Early Sanborn Fires Insurance maps (if they exist for your area) may be 
telling.

Good luck,

Rich Green
Historic Archaeological Research
4338 Hadley Court
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Office:  (765) 464-8735
Mobile: (765) 427-4082
www.har-indy.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tina Devereaux" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 6:08 PM
Subject: New here, couple of questions


> First off, hello! Love the board.
>
> #1.... I have a home built in 1870. It's a very simple "servants cottage" 
> next door to, and set pretty far back from, "the big house". The big house 
> has a fresh water cistern beneath it. On the other side of me used to be a 
> very old home as well, also set far up in front and to the side of my 
> house, and it was turned into a malaria hospital (!!!) then later 
> destroyed. However, a newer home was built over top of a fresh water 
> cistern, which the top of was barely covered with cement. Now, those two 
> cisterns are almost exactly in line with each other.  I have an area in my 
> front yard, also exactly in line with, and between, the two cisterns, that 
> is dipped down quite a bit. One of the former owners of my home tried to 
> conceal the spot with several azaleas, but they don't do well there. Last 
> summer, as I was pruning the shrubs, I noticed many antique red clay 
> bricks laying about in that dipped area.  The area also was quite moist. 
> I dug around in the dirt a bit and discovered mo
> re of the bricks.  My husband told me to knock it off before I uncovered 
> something we couldn't handle, hahahahaha!   ****  SO.... my question is 
> the obvious:  What do y'all think?  Since my house sits so far back, 
> perhaps there was another structure/home there and there WAS another 
> cistern there?  Or maybe because of all the red clay bricks it was a 
> bucket-type well?   If there's a chance that there's a well there, I will 
> SO reconstruct that sucker!  I have at least 200 full size bricks that I 
> have carefully pulled from the ground all over the property.  They're so 
> fragile when they're wet that I can break them in half, but they 
> strengthen a bit when they dry out.
>
> #2... I discovered, through a 1960's photo I happened to see of my home at 
> Town Hall, that my house originally had two identical front doors, about 4 
> feet apart. I asked the clerk to scan the photo and email it to me.  Due 
> to a former owner (Mr. Azalea) making a horrible judgment call, MY house 
> is THE only house in the ENTIRE Historic District with vinyl siding on it. 
> Sigh.  Fortunately, the original clapboards are still underneath and the 
> house sits far enough back from the road that you can't really tell. So, 
> after taking a good look at the photo, running my hand down the porch wall 
> several times and finding what I was looking for, I took a Whiz Wheel and 
> cut the vinyl siding away from my hidden door!! It was still there and in 
> beautiful condition, frame and all! Can you believe he had just slapped a 
> piece of plywood over the door opening and put the siding over it? 
> ANYWAY.... the home has a center chimney, but is accessible from one side 
> only, and that appears to be from
>  the "less used" OR maybe "newer" side of the house.  The other side has 
> pot-belly stove vents still in place. The flooring on the fireplace side 
> is narrow tongue and groove pine, and is in pretty decent shape. The 
> flooring on the pot belly stove side is random width pine, which has 
> probably never been refinished and only had more lacqure applied to it 
> over the years to seal the very wide cracks. It's in pretty bad shape, but 
> I love it. The entire house is balloon framed, both sides. But the odd 
> thing is, both sides have huge beams, and mortise and tenon joints with 
> tree nails..... as well as a million nails of every shape and size, both 
> square head and round!  There is no insulation of any kind, except what 
> Mr. Azalea & Vinyl Siding stuffed in here and there.  *****  So, my 
> question:  Do you think both sides of the house were built at the same 
> time, or at different times? And, what in the WORLD are these house with 
> two front doors called, and where can I read more about them
> ? Any links you can suggest?  I have found very little info!
> rmation
> through Google.
>
> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!  Sorry so long.....  Tina