Researching a House

Nestled on a quiet street in an unassuming neighborhood rests a house unlike any other in the area. Situated on a cross street between one that is composed mostly of 1910's Colonial Revival four square houses, and another that contains Arts and Crafts bungalows, and with alley running alongside the property. This particular house, however, is different. Unless you know what you're looking at, however, the house is easy to overlook. Upon closer inspection, you'll notice the distinctly Victorian corbels (brackets) that adorn the roof line, the rectangular shape of the front of the house, and the positions of the 3 windows and front door that face the street. A stark contrast to the Colonial Revival across the street, the Sears and Roebuck house that backs up to it, and the brick house next door. Indeed, there is something special to this house.


In 2003, my best friend's mother (and my second mother) purchased the little house. It was not without it's charm, but at the time, to me, it was just a house. The speculation of the house being old, however, did not escape me. Especially since a year later I moved into an apartment just around the corner in an 1880s Gothic Cottage farmhouse.

The house my first apartment was in. Added onto in the 1920's to face College Avenue.

We were quick to speculate on the connection between the two houses. We knew, thanks to my landlady and Victorian Danville, Fifty-two Landmarks: Their Architecture & History by Mary Cahill and Gary Grant (an 18th birthday present from a friend) that the house my apartment was in was, indeed, a farm house that rested on a property once bounded by the Dan River and the Southern Railway. The first assumption was that, perhaps, the house in question was an overseer's house. We, at the time, assumed it was an old one-up, one-down farmhouse: one room upstairs, one room downstairs. But still, everything was a mystery. The title search had only gone back to 1934, and we were almost certain the house existed long before then.

The search truly began a year or so after she bought the house. I was tasked with doing something, I can't remember what, in the crawlspace. I grabbed a flashlight, opened the door and shone the light. As I entered, the light caught something way at the front of the house. And so I crawled. I crawled my way to the front of the house where I found a bottle. Not just any bottle, but a blue glass bottle labelled Rumford Chemical Works. Research indicated that it was produced sometime in the early 1900's. Not only did I find the bottle, but I noticed the shapes of the old foundation that indicated that the house was, indeed, originally a one-up, one-down.

And thus, the journey to find the true age of the house began...