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  87501
tel: 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

______________________________________________________________________
This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
______________________________________________________________________




Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System.