But did it land on its feet?

From the British Daily Mail - "Bringing old homes up to scratch is nothing out of the ordinary for property renovators Andrew and George Hartley,

But this professional couple nearly jumped out their skin when greeted by their most recent form of preservation - as a mummified cat fell on them.

The couple got a face full of the ancient feline as they removed ceilings from an 18th century property in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire."

Updates, Updated

As the lack of posts here shows, I've not accomplished anything around the house lately.  But this time I have a good excuse - I spent the better part of 10 days one thousand miles from the Einsel House, and the lesser part of 10 days driving there and back.

I do have a few bits of news I can share though.  First, weeds can do an astonishing amount of growing in 10 days.

Second, thanks to my dad (and the wonderful brothers who now farm my parents' land) it looks like I again have barn siding to salvage for my shed project. 

Third, we have an estimate to deal with the flooding problems at the end of the drive.  However, we asked the county engineer's office for a second opinion and after looking at the problem they said any tile would be mostly a waste of money for two reasons - (1) it would need to be extremely large to deal with the heavy downpours that cause the problem and (2) because of where it would need to be located, any tile would quickly plug with chaff and other debris from the field.  The county engineer suggested with either (A) relocate the end of our driveway 20 feet or so south, or (B) wait until the current soybean crop is harvested so we have a better view of the problem area and then reassess the situation.  We're going with B.

Fourth, we still have kittens.  A dozen kittens to be exact.  Ethel amazed all of us, not only by having 7 kittens in her first litter, but also by managing to keep all seven growing and healthy.  If you're local and want a cuddly little buddy, let us know!

Fifth, although it was never mentioned here, I spent most of July trying to convince Honda to pay for a $2,000 repair needed on our van.  I had to fight way too hard for it, but just before crossing the Mackinac Bridge last Friday we got a call saying Honda has finally agreed to cover the necessary repairs!   This means we should still be able to have the back of the house repointed this year!

Toes in Lake Superior

And finally, a few highlights from our recent trip.  For Charles and I's tenth anniversary, my in-laws rented a cabin on a lake in northern Minnesota.  My father-in-law has made the trip annually for 30-odd years to visit both a friend made in Vietnam days and Minnesota's deer.  (Denny is always much happier to see Jim than the deer are.)

Fishing with her Grandpa

Neil enjoying table ball at the resort's play area

Every six year old girl's dream

Updates

Good News

Celia with one of the twin tiger kittens

We have kittens at the EH!!!  Maude's taking good care of her three little ones who are now ten days old.  Ethel's litter was born yesterday - there appear to be 6, possibly 7 (including at least one calico!).  And because my husband we are softies, we've also adopted twin tiger striped brothers that were dumped in a ditch.  Anybody need a good kitty or 4?

Not So Good News
Preservation Ohio recently announced their list of 2011 Ohio's Most Endangered Historic Sites and the Seneca County Courthouse and Seneca County Museum both made the list.  (The courthouse for the fourth time.)  At a recent meeting of the Seneca County Commissioners, Commissioner Jeff Wagner "made a motion to seek bids for courthouse demolition, but there was not a second. [Wagner] said he would have been remiss had he not made the motion."


Related and Better News
Following up on my earlier post, today's local newspaper reports that at their most recent meeting, the county commissioners "voted 2-to-1 to not sell the museum or any contents, including three paintings possibly created by the Hudson River School art movement."  As for Mr. Wagner, the most civil thing I can write here is to quote a Facebook user who said, "there is a certain political movement that wants to bulldoze the past; at the same time they claim to revere the past."

Not So Good News
It poured rain here again last weekend.  Somewhere around 4 1/2 inches overnight Friday into Saturday.  Although there's a footer tile around the house for the gutters to drain into, it is obviously not large enough to handle the volume of water these summer storms pour into it.  We're slowly accepting that we're going to need to dig it up and replace it with a larger tile.  We also have a new 6 inch deep gulley at the end of our driveway.  It's obvious that a permanent solution to this problem is going to involve more tile.

Since some might be wondering - The basement had water coming through the walls, but with the bypassed tile still in place the sump pump was able to keep up for the most part.  I've not ventured down to check the stone bridge, and I'm not planning to either.  There's nothing we can do for now so I'm trying to just not think about it.

Bragging News
Cecilia was completely thrilled with the cake I made for her 6th birthday.

(Charles thinks I'll have a hard time topping this next year.  I suspect he's right.)

Bat News
This year's crop of baby bats took wing earlier this month. I spent a couple of nights watching them fly out of the bat houses.  The babies are easy to identify, not only because they are smaller, but also because they flap their little wings so much more quickly than the full grown bats.  They're really rather cute.


In other bat news we have bats back in our attic.  Although the majority remain in the bat boxes, a fair number have noticed a small gap in the very corner of the eaves.  We had a local tree-trimming company lined up to come out with a bucket truck to install another one-way bat door, but they had to cancel because the truck was needed to clean up storm damage (see a few items above).  I still need to call and reschedule this.

Bad News
When we contacted the neighbor who told us last February that we could take siding from a barn on his property to let him know we were about ready to use the salvaged siding he apologetically told us he has sold his farm (and aforesaid barn).  This will obviously delay work on our shed.

More Not So Good News
Taking a good friend up on her offer (see the comments to this post) I went to Lowe's prepared to order roofing for the shed.  Only to find out that they can not match the 24" seams on the current shed (16" is the widest available). 

