Friday, January 06, 2006

Victorian Graffitti

Throughout our remodelling efforts we have found graffitti, newspapers, old worthless items and puzzles to the past. One of the earliest examples of graffitti found was this brick on the main chimney. It marks a time when this section of the chimney was actually outside the roof and not under it. There are two bricks on this chimney that are signed by this guy. The dates are different, about a week apart and we speculate that this guy was charged with the task of painting "mortar" lines over the brick red colored paint.




The next interesting piece of graffitti was found in May 2003 while scraping a wall in the bathroom. It turned up this pencilled profile on the plaster wall.




It is signed Marguerette Volkenand and would have been done sometime around 1910.


The last piece of interesting graffitti was found carved into one of our window lintel stones in April 2004 and would date around 1865.




These two (Minnie and George) were married in 1867. In fact, here are some photos of them in later years.






Minnie liked to carve her name in things. I remember sanding the name out of the window sill in Elizabeths bedroom. I didn't think much of it at the time. In fact, I thought it was more modern in origin until I found this and realized that Minnie was Marianna Edgars nickname and she used it on her marriage license.
This stuff has all been posted to my regular website over the years as it was discovered. So why am I posting it here? Two reasons;

1) It is about time I found some more

2) I haven't been doing any work on the house due to cold weather and I am feeling really guilty about not having anything blog worthy to post!

Maybe if I get bored I will photograph some of the old items we have found and post them here for laughs and giggles!
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous1/06/2006 12:39 PM

    That is so cool - though the devil face is kinda creepy. We haven't found anything nearly as exciting but I'm holding out hope for a giant wad of cash in our walls somewhere.

    My parents found $3k hidden in the basement of their first house when they started renovating it (they finished off a room down there). It paid for the renovations!

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  2. Ms. P in Jackson1/06/2006 12:52 PM

    I think you are very lucky to have learned so much about your house and it's previous owners/occpants.

    All I've found is a bunch of interesting yet worthless shit. I keep hoping that when I tear the walls out this spring I'll find the mother lode. Heck, I'd settle for cave drawings...

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  3. HomeImprovementNinja1/06/2006 1:15 PM

    I *WISH* I found $3,000 in my walls somewhere. So far, the only thing noteworthy I have found is the skeleton of a dead squirell in my rafters.

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  4. Unknown1/06/2006 2:09 PM

    Very cool stuff. I have a large stone in the yard that has initials carved in it but no graffitti inside the house - but I did find an old milk bottle and some 1920's newspapers in the walls. I'm also in ohio - in the akron area.

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