A Story From The Past.....
Just unfolded at my house. Part of it is really cool to know the history behind where I live, part of it is some really funny shit! We live in a town that is actually the revolutionary war capitol of the United States, Exeter NH. We are one of the original 13 colonies and founded in the 1600's. We have a powder house next to our river that was built for Paul Revere when he rode through yelling "the regulars are coming, the regulars are coming." You see, many people think he was actually yelling, "the British are coming," but he wouldn't have been, because everyone was still British here at that time. American's had not yet established themselves as any different. To do so, would be treason and you would be punished. Sometimes hung.
I love learning the history of where I live. Growing up in California, I learned of Spanish missionaries and Native American's. The war between Mexico. I learned a lot about earthquakes and the geographic makeup. Nothing as cool as the history of where this country began. Well, my house is part of the industrial revolution. A story I didn't know of until this afternoon.
We Lost a Baby Kitten
My cat had just had two litters back to back. We didn't even have time to get her in to get fixed, because she got pregnant while still nursing the last litter. Sadly, this litter is not too healthy, because mama is a bit tired and malnourished from the experience. My daughter came up to me one morning with a gasping kitten. It was weak, and limp, and having a rough time breathing. Fading kitten syndrome, they called it, and there is pretty much nothing you can do.
My fiance took little Emma out in the evening before bed, and dug a hole in the twilight hours. It was getting dark, and they couldn't see very well. He dug a hole about 3 feet deep, and we all went off to bed. In the morning, Em brought down the kitten. It had passed in the night. Derrick walked her out and they buried the kitten, loosely covering it with the dirt. He didn't want to tamp down the dirt in front of her and traumatize her.
After Emma left for school, I noticed the mound was quite high. I walked over to tamp the dirt down myself, and the above scissors were sticking up out of the dirt. I carefully picked them up, tamped the dirt, and carried them into the house.
A Snapshot of A Moment in Time......and a Surprise!
This is where the story is both cool and funny as hell. I took pics of the scissors, as they were falling apart in my hands. I didn't have the heart to try and play with them anymore. I picked up the phone and called the Historical Society. They said I could come in between 2 and 4. So, I took them in.
My house has always been kind of a mystery to me. The inside looks like a well built colonial or 19th century house. The window sills are very thick, as well as, the door framing. I knew it had to be 1800's. I wondered who lived here, what they did for a living, if they had kids, etc. It is a four unit tenement house and still in pretty good shape.
The ladies at the historical society went straight to work on solving my mystery. They looked up the records on my house, and it was built in 1890. It was built as a tenement house for Polish immigrants who came here to work in the shoe factory across the street (now fancy mill-type condos). The first occupants were a shoemaker and his wife. The husband worked on putting the shoes together, and the wife trimmed the strings.
Women of that day carried a pair of these tiny scissors in the pockets of their aprons at all times. They went through a lot of them, and broken ones were tossed for a new pair......now here is the funny part.
The What?????
The docent leaned over her map and pulled out this strange looking flashlight. She shined it from the underside of the map to reveal other drawings that had been covered by the surveyor. You see, when they make changes to a property, they cover the old pictures with a new piece of paper.
"Where did you find these scissors?" She asked.
I pointed at the map, "over there by the back fence."
She smiled at me, "oh there was an outbuilding back there. Probably the outhouse that had been removed."
I sunk in my chair. OMG, what had Derrick actually dug up? The outhouse? Really dude?
She told me that back in that day, they didn't have trash pickup and they burned all their trash. When they had broken glass or sharp objects, they tossed them down the outhouse hole, so children wouldn't get hurt. She said if we dug far enough we might have found old bottles, broken dishes, and tons more scissors in the hole.
I Have New Appreciation For My House
Regardless of the outhouse part, the history of my house gave me a newfound appreciation for it. Suddenly, it came to life. I felt connected to this family, and thought back to how their life might have been. Cooking dinner in my kitchen tonight, I thought about the wife of a shoemaker.
She probably came home from the shoe factory around 3 or 4 p.m. to start dinner. The dinner bell rang at 5 p.m. and the workers made their way across the street. Smoke pouring from the chimneys, filling the neighborhood with the sweet smell of a wood fire. That's how it smells around here tonight.......almost takes me back in time....to 1890