This next bit is a little difficult to explain.  There is a 14" strip on the original shed, immediately above where the new awning joins the old roof, where a previous owner removed the old standing seam roof.  Because I rebuilt the new awning using the old one as a pattern, this 14" strip still remains.  The transition strip available to change from 24" seams to 16" seams and to make the change in pitch only covers 7".  After considerable discussion with the salesman we had four options:

1 - partially dismantle the awning I just built, extending the joists and increasing the pitch so that the new joists would join the original roof at the top of the fourteen inches instead of the bottom;
2 - remove the rest of the standing seam from that side of the building and replace all of it with new 16" standing seam;
3 - use flashing to cover the remaining 7" so the resulting roof would have 24" seams on the top, 16" seams on the bottom, and a seven inch strip in the middle with no seams;or
4 - leave the remaining standing seam and shingle the new roof and the 14" strip above it.

I've tried to talk myself into #1 but I just can't.  #2 would double the cost and labor required for the job and that's something that we're not comfortable doing at this time.  If we went with #3 that flat seven inch section in the middle of the roof would drive me absolutely crazy.  So shingles it will be.



Expect it to be a couple weeks though before I resume work on this project.  As this post shows, I've got a few other issues demanding my attention at the moment.  And I've got kittens to spend time playing with and cuddling as well.  : )

$268 and 40 Rounds of Buckshot

It's amazing what you can find on the internet.  It took a little digging, but look what I found:

(you'll need to read my last post to fully appreciate this)

That article was printed in August of 1938, which is actually 10-20 years more recent than I was expecting.

I also found a gem of an article from 1933 which related that a 15 year old local student was "suffering from extensive buckshot wounds" inflicted when our curmudgeonly neighbor "fired a shotgun at a group of boys in his melon patch."  Mr. Frankenfield didn't skimp on retaliation for raiding his garden.  "Twenty leaden pellets were removed from the boy's face and more than 20 more are still buried in his head, neck and arm, too deep, according to physicians, for removal....Physicians said he would recover unless complications arise."

Finding these articles made my day for several reasons.  Beyond the fact that the first article basically confirms the oral history as passed on by our octogenarian farmer, I'm also quite tickled to confirm the identity of our bachelor neighbor.  I smiled as soon as I read the name 'James Frankenfield'.  I was hoping it was him.  Although the Frankenfield name hasn't come up here at the blog in the past, Jim Frankenfield will play a starring role in my next house history post....

Picking Berries

Last Thursday after work my mom and I took the kids to the woods just south of us to pick black raspberries.  These are the woods with the old log cabin in them.  I called the property's owner first to double check that it was still okay for us to pick berries there and he said sure (as long we leave the cherries on the front cherry tree untouched - they're for his wife's pies).  Although I'd been through the woods several times, the draw every other visit was the log cabin.  This time it was the hope of a raspberry pie. 

The fields surrounding our house have been tended by the same farmer since the 1940's.  Now in his eighties, he loves to chat with Charles and I, sharing stories of our house and the people who lived here before us.  He has also shared stories about the old cabin next door.  According to our farmer, the last person to live in the cabin was an older bachelor whose hobby was gardening.  He is said to have kept a large garden behind the house where he grew all kinds of fruits and vegetables.  When the bachelor died the garden was left to grow wild.  The vegetables eventually died off, but the raspberry bushes thrived, spreading through the woods around the cabin.  Our farmer will smile as he remembers breaks taken from the field to pick a few berries ("as big around as my thumb" he says holding his hand out in front of him).

The berries are not quite that big anymore, but there are so many of them that it really doesn't matter.  Any semblance of an organized garden is long gone, but I find it telling that even today the raspberries are all found in the front half of the woods surrounding the old cabin and barn foundation.  Once you pass the cabin the raspberries bushes become fewer and fewer and the last third of the woods has almost no berries.

Cecilia quickly tired of picking berries (too 'pokey' and too many daddy longleg spiders), but Neil was a tireless berry picker. We picked the first berries to ripen this season, so I plan to take Neil back in a few days and there should be even more raspberries ready to pick.

While there I also took some pictures of the old barn foundation:

According to our farmer, the barn was burned down by a hired hand who felt he had been underpaid for his labor.  When the fire was discovered neighbors from throughout the area came to help, but the barn was a complete loss.  And with everyone's attention focused on the barn, it was only after the fire that anyone noticed a ladder leaning against the back side of the house.  The window at the top of the ladder opened into the land owner's bedroom, where a large sum of money was missing from a bedside dresser.  Only with this discovery did all of the gathered neighbors realize that the hired farm hand had been conspicuously absent during the chaos of the fire.   He remained conspicuously absent afterward as well.

And, since I'm still completely fascinated by it, here are more pictures of the abandoned log cabin:

(I think you should be able to click on any of these for a larger view)

 In the 1896 atlas this whole area is shown as cleared land.  I suspect that whenever the house was abandoned the entire property was abandoned (apparently sometime before height of the Great Depression because REA electricity never reached the cabin).  Nearly all of the trees in the woods surrounding the cabin today have trunks that are less than a foot in diameter.  The only exception was the old tree pictured at right which stands about 20 feet from the southwest corner of the cabin.

