The Cistern!!

In an earlier post, I spoke of the details in our home and how much I enjoy them. I am constantly amazed at how things were done by the first owners. No detail was too small, no short cuts were taken.

Well...we recently discovered a detail from the early history of our house that we didn't know existed! On the Saturday before Easter, my husband went outside to run new wiring out to the garage...and he uncovered a mystery space right along the foundation of the house in the back yard. He came across a couple of bricks as he was working with his shovel, and when he removed them he found a 6-inch hole...an entrance into an empty space that, when lit by a flashlight, we could see was enclosed by four poured concrete walls! More digging revealed that the dimensions of the concrete "room" was about 3 feet by 9 feet, though a wall prevented us from seeing what was beyond the 3 foot square chamber that we were looking into.

A mystery!! We immediately began looking much more closely at our basement walls, and discovered that we have an old cistern in the corner of the cellar, though we've always referred to it as "the coal room". At some point a door was cut into one of the walls and coal was stored there for many years. We still find bits of coal in all the crevices. It is a great storage space! Well, it just so happens that this cistern is on the opposite side of the wall from our concrete box!!

Last weekend, my husband rented a jack hammer and broke open the hole to reveal what was inside. What we have is a three-chamber filtration system for the cistern in the basement. Water was collected from the roof. The gutter pipe entered the first chamber where it would fill up, allowing dirt and debris to sink. From there the water would flow to the next chamber, where more dirt and debris would settle. Then, it would flow into the third chamber...again allowing dirt to fall away until it finally flowed though a pipe into the main cistern where it would be used by the family for cleaning. We also have a hand-pumped well by the back door, so it is unlikely that the family used the cistern for drinking water....I know I wouldn't!! It is a system that is similar to that used today in places where a cistern is necessary.

The open chamber is nearly filled in now. We will seal it off and a planting area will cover it after we install a new patio and seating area back there. And I don't think we'll be digging anymore holes anytime soon....after all, we don't know where the septic tank is!!

Take a look at the following photos:

Here is the hole that was originally discovered. Just imagine how surprised we were when we stuck a flashlight in and found a poured concrete wall extended out away from the house!

This photo was taken looking through the hole in the first chamber to the second chamber. You can see the hole in the second chamber leading into the third one. Pretty neat!!

House History Part 2 - Resources

Where To Find the Past?

Once you have a general idea of the age of your home, there are several places you can look to find more clues to it's past. The main difference between researching your home and researching your family, is that you will in general be using only local resources. Your house is not likely to have traveled, and is probably sitting in the same place it's been since the original family moved in.

Local Memory

The first, and maybe most obvious source of information, is to ask around your neighborhood. Do you have elderly neighbors who have been in the area for a long time? They are an incredible resource, not only for names but for events and occurrences that took place in your home. In my own research, the house next door is still owned by the original family. They were able to tell us all sorts of stories, and pointed us to the grand-daughter of the man who built our house. While there were a lot of things she couldn't remember, she gave me a name and that spiraled into a detailed portrait of our home's first family. She also shared early photos, such as the one above, which I feel extremely lucky to have copies of.

Federal Census Records

An equally valuable resource is the Federal Census Records. The Census has been taken every ten years since 1790. The website http://www.ancestry.com/ has access to the records, but it is a paid service. Your public library may have a subscription to the Heritage Quest database, where you can find the census records with your library card. Each census is indexed by location and name. The indexes are made from transcriptions of the data, so sometimes there are errors. If you can't find what you're looking for using the index, it often pays to take the extra time and scroll through page by page. The census provides information about the people living in your home, their ages and occupations, and in the 1930 census you can even see if they had a radio. The records have been most valuable for me in providing names, which I can then search for in other places.

Local Museums

Your village, town or county museum is a great place to poke around in. Our village museum has a collection of obituaries going back many, many decades. It only took our incredibly knowledgeable historian a few minutes to locate the obituaries I was looking for. These short articles listed several organizations in which our people were involved in, giving us yet another direction to head in. You can also find out a bit about the town you live in, such as any industry or other reasons why people may have been attracted to the area at the time your home was built.

Historic Newspapers

Many newspapers across the country have been digitized and indexed in archives for use by the general public. In Central New York, the Syracuse Post-Standard has a historic archive available for the subscription fee of $6.95 a month. This is an incredibly valuable resource which I used to to find additional obituaries, social notes, bowling scores and church activities that involved the people living in my home. When I discovered that one family member had died of polio, I dug a little deeper and found that there was much concern over an outbreak a few months previous to his death. The local news can provide a much deeper understanding of what was impacting people during a particular time period.

A simple Google search may bring up links to the newspaper collection you are looking for. Some are free, some are paid subscriptions. Also check your local library as they often will have access to local archives of publications.


All of the information in this, and the previous post, comes from my personal experience researching my home. The resources I have described were the most valuable ones I found to use. I hope that the information is helpful and ask that you leave comments to let me know how I can improve this blog. Thanks!!

Research Your Home's History --- The Beginning

Why a House History?

People who buy old houses often develop an attachment to the little things in their homes that make them unique: details in the woodwork, creaks in the floor, even cracks in the old plaster walls. At least, I did. Our home became another member of the family to us, complete with personality... and a history that it seemed to want to share.

Shortly after moving in I began to find signs of the people who had lived here before us. A growth chart in a closet, a partial name stenciled on the basement wall, a map of the upstairs rooms and their measurements under the window seat cabinet... I became very interested in learning about these people. Who were they? What were they like? They traveled through their day-to-day lives in the same rooms that we do...were they anything like us? And what did this house look like when it was new?

I decided to start digging...through the house, the local museum and any old records I could find. The result was a three year project that, though still not entirely complete (will it ever be?), has given us a renewed respect for our home. The knowledge has guided us in the renovations and decorating of the place as we have become more sensitive to the original character that the house posseses.

Researching your home's history is a rewarding hobby, the methods of which are the same as for researching your family's genealogy, with some slight variations. I will warn you, though, that it is an obsessive hobby that can drive you to spend hours searching for the answer to one small question, only to end up with several new questions to ponder.

Where To Begin?

If you would like to start, the first thing you'll need to do is to study the house itself. Take some time to get to know the details of your home. Do you know about how old it is? Grab a flashlight and start looking for anything left by previous owners, such as writing on the walls. Check the basement and attic. Look around outside for names or initials written in concrete. Also, look at the design details of your home. They will give you clues to the building's age and whether there were additions added on. Make note of anything you might find, including any old landscaping or plants that you think may have been there for quite awhile.

The following site is a great resource for identifying the approximate age and style of your home. It is full of interesting information.

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Features/Architectural_Housing_Styles/

Good Luck! And check back as I will continue to post information on this topic over the next couple of weeks. My next post will list some good resources available to get your house history up and going.