Captain Greer sits on the side porch in this photo taken
sometime before 1889. He owned the house before the Damrells.
Dorothea Hovey Photograph
Captain Greer sits on the side porch in this photo taken
sometime before 1889. He owned the house before the Damrells.
Dorothea Hovey Photograph
This is the very first picture of our house...I guess it belonged to either the Greers or the Hortons. And you can see some of the statues out in the front yard.
RV- That was when Captain Greer lived there?
Yes. Well he was the one that owned it and I think my father bought it of Greer. But before him was Horton. And I met Miss Horton who was a sister once years ago. She was friendly with Marietta Bailey the woman that lived next door to me. She came to call on Marietta Bailey and Miss Bailey thought IÕd like to meet her and I said to her... I never could understand why we owned that piece across the street . She says well that was where the barn was.
RV- Across from Mixter's house?
Yes. Yes. It was not quite three acres over there. Now this is my grandfather's time. That's his house not ours.
RV- This was what is Gormley's now?
Yes.
[Our] house was built in 1812 and my husband thought from alterations.. repairs that he had done over the years..in exposing some of the framework, that originally the house was only a story and a half and that sometime or other.. the whole house had been lifted and the first story put in underneath. And to sustantiate that to a certain extent, on the north end the.. second story overhung two or three inches...
Of course when my father did the alterations in 1897 and 98 that was covered over so you wouldn't see it. It just made it a little more difficult to put on the finish on the outside you know with that jog. And so they just furred it out on the bottom floor... Because there are grooved pilasters on the corners....
We always thought that..our kitchen was the original house...[It was] a story and a half but the windows went way down low right at the floor and they were small.. And..the window frames were made out of a ..log and chiseled out. The inside and outside was one log... Very early.
Course the upper half of what you'd call the double hung window was stationary. You couldn't move it. But..later in my family's day they changed that so they could lower the upper sash for ventilation because it was low and in the hot weather.. It helped a whole lot to be able to ventilate at the top..
Now this is our kitchen and you can see how low studded it was. My grandmother was about... oh, she might have been five foot six.
RV- This is your grandmother in the picture?
Yes.
Kitchen at the Damrell house on Main Street.
Dorothea Hovey Photograph.
RV- This was the part of your house you thought was part of the old Battle
house?
Yes. Mm hm...Because Josiah Battle Jr. bought twelve acres of land I think from his father. And Josiah Battle Sr. lived in the Farrington house. And Frank Smith says something about it's thought that the..kitchen ell of our house was the original Battle house that was across the street. After I read that I talked with Vivian and.. he could see definite evidence that it was very old.. I told you..we discovered that the window frames were just made out of a log of wood whittled out. It was the same inside and out. Same piece of wood. Yes.
RV- Like they'd carved it..
Well they destroyed those you know when they made the house [alterations]..
And there were two different styles of window frames inside. I mean the architraves around the frames. One.. went in at the slant like this you know ..take care of a deep wall ... and the other one wasn't as deep. ..
RV- So it was really old..
Oh, yes.
Well, you see.. Josiah Battle Sr. lived in [the] Farrington house.. and the thought is that it probably was there but not being used.. and he said if you want to move it why you can have it. And..the supposition was that they moved it [across the street] and [Josiah, Jr.] lived in it until the front part of the house was completed...
We thought when Josiah Battle Jr started to build that he moved the one story house that his father had given him across the street..with the intention of using it for the kitchen ell, but they lived in it until the front of the house was completed. Then my husband thought that he built it originally as a story and a half and later either he or somebody else raised it up and built another story underneath it. because it was two stories with an attic in our day.
I think it is confusing.
The Damrell home on Main Street about 1895.
Dorothea Hovey Photograph