Yesterday after working outside in the heat most of the afternoon, the kids and I washed our black raspberries from Thursday's expedition and just before bed we all enjoyed still warm from the oven black raspberry pie with vanilla ice cream melting against it.  It makes me smile to think that raspberry bushes planted and tended by an (apparently stingy) old bachelor a hundred years ago or more are still bringing pleasure today.  : )

Ancestors, Indians, and Johnny Appleseed

I shared some family history with the kids on our trip to Mohican State Park a couple weekends ago, and since persistantly cloudy and periodically thundery weather has hampered work on the shed, I'll share my story of Indians, the War of 1812, Johnny Appleseed, and Neil & Cecilia's great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents (that's six greats if anyone lost count) here as well.

John & Anne Catherine (Smith) Lambright were married at Frederick, Maryland in 1802.  A list of their nine children with their years and places of birth reads as follows:

1 - John Lambright, born in 1805 in Frederick County, Maryland
2 - Margaret Ann Lambright, born in 1807 in Frederick County, Maryland
3 - Levi Phillip Lambright, born in 1810 in Frederick County, Maryland
4 - Henry Lambright, born in 1812 in Richland County, Ohio
5 - Catherine Lambright, born in 1814 at Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio
6&7 - twins David & Michael Lambright, born in 1817 in Richland County, Ohio

8 - Rachel Lambright, born in 1819 in Richland County, Ohio
9 - Elizabeth Lambright, born in 1822 in Richland County, Ohio

Twins are always something of a novelty, but what stands out in this list for a genealogist is John and Anne's fifth child, Catherine.  Specifically, Catherine's place of birth.  The family obviously moved from Frederick County, Maryland to Richland County, Ohio sometime around 1811.  So why was Catherine born at Lancaster? 

The answer to that question precedes Catherine's birth by a couple of years.  With the outbreak of the War of 1812 there was concern that Indians living in Ohio, encouraged by leaders like Tecumsuh, would join the British in the struggle and be incited to attack white settlers.  The Lambright family at this time was newly settled in their home Richland County (the area is now part of Ashland County).  Located near them was the Indian community of Greentown.  According to a local history published later in the 19th century, the Greentown Indians "had always been friendly and neighborly with the whites, and quite a settlement of white people had gathered around them. [But] fearing that Tecumseh would influence these Indians to engage in the war, and that they would suddenly fall upon the settlers and murder them, the military authorities determined to remove them."

'Friendly and neighborly' the Greentown Indians may have been, but when a company of soldiers arrived to remove them to a camp near Piqua they were "thrown into a violent state of excitement".  Fearing violence, the soldiers withdrew and their captain - Captain Douglas - decided to consult with local resident James Copus before proceeding.  Copus had been the first white settler in Mifflin Township.  He was "well known to the Greentown Indians; was on the most friendly terms with them, and was much respected by them." The Captain went to Copus, urging him to use his influence with the Greentown Indians to secure their peaceful relocation.  Copus strongly opposed the military's treatment of the Indians: "his sympathies were with the Indians, and he was strongly opposed to their removal. He liked them as neighbors, believed they were inclined to peace, and could not see the necessity of driving them from their homes. He entered into a long conversation with the officer respecting the justness of his mission. He maintained that [the Indians] had suffered the most shameful wrongs, and that a God of mercy would require restitution from the hands of the whites."  Captain Douglas persisted, though, declaring that regardless of how anyone felt, orders must be followed.  Realizing finally that "if he did not use his influence and persuade the Indians to go peaceably, there would be bloodshed", James Copus consented to return to Greentown with the soldiers, on condition that "should the Indians quietly surrender, their lives and property should be protected."  This Captain Douglas promised.

The local history resumes:  "Through Mr. Copus' influence, the Indians were pursuaded to go quietly away with the soldiers, after receiving assurances that their property should lie protected and restored to them, and that they should be protected on the march.... A schedule of their property was taken by James Cunningham and Peter Kinney, and they took up their line of march across the Black Fork, turning their faces from a home they, as a tribe, were never to see again....   [But] some eight or ten soldiers straggled from Douglas' command, and remained behind at the Indian village. No sooner had Armstrong and his people disappeared in the forest, than these soldiers deliberately, to the surprise and distress of Mr. Copus, set fire to the village and burned it to the ground. Nearly everything the Indians left behind was consumed."  As they marched through the woods, the Greentown Indians saw the smoke rising over the trees behind them.

The first act of retaliation by the Indians came on August 13, 1812, when a band of Indian stragglers ambushed a white resident as he walked home through some woods.  Survivors of this attack immediately gathered in the blockhouse, where they determined someone should be sent out to warn other local families, and to secure the protection of troops stationed south at Mount Vernon. 

Enter Johnny Appleseed.  According to local legend the "eccentric but brave" Appleseed volunteered for the hazardous journey and started immediately.  "On this journey, Johnny Appleseed gave a warning cry at every cabin he passed, informing the inmates that Reed, Wallace and Jones were killed, and that the Indians were passing south. There was something awful, it is said in Johnny's warning cry as he pounded at the door of each cabin he passed, and shouted to the inmates: 'Flee! Flee! for your lives! The Indians are upon you.' and before they could open the door, or fairly comprehend his meaning, this angel of mercy had disappeared in the darkness and night, on his way with the fleetness of a deer to the next cabin.  And, pressing forward like the wind, left pallor and surprise behind."  (A side note here - while all accounts agree that Johnny Appleseed travelled through the area warning settlers of the Indians' actions, there is some disagreement exactly when this occurred.  The version quoted above places Appleseed's journey in August, while other versions say the journey came later in September.)

During that late summer of 1812 John and Anne Lambright were basically the same age Charles and I are now, with four children all under the age of 8.  I can't imagine the tension they and their neighbors must have lived with daily during those weeks.  That tension came to a head for the Lambright family a few weeks later, about September 10th. 

