Heaven on Earth

Heaven on Earth

Monday, February 9, 2015

Our Old House

Our town is a National Historic District and it's a beautiful place. Our limestone house, built about 1865, is one of the older homes in our state. We live in the western United States and our state was settled by non-native Americans in the late 1840's.  By the time our home was built in a rural area of the state there was a thriving city up north, but Spring City was the frontier; the wild, wild west.  

12 Pioneer families were sent to our area to settle in 1852.  They were burned out within one year by the native Americans who lived in the mountain range near by but they returned in 1853, only to be driven out again.  In 1859 they returned again with many more settlers and eventually built sturdy, permanent homes. The builder of our home arrived in 1860 and first inhabited a 2 room log cabin one block west of the rock house. Around 1865, Orson Hyde built this stone home of local oolitic limestone rubble.  

Our town has a heritage home tour once a year to raise money for historic preservation and occasionally we open our home for the tour.  The sheer volume of visitors take a toll on the house but the effort paid off when a great niece of the third owner of our house stopped by on the tour and offered to lend us a much earlier photo of the home than anyone new was in existence.  We were able to make a copy of the original thanks to her generosity.
She also provided the name of her great uncle in the photo and we were able to look up his genealogical records and date the photo by the age of the baby in his wife's arms. All of the six children on their pedigree chart are accounted for in the photo, enabling us to date the photograph. 

In 1909, the George Crawforth family documented their abundance and wealth by posing with not one, but three horses, in front of their home in this photo taken by a traveling photographer.  Often rural families would have their "picture made" to show relatives they left behind how well they were doing financially out on the frontier. Our home was the onetime Deseret Telegraph office in town and we noted that someone has moved the telegraph arms  from under the west window on the third floor to the east window where they are now.  The photo also proved that our porch was built sometime between 1909 and 1915 when it appears in the next known photo.  What a great gift we were given with this photograph!


Here's our house and property today, after lengthy restoration.   

The wooden hay barn collapsed under heavy snow during the winter of 1983 .
All that remains is the stone stable on the left, seen in the photo below
 from the north where the missing barn and wood stable used to be.
We've restored the ice house next to the stable
 and the Granary on the property as well .  
 Here's how it looks today as our guest house.



From our old house to yours....Have a good week! 

17 comments:

  1. Let me know if you are on the home tour again! That would be so fun.
    What a wonderful gift the picture is. I didn't know that they were showing how prosperous they were in their photos. My dad was born in 1914 in Wisconsin and he has tons more formal photos than my mom who was born in 1925 in Tropic, Utah (nowhere!!) as they didn't have photographers come through town. He was just a farm boy but his family made sure they got photos taken.

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  2. It was a common practice to have postcards made with your photo in front of your home; at least in Utah. There are many photos in the archives of families posing in front of their home. It was a good way for photographers to fill in slow times at their studios. They would advertise in advance and show up to take many photos in a day.
    I'll let you know next time we open up the house Jackie. It may not be for a few years.

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  3. What a great story about your beautiful house. Someday i may show up for the historical tour;-/

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  4. I need to read more carefully. I thought you lived in the New England area. Love this post and your home is lovely.

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  5. A beautiful and wonderful story of your home and how it was made over the years. I am sure that everyone who came and will come in the future to visit admires it greatly, and all of your hard restoration work. xx

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  6. I LOOOOOOVE your old house and I can't wait to see it again -- I might have to do a drive-by this weekend LOL!!! Now...inquiring minds want to know -- do you think the woman holding the baby ever had to climb through a window because she was locked out???

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  7. What a beautiful old home you have! I've always wanted to live in a historic home, although it has never been possible. It takes great commitment and perseverance. You all have done a wonderful job in keeping what could be kept. Thank you for sharing!

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  8. Wow Bonnie! What a fabulous house. I know you've said where it is but I don't remember now. I would love to know when the next tour is, too. You're brave to let hoards of people in. Any classes coming up that you are going to teach? I have yet to knit a ballerina.....
    Jill

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  9. What a fun chunk of history! I love your house even more now!

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  10. No wonder I love your blog. I have a good friend, Sara Watson, who restored a home in Spring City. I went with her several times as work was being done on her home. I have gone to Heritage Day in May many times and have probably toured your home. I love Spring City!

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  11. Just ran across you blog today. I haven enjoyed immensely what I have seen. Thank you, Valerie

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  12. You should write a post about what it's like to have people tromp through your home. Your house has a wonderful history! Thank you for sharing!

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  13. Absolutely love hearing and seeing pieces of history!

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  14. That's so awesome that you know so much about the history of your home. Such a rich and interesting history, and you and your family have added more memorable history under its roof! How blessed you are. Fantastic photo!

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  15. It makes it all worth it, doesn't it?! You are such good stewards of that house, and I know that all of your hard work and dedication to preserving it is appreciated.
    Are you on the tour this year as well, or are you taking this year off?

    We were over in S.C. just a few days ago. I need to get one of my little stained glass stars repaired :)
    As always, it's fun to see your house.

    ~K.

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  16. That is so special to have so much history connected with your home. It's so beautiful! I bet I passed right by and didn't realize it.

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  17. Bonnie, thanks for stopping by. My son is still battling the infection, not much progress. I love the historic photo. Orson Hyde was the builder of your home!! It is so lovely. So glad you found out so much information about it. I love the granary! Hope things are well with you and yours. Joni

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