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 more 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 information through Google.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!  Sorry so long.....  Tina