Earlier that day local resident Martin Rufner had heard of a band of Indians "well armed with guns, knives and tomahawks" in the area who had indicated they were headed to the Zimmer cabin.  His suspicions aroused, Rufner quickly rode to the Zimmer residence, beating the Indians there.  The Zimmer family numbered four - the elderly parents, nineteen year old son Phillip, and "beautiful" daughter Kate.  After a hurried discussion it was decided that Rufner should remain at the Zimmer residence to protect the family while young Phillip Zimmer went to warn other settlers and return with assistance. 

Returning to the local history: "Phillip Zimmer hastened to [James] Copus' cabin, and from there to John Lambright's, two miles further south on the Black Fork. Lambright returned with him, and, joined by Mr. Copus, they all proceeded together to the Zimmer cabin....When Philip returned with his party, nature had already thrown her sable mantle of night over the valley.  Except for the occasional hooting of an owl there was almost deathlike stillness.  No breath of wind stirred the leaves of the forest, and the stars shone with a pale, flickering light.  As the party neared the cabin, no light was seen and all was quiet and still within.  After a consultation, Mr. Copus advanced alone to the rear of the house and tried to peer through its window, but nothing could be seen in the darkness within.  He then cautiously crept upon his hands and knees around to the front of the building, and, finding the door ajar, endeavored to push it further open, but found something against it like a body, on the inside.  He then placed his hand through the opening of the door and found that the floor was covered with blood."

The local histories vary slightly on what happened next.  One states that Copus "Hasten[ed] back to Phillip and Lambright, who were concealed a short distance from the cabin, and stated his discoveries and convictions."  Another version states that, "Returning to the party, [Copus] thought it best not to tell Phillip what he had discovered...Enjoining silence, he led them quietly away, and when at a safe distance told them that he feared the family had been taken prisoners, and that they had better to go to the blockhouse for assistance." 

Regardless of how much James Copus did or did not reveal to his companions, both accounts agree that at this point Phillip Zimmer "became frantic with grief and excitement, and desired to rush into the cabin to learn the whole truth.  In this he was prevented by the others, who feared that the Indians were yet concealed in the cabin, awaiting his return. Persuading Phillip to accompany them, they hastened back to the cabin of Mr. Copus, and, taking the latter's family, they all proceeded as rapidly as possible to Mr. Lambright's. This family was added to their numbers, and they pushed on to the cabin of Frederick Zimmer, Jr., Phillip's brother, and he and his family joined the fugitives. They hastened along an Indian trail, near where the village of Lucas now stands, and stopped at the cabin of David Hill, where they remained until the next morning, when, accompanied by the family of Hill, all proceeded to the blockhouse at Beam's mill. This fort was then occupied by a company of soldiers under Capt. Martin. A party of these soldiers, accompanied by Mr. Copus, Phillip and Frederick Zimmer, Hill and Lambright, all well armed, proceeded by the most direct route through the forest, the trail to the Zimmer cabin.

Entering it, they found the old gentleman, the old lady and Catharine, all dead upon the floor, and dreadfully mangled. The gallant Rufner was lying dead in the yard. There was every evidence that he had made a desperate struggle for his life and that of the Zimmers. His gun was bent nearly double, and several of his fingers had been cut off by blows from a tomahawk. The struggle had finally ended by his being shot twice through the body. The details of this butchery could never be certainly known, as the prominent actors were all killed; all had also been scalped. It appeared that the table had been set with refreshments for the savages, and most of the food remained. Whether any of the Indians were killed, is not known; they would have taken their dead away with them, and destroyed all evidences, if such a catastrophe had happened to them. It is supposed that eight or ten Indians were engaged in this tragedy."

Details of what is known as the Zimmer Massacre are recounted in the local histories.  They are based on the confession of an Indian named Kanotchy who was taken prisoner some years later and who claimed to have been part of the Indian party involved.  According to these (rather romanticized) accounts the beautiful Kate Zimmer fainted at the beginning of the violence.  "When she came to her senses, she looked about upon a scene of blood and horror, and burst into a paroxysm of weeping. She begged the savages to spare her life, but all to no purpose. They first ascertained from her where her father's money was concealed, and then buried the tomahawk in her brain. While she was in a senseless condition, a consultation had been held over her, to decide whether they should kill her or take her prisoner. It was decided that her life should be taken, but still they hesitated, as no one wished to do the deed. At length it was decided that the one who should perform the deed, should be considered as possessing the greatest heart, whereupon this same Phillip Kanotchy stepped forward, exclaiming, " Me kill white squaw, me got big heart." When Kate saw the tomahawk descending, she raised a beautiful white arm to ward off the blow, which, falling upon the arm, nearly severed it in twain ; a second blow did the work — one quiver, and the lovely life went out."

Following the murder of the Zimmer family residents fled to the safety of the blockhouses, and "nearly every cabin was left tenantless."  But after five days at the blockhouse, James Copus desired to return to his family to their cabin.  Still fearing violence, a guard of nine soldiers accompanied the Copus family.  They found their cabin undisturbed, but that afternoon while gathering potatoes from a nearby field, the Copus's twelve year old daughter Sarah noticed an Indian hiding behind a bush.  She failed to mention to anyone what she had seen, later explaining that her father "was a very strict man in regard to truth, and, fearing she might have been deceived, did not wish to incur his displeasure by creating a false alarm."  There followed a restless night, the Copus family sleeping within the cabin and the soldiers in a nearby barn.

