Old Brick House: Hidden Treasures

Last week was incredibly busy and productive. For those of you who don't know my husband, he's a work horse. He had some time off from teaching and put in six full days (12+ hours) of work. It wasn't without a lot of help from friends, though. John and Kevin came some nights after putting in a regular day and worked until after dark. Tim worked a day, and repaired the roof leak, which is a huge blessing. Most of the plumbing is done, the electrical work is off to a great start, and the roof leak is fixed. The boys and I helped with clean up, which included two trips to the scrapyard. What a great week!

In the midst of working, we found some hidden treasures. As Jack was ripping away at the upstairs bathroom wall, a tool fell to the floor. At closer inspection, he found that it was a plaster hammer. It's a really unique looking tool: it has a sort of ax on one end, and the back looks like a meat tenderizer. Most likely a worker dropped it after putting a lot of the lathe on in the room, and just left it. For 115 years it's been concealed, until last week. We were able to hold a part of history in our hands, which is an amazing feeling. It is stamped by Underhill Edge Tool Company, which was only in business until 1890. I have since read that Lizzie Borden used an Underhill hatchet to commit her bloody crimes in 1892. Thankfully, there was no evidence of foul play on the tool that we discovered. :)

Another great find was a cigar box full of the missing pieces to our fireplace puzzle: the tiles that had fallen off throughout the years. Thankfully Mr. Michelegko stored them in the garage rather than throw them away. Even so, we could have easily lost them in the rubble of the decrepit garage, which we plan on taking down soon. It would have been impossible to match the lost tiles precisely, so this was a huge discovery for us. Someday when we repair the fireplace, it will be there in it's entirety.