It's a rainy Sunday afternoon . . . dark . . . coolish . . . sleepy . . . reflective. I'm thinking of the house I worked on last week, built in 1879 as the James Alexander Saunders home in Woodlands, New Brunswick. It left the Saunders name when it was sold to Billy and Tishi (Wilkins) Plume in 1946, and was subsequently sold to Bud and Agnes Harding in 1953. It is a storied centerpiece to a vanished community, at one time even housing a vibrant post office, which probably amounted to little more than a desk in the parlor. The farm was first purchased by, or maybe granted to, John and Letitia (Patchel) Leslie on March 12, 1845. John and Letitia raised six children in a log house on the property before moving into the comforts of the newly erected home of their daughter Margaret "Jane" and her husband James Saunders. Jane and James raised eight children in their new house.
John and Letitia were Irish immigrants, and James was the son of Thomas and Sarah (Thomas) Saunders, both Welsh immigrants who arrived in Saint John aboard the Albion on June 11, 1819. I have documented this in greater detail in The Woodlands Book which I published in 2007, along with co-author Agnes Harding.
The relevance: John and Letitia were two of my thirty-two Great Great Great Grandparents.
It was the first framed house in Woodlands, built in the post and beam style commonly used for barns. The first and second floors were added to the open structure, and voila, the barn styled frame became a house. The hand hewn, 5" x 5" post and rafter framing is on 44" centers, and the corners are strengthened with wooden angle braces held in place by the combination of mortise & tenon joints and wooden pins. The house is sheathed with boards that are a full one inch thick and range from 10 to 16 inches wide, all nailed in place with hand cut square steel nails. Customary to the era before insulation, double lathe and plaster was used to trap dead air in the space in the walls, one layer directly on the inside of the board sheathing, and another layer to create the interior surface similar to how we use drywall today. The exterior is both pine or spruce clapboards, 3 1/2 inches to the weather, and mostly original. Although showing the expected signs of wear and tear, the house is in remarkably good shape for being 137 years old. With a wee bit of periodic tlc, this house can live on indefinitely.
John and Letitia were Irish immigrants, and James was the son of Thomas and Sarah (Thomas) Saunders, both Welsh immigrants who arrived in Saint John aboard the Albion on June 11, 1819. I have documented this in greater detail in The Woodlands Book which I published in 2007, along with co-author Agnes Harding.
The relevance: John and Letitia were two of my thirty-two Great Great Great Grandparents.
It was the first framed house in Woodlands, built in the post and beam style commonly used for barns. The first and second floors were added to the open structure, and voila, the barn styled frame became a house. The hand hewn, 5" x 5" post and rafter framing is on 44" centers, and the corners are strengthened with wooden angle braces held in place by the combination of mortise & tenon joints and wooden pins. The house is