The following morning, the soldiers desired to wash at a spring located near the Copus cabin.  "Mr. Copus again cautioned the soldiers of impending danger, telling them that Indians were certainly in the neighborhood or his dogs would not have made such a noise, and urged them to take their guns with them to the spring. They promised to do so, but, on passing out, leaned them against the cabin and went on to the spring. Fatal mistake! The Indians, who had been lurking about the cabin all night, were watching for just such an opportunity as this. Swiftly, silently, stealthily, as a cat creeps upon its prey, they closed in upon the doomed cabin, and, before the soldiers were aware of their presence, were between them and their guns; then came the horrid war-whoop as a score or more of painted warriors rushed upon them with tomahawk and scalping-knife."

Of the nine soldiers in the guard, seven were at the spring.  Three of these were killed immediately.  Three more ran into the woods, but were also shortly killed.  Within the cabin, James Copus immediately grabbed his rifle and went to the door.  He opened the door just as the seventh soldier from the spring, George Dye, reached the house.  Dye was shot through the thigh as he entered the house and Copus was himself shot through the chest as he held the door open. 


"The scene within the cabin was pathetically dramatic.  He who an hour before stood as the protector of his family now lay in the throes of death, his grief-stricken wife and seven children grouped about his bedside...But they had soon to turn from the dead and assist the soldiers in their defense of the cabin.  Early in the contest, Nancy Copus, aged fifteen, was shot above the knee, inflicting a painful wound.  The children were then placed upstairs for greater safety, and that was but poor, for a number of the Indians were upon the hillside in front of the house and kept up an incessant fire upon the roof of the house, until the clapboards, it is said, afterward presented almost a sieve-like appearance....After five long hours of murderous assault from outside and of valiant defence from within, the awful contest ended by the Indians retreating, taking their dead with them and firing a parting volley into a flock of sheep which had huddled together in terror near the barn." 

Later that afternoon a larger detail of soldiers arrived at the Copus home, where they buried the dead and made an attempt to track the band of Indians responsible for the attack.  Failing to locate the Indians, the troops oversaw the journey of the Copus survivors and other settlers back to the safety of the blockhouse. 
"Stretchers were made upon which to carry the wounded, and the march of the whole party to Beam's blockhouse was commenced.  As it was late in the day when the start was made, they went only a short distance until they stopped for the night.  By that time the party had increased to about one hundred, and pickets were thrown out to guard against surprise....The march [to the Beam blockhouse] resumed the next morning...the distance being thirteen miles, [and] they arrived safely in the evening."

The Lambright family was surely among the group seeking the safety of the blockhouse that night.  When they left the blockhouse, John and Anne did not return to their home in the Richland County woods, but relocated their family south, to the safety of Lancaster, Ohio where just over a year late their daughter Catherine Lambright would be born.  (Although I have nothing to support this, I wonder if perhaps my 4th great grandmother was named in memory of the slain Kate Zimmer?)  Sometime around 1815 the family returned to Richland County.
 
The Lambright family's journey mirrored that made by James Copus's widow and children, who after two months at the block-house moved temporarily to Guernsey County.  "The journey consumed many days, during which most of the family were compelled, on little food, to walk over a rough path, wade small streams, encamp by the wayside, and always in fear of being pursued and captured by the savages.  They returned in 1815, and found their cabin as they had left it.  A few of the Greentown Indians had also returned and re-erected their cabins, but peace had come by that time...and they ever after lived in peace and friendship."

The quotes included here are all taken from late 19th century accounts of the Zimmer and Copus massacres.  The full accounts can be read here and here.
 

On September 15, 1882, exactly seventy years after Copus massacre, identical monuments were dedicated at the sites of the Copus and Zimmer homes.  It is said that the crowd the day of the dedication numbered over 10,000.

I have not been able to locate the Zimmer monument, but a sign along State Route 603 marks a winding stone road that leads to the Copus monument.  A picture taken at the monument's dedication in 1882 shows it standing in open fields, but the area today is rather dense woods (with a lot of mosquitoes the day the kids and I were there).

In an attempt to connect this post to the subject of this blog, let me close by continuing this story by a few years.  When she was nineteen years old, Catherine Lambright married George King.  Some years later they moved their family to Seneca County, where George built a house from stones found on his property.  The King stone house is today one of only six stone houses (that I'm aware of) remaining in this county.




A few years after moving into their own stone house, George & Catherine (Lambright) King's daughter Louisa King married John Corrigan.  And a few years after that, John & Louisa (King) Corrigan surely made a few trips to visit the family of John's sister Ann (Corrigan) Flack at another stone house.

Between Projects

It's another little lull here I know, so I thought I'd pop in and put up a few pictures to show life in the Einsel House between projects.

On a sunny day last week I snapped this picture of Neil perched on a window sill in the living room, deeply absorbed with the math workbook in front of him:

And this past Sunday afternoon I put off my plan to starting painting beams in the kitchen and instead made and decorated cut out cookies with Cecilia:

Those beams in the kitchen will still be there to paint next weekend.

The Smith Years (1882-1893)

(Alternately titled "Kimberly Rants, Rambles, and Relies on Random Bits of Family and Local History to try to Disguise the Fact that She has No Clue What Happened at Her House Between 1882 and 1893".)

First, a brief explanation for my absence.  I'm still taking three out of four prescriptions and spent all of last week quarantined at home.  You would think that would mean I've had plenty of time to finish the kitchen, but, ummm, not so much. I'll get back to it eventually.

