper and other aesthetic improvements when they moved into their house in 1985, but they didn't have to gut the house. 

The house that Scott and I bought (built sometime in the mid-1800's) couldn't be salvaged with just a little TLC, we had to gut it down to it's studs and slowly put it all back together the way we want it.  During the gutting process, we came across some incredible finds buried deep in the walls behind 4-5 layers of wallpaper, sheetrock, plaster and lathe.  These pieces of history absolutely fascinate me and I'm excited to try and do more research on the house to see who lived there long ago.  The owner before us lived there for about 10 years and prior to that the house belonged to a little old woman named Matilda.  I remember this house as "Matilda's house" as she lived there for my entire childhood.  She was a sweet single older woman who worked at Proctor's dining hall and lived in this green house until she passed away.  Beyond her thirtyish years in the house, I don't know anything about it's inhabitants, but we are piecing together it's history with the incredible findings we've made in the walls.  Check out some of these pictures to see what we've discovered!  (Maybe I'm just a history dork, or am too wrapped up in personal stories, but this stuff absolutely fascinates me!)...
One of the most fascinating items we found is this old diary from 1866! 

In the front it has calendars of the year and details of the moons phases.  It also contains pages and pages with details about the "Memorable Events in the Secession Rebellion."  Amazing!

After these early pages, a beautiful diary was kept every day of the year chronicling the life of the couple who lived in our home.  Almost every day they talk about chopping down wood, heading down to the "Flats" (which Scott and I presume to be Wilmot Flat) and other daily happenings.  Incredible to look through.  I believe it's written by the wife.  She has very poor spelling and no punctuation, probably not very educated...

 Another amazing thing we found was a piece of paper completely folded up with perfect handwriting on it.  Along the top of the page it says, "List of...to King Solomons Lodge No. 14. April 13th 1870"

 The list of names includes many local names of families that still live in the area.

This lock is engraved with the initials E. F. S. and has the date July 4, 1871...

At some point little children lived in the house.  We found these old blocks in the walls...

 An old paper doll outfit and a playing card...

This ledger is from 1890 keeping track of hours worked and expenses...

An old Boston Daily Globe - August 10, 1894...

 The Boston Globe - April 21, 1910

Old Spoons...

This postcard was addressed to Mr. Harold Swett, Andover, NH and was sent from Baltimore, MD on January 8, 1913...

Here is an old photograph of a dog...

Not quite as cool, because it's not nearly as old, but we also found this old licence plate...

 And here is a sampling of some of the lovely layers of wallpaper we uncovered!

It's pretty fascinating to find so much history in our new home and it's much more exciting to write about this stuff than the old cat skeletons that Scott dug up.  We'll post some pictures soon of where we are in the renovation process.