While he doesn't give many specifics, Oscar Micheaux's classic autobiographical novel, The Homesteader, describes entire towns being moved by horse or oxen teams shortly after the Oklahoma land rush, in attempt to keep up with the advancing railroad and increasing chances of being the "county seat."

James L. Murphy
Professor Emeritus
Ohio State University Libraries
1858 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus OH 43210

----- Original Message -----
From: "Boyer, Jeffrey, DCA" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, September 1, 2007 12:58 pm
Subject: Re: 19th cen. house moving

> Claire,
> New Mexico is a long way from New York, so for what it's worth . . 
> . I did a project a number of years ago down in the southeastern 
> part of NM where we were dealing with a homestead house from the 
> early 20th century. We had a wonderful informant who had lived on 
> a couple of homesteads as a child, and was the local historian too 
> boot. Her father often built small wooden-frame houses for 
> homesteaders, which could be -- and often were, apparently -- 
> removed from the house site if the homestead was relinquished. 
> Removal was easy enough: the houses were built as single units on 
> large wooden joists that acted like skids or sled runners, so the 
> house could be pulled away by teams of draft horses. According to 
> our informant, this form of construction and removal was very 
> common in eastern New Mexico and west Texas in the late 19th and 
> early 20th centuries; her father was not an innovator, just a good 
> carpenter.The house we dug was not removed -- it burned in place, 
> probably after abandonment. But, when the debris was finally 
> cleared away (i.e., excavated), we could see the long indentations 
> in the ground of the large floor joists.
> Jeff
> 
> Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
> Project Director
> Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico
> mail: P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, New Mexico  87504
> physical: 407 Galisteo Street, Suite B-100, Santa Fe, New Mexico  
> 87501tel: 505.827.6387          fax: 505.827.3904
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 
> years time."  --Terry Pratchett
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Claire Horn
> Sent: Sat 9/1/2007 6:35 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: 19th cen. house moving
> 
> 
> 
> Hi -
> 
> I'm working on analysing front yard depositions of a site where the
> original house was built in the 1850s, then moved across town 
> prior to
> construction of a 2nd, larger house around 1876.  Does anyone have 
> an idea
> about how houses would have been moved around that time - i.e., taken
> apart piece by piece and reassembled, or moved whole?  We have a 
> layer of
> very gravelly fill capping the original surface, and I'm wondering 
> if the
> gravel could be related in any way to the house moving.  Not that 
> we don't
> often find gravelly fill.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Claire Horn
> Public Archaeology Facility
> Binghamton, NY
> 
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