But - to the house.  Our last house history post ended on April Fool's Day, 1882, when Noah Einsel sold his stone house and 100 acres of land to John Henry Smith.  I groaned as soon as a saw the deed.  Those who know me in real life know that I like my houses old and I like my relatives old too.  I don't even mind if they're dead.  In fact the longer they've been dead the better.  In other words, I'm a genealogist.  And genealogists hate the name Smith. 

If you're looking through the index of 19th century marriage records for the county where you think your great, great, great grandparents got married you really want your great, great, great grandfather to have a surname like Winklefoos, or Quindleyplaas, or Schwartzengrubbier.  If Schwartzengrubbier shows up in the index at all you can be pretty darn sure you'll be related to every one that's listed (all 6 or 7 of them, yeah!).  But woe if you're looking for Great, Great, Great Grandpa Smith.  If he's there at all you'll have to sort through the other 274 indexed Smiths to find him.  266 of which you will not be related to at all.

The problem is somewhat lessened if your ancestor's first and middle names were a bit more risque.  Most genealogists can forgive a last name like Smith if it's preceded by a combination like Asberry Hiram, or Otha Lafayette, or Permenias Jasper.

But Permenias Jasper Smith didn't buy my house.  Frickin'-John frickin'-Henry frickin'-Smith bought my house.   The 1880 census for this county includes 33 John or John H. Smiths.  (And because I was curious I looked up the name Permenias Smith in the 1880 census - there are two results for the entire country, one each in Pennsylvania and New York).

But if you're a genealogist with the misfortune of having John Henry Smith as a great, great, grandfather you at least hope that Great Grandpa took for his wife a girl with a first name capable of salvaging this situation - something like Hildegarde would work pretty well.  With this hope in mind I flipped to my copy of the 1893 deed recording John H. Smith's sale of our house to Wilson Flack.  In particular I was looking for the dower clause near the end.  I was really hoping for Hildegard, although I would have been content with something like Harriet or Susannah or Rosina or anything please, as long as it's not...

Are you kidding me?  Mary?

It's quite possible that John and Mary Smith were lovely people, but other than their names I can't tell you a darn thing about them.  Of the 33 John Smiths living in this county in 1880, six had wives named Mary.  None of those six lived in this township.  In 1900 there were four John and Mary Smiths living this this county, again none of them in the correct township.  The 1890 census would be most helpful in identifying the correct John and Mary, but unfortunately most of the 1890 census was destroyed by a fire in the 1920s. 

I could keep trying.  Assuming the Smiths lived here during their childbearing years, my next step would be to visit the county probate court and scour birth records from 1882-1893 looking for any child born in this township whose parents were John and Mary Smith.  If I find something I could then use the child's name to track down his or her parents.  It's a bit of a long shot, but I've already tried the 'easy' stuff.

I've encountered the name Smith in my own family research but luckily not in any too prominent position.  (No Great, Great, Great Grandpa Smiths for me in other words.)  But the name Roush does feature prominently in my own genealogy, and in the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia around 1900 Roush was even worse than Smith.  According to family lore, if you passed a gentleman while walking down the street in Point Pleasant around 1900 and said, "Hello, Mr. Roush" four out of five times you would be right. 

Hettie Ann Gray had married one of these Mr. Roushs in 1888, and by the time her fourth child was born in 1894 she was annoyed by the fact that her children inevitably shared their names with someone else in the community.  Hettie decided that her next baby would not have to share his name - and since 80% of the local population would have the same surname this meant Hettie would have to get creative with the baby's given names.  John, Richard, Edward, William and the like were out immediately.  Out too were Victor, Sylvester, Reuben and Otto.  Even Phineas and Elda and Orris had already been taken.  But Hettie didn't give up, and I can just imagine her with a little "beat that!" smirk on her face when my great grandfather was born on March 22, 1894.  She named him Ucebius Angelo Roush.  Perfect name for a tiny little WASP baby whose own Great, Great Grandfather Roush was one of nine brothers to fight in the American Revolution, don't you think?

But this story doesn't end on March 22, 1894.  As Ucebius and his siblings became teenagers a new worry began to consume their mother.  Sharing a name with another member of the community was troublesome enough, but sharing genes with another member of the community was even more worrisome.  And if you were a Roush living in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the early 1900s it was no easy task to find a potential spouse who wasn't also either a Roush or a descendant of a Roush.  (In fact, Hettie and her own Mr. Roush were themselves second cousins once removed....)

So, sometime around 1905 Ucebius Angelo Roush and his family left Point Pleasant.  The wonderful picture above was taken some years later near their new home at Deunquat, Ohio.  (Great Grandpa is the one holding the two white horses).  And since we're on the topic of unusual names I can hardly end this post without telling the story of Deunquat.  The village was named after the Wyandot Indian Doanguod, best remembered by local residents for his fervent hatred of white men and his equally fervent love of "fire water".  Sometime as an undergraduate I wrote a short paper on the history of Deunquat, but of course I can't find a copy of it at the moment so what follows is mostly from memory.

Deunquat didn't begin as Deunquat. The community was originally known as Swigart Station, a name that was probably borrowed from one of the early residents.  But Swigart Station was an informal (unincorporated) name and when rumors of a possible railroad began to surface two of the local residents began to see dollar signs.  There followed a race to have the town incorporated. 

Picture two roads intersecting to form a plus sign.  Our two greedy/bickering neighbors each bought one quarter of the community and each had their quarter incorporated.  The northeast quadrant was incorporated as "Petersburg" and the southeast quadrant as "Addison".  The official plat records for Petersburg and Addison were filed within days of each other.  Following these affronts to its existence, the northwest quadrant was belatedly incorporated as Swigart Station.  Thus the 1879 atlas for Wyandot County includes the following:

Note the route of the proposed railroad.  Also note that although the atlas clearly identifies "Swigart Station", "Petersburg" and "Addison" as three distinct areas it identifies the area in its entirety as "Petersburg".  This was a precursor of things to come.  The proposed railroad eventually was built, but by then the Petersburg moniker had overtaken the whole community.

By the time Ucebius Angelo Roush was born nearly 200 miles to the south, Petersburg, Ohio was in its glory days.  And somewhere right around the turn of the twentieth century came Petersburg's crowning moment - it was selected by the United States government as the location for a brand new post office.  But there was one small problem.  In order to avoid confusion, the postal service had a rule that no two posts in the same state could share the same name.  And there was already a post office in Ohio labeled Petersburg.  

Numerous names were suggested but the turn of the twentieth century was the heyday for obscure little towns all through Ohio, and finding a name for Wyandot County's newest post office that wasn't already in use somewhere else proved to be something of a challenge.  Until someone suggested the name "Deunquat".  And what do you know - there was no other town in Ohio called "Deunquat".  To make it official a small area of land just south of the exising town was platted and incorporated under the new name.  And before long "Petersburg" went the way of Swigart Station and Addison.

But Deunquat's glory days were brief.  The post office, railroad, and the local church closed.  Within the village today mobile homes outnumber the few buildings remaining from the Petersburg days.  Today there's not so much as a stop sign to slow the traffic on State Route 231.

But somewhere near Deunquat, sometime in the mid 1910s, Ucebius Angelo Roush met his future wife.  Cora Mollenkopf was visiting a school friend when the two girls took lunch out to the field where the Roush brothers were helping a local farmer.  Ucebius and Cora were married on Christmas Eve, 1917.  If you scroll back up to the beginning of this post you will see their wedding picture. 

Playing Around

I'm playing around a bit with the layout and design of the blog, so expect things to look a bit different around here until I settle on a new look.

Grumpy

I'm going to spend this post whining.  I'm apparently also going to spend this post being blunt.

Last Wednesday
5:00pm - With trick-or-treating only 24 hours away, I settle in at the dining room table to make Neil the ghost costume he requested.  I've got white sheets, scissors and some thread.  How difficult can a ghost costume be?

8:00pm - Very difficult.  Thoroughly frustrated, I drive into Walmart and come home with one of the last Super Mario Bros. "Mario" costumes left in the store. 

(Highlights from the three hours in between include Neil posing in a perfect billowy ghost costume followed by Neil walking smack into a wall in our dining room because the eye holes in said perfect billowy ghost costume kept shifting so he could not see where he was going.  Followed by me deciding that instead of two small holes, I would cut one big hole for Neil to see out of.  Followed by Neil posing in a perfect billowy Muslim hijab head covering.  Not what I was going for.  Followed by me deciding that I would put two eye holes in the pillow case and hope that would stay in place better than a whole loose sheet.  Followed by Neil posing in a perfect KKK costume.  Definately not what I was going for.  Followed by the trip to Walmart.)

9:00pm - Neil (never one to like change) announces he doesn't like Mario and isn't going to wear any costume.

Last Thursday
4:00pm - At my aunt's house for a hair cut, Neil announces he does not like Mario and isn't going to wear any costume.

4:30pm - Neil does not like Mario and isn't going to wear any costume.

4:45pm - Neil does not like Mario and isn't going to wear any costume.

5:00pm - Other kids (in costume) start appearing on the sidewalks outside my aunt's house, empty plastic pumpkins and pillowcases in hand.

5:05pm - Neil decides Mario might not be so bad.

5:15-6:45pm - A rather enjoyable, if somewhat cold, hour and a half follows.

7:30pm - Finally back at the EH, Charles and I begin packing for a weekend camping trip. 

Last Friday
7:45am - Frantic activity at the Einsel House.  Last minute packing for the camping trip.  Costumes into bookbags for the kids' school Halloween parties.  Packing a lunch for Cecilia's fall harvest day field trip.  More last minute packing for camping trip.  Everyone is at least 10 minutes late leaving the house.

2:00pm - Aunt Flo decides to join me for the weekend.  (I debated including this detail here, but you know what, this little bit definately fits into a  post titled "Grumpy".)

4:15pm - Meet family friend Adam and all pile into the van to begin the drive down to Lake Hope State Park.

6:00pm on a Friday night - not the best time to be in Columbus attempting to merge from Route 23 onto Route 270

6:20pm on a Friday night - still not a good time to be in Columbus attempting to merge from Route 23 onto Route 270

8:00pm - winding our way south somewhere in Vinton County, Neil announces "I need to use the restroom."

8:05pm - Neil: "I really need to use the potty."

8:10pm - Neil: "I REALLY need to go potty!"

8:12pm - Neil: "I CAN'T WAIT!!!"

8:13pm - Charles pulls off onto some steep stone road.  The three passengers of the van who are able to pee standing up exit the van and line up on the side of the road.

8:15pm - We pull into the drive for Lake Hope State Park and locate Cabin #14.  We unload the van and all go straight to bed.

Last Saturday
1:15am - I wake up.  With a stomach flu. 

9:00am - Avoiding me like the plague, everyone else leaves the cabin to enjoy Lake Hope's ROAR Day activies (ROAR stands for Rural Ohio Appalachia Revisited).

10:00am - Cecilia is dropped off back at Cabin #14.  With the stomach flu.

Mid Afternoon - Charles reappears at Cabin #14.  With the stomach flu.

Thanks to my parents and Adam, Neil is able to enjoy the ROAR activities and has a very busy and full day. 

Last Sunday
8:00am - I wake up feeling weak and a bit shaky, but no longer nauseous.  Cecilia wakes up chipper and joins Neil for a game of Jr. Monopoly.  Charles wakes up feeling weak, a bit shaky and still nauseous. 

9:30am - Since Charles clearly isn't up to any hiking, my dad and he leave to head back north.  The rest of us finish packing up the cabin and take off for Rock House State Park.  The kids have a blast hiking and crawling around inside Rock House.

8:00pm - Finally all back at the Einsel House, I do some basic unpacking but the house is still very disheveled at lights out.

Monday
6:10am - My nose feels cold as I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock.  I snuggle down under the covers thinking how good it is to be home. 

6:10-6:40am - ...I hit snooze a few more times...

6:45am - Finally downstairs, I notice Cecilia is shivering when she gives me a hug.  Hmmm.  I walk over to the thermostat.  It's set at 68 degrees.  The house is 59 degrees.  Damn.

9:00am - I'm half an hour late getting to work and the house is still mostly trashed, but a technician from the company that installed the furnace is supposed to stop by sometime during the day to look at the furnace.  The furnace they installed barely seven months ago.  (Just how much abuse could the thing have taken between the months of April-October anyway?)

2:00pm - Furnace tech calls.  Some gas valve is the problem, he'll get a replacement and install it tomorrow.  In the meantime he overrides the thermostat so the heat pump will continue running despite the cooler-than-a-heat-pump-prefers temperatures. 

5:00pm - My dad leaves a message on my voicemail telling me we're in the dog house for giving he and my mom the stomach flu.

7:00pm - I call my parents to apologize about the flu.  Mom sounds rough.  She tells me family friend Adam now has the flu too.

10:00pm - Kids in bed and the house 1/2 put back together the heat pump kicks in.  LOUDLY.  No wonder they don't suggest you run the thing in temperatures below freezing.

Tuesday
6:10am - Noting with relief that my nose is not cold to the touch, I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock.  I snuggle down under the covers thinking how good it is to be home.

6:10-6:40am - ...I hit snooze a few more times...

7:45am - It's school picture day, so the morning has been another frantic one, but Charles and the kids are out the door on time.  I'm heading through the house one last time to turn off lights when I stop suddenly in the dining room, staring in disbelief at the rug underneath the table.  Apparently Tiny the Cat has the stomach flu too.

8:50am - I'm 20 minutes late getting to work and the house is still 1/2 trashed.  What remains of the four puddles of diarrhea on the dining room rug are soaking under wet rags.  Larger dry rags are shoved under the rug to protect the newly refinished hardwood floor underneath.  I'm beyond caring what the furnace tech will think when he comes to repair the furnace.

2:00pm - The furnace tech calls to tell me the wrong part was shipped for our furnace and they won't get the correct part until tomorrow.  He hopes the heat pump is keeping up in these cooler temps.

5:30pm - I eat two chocolate fudge poptarts for supper while shopping on-line for a new dining room rug.  Stupid rugs are expensive.

6:00-8:00pm - I derive a perhaps undue amount of pleasure from the writing of this post.

But I really should stop now and finish cleaning up the mess in my dining room...

Small Things

Yesterday I hung these plates on the wall in the kitchen. Now every time I walk by them I smile.

The bottom plate started the collection. I was two years into an MA program, with a week sorting through archives in the Pennsylvania capital just behind me. Now we were swinging south for the wedding of one of my cousins. The delicately flowered plate cost me $17 at an antique store in tiny Lucketts, Virginia, the too heavy stream of traffic on Route 15 outside the store a harbinger of the looming Northern Virginia sprawl ahead. With the plate carefully wrapped in paper, I tucked it into a briefcase in the van, gently cushioned between hundreds of pages of fragmentary notes and quotes about interracial marriage in colonial Pennsylvania. With the plate safely deposited we walked across the street to a park.

Neil was six months old.

And I was twenty-four.

My thesis was still eight months from completion.

The middle plate came from an antique outlet along Interstate 75 in the city where my husband was raised. My mother found the top plate in the attic of their home - a home that's been in my family for 70 years, purchased in 1940 by my great grandparents Neil & Leoda. My great grandmother died in 1965. My son's namesake survived her by 13 years, passing away two years before I was born. He was stolid and undemonstrative by all accounts, but the same subtle smile still comes to each of his grandchildren whenever conversation turns to memories of summers spent with Grandpa at "The Farm".

My own grandmother was 9 when her family moved to "The Farm". Years later the home of her earliest childhood was torn down. That home's last owner allowed my grandmother and her sister to walk through the house one last time before it was torn down. My grandmother left the house that last time carrying a doorknob as a souvenier. She offered that doorknob to me last fall, to find a new home at the Einsel House:

But lest anyone think all I've accomplished lately is small things like hanging a plate rack and installing a doorknob, before I close I'll include a few pictures of the "bigger" things that have been going on around here.

Back of the house, October 2009:

Back of the house, August, 2010:

The back bedroom, December 2009

(this is actually two months in, I don't even have a true "Before"):

The back bedroom, August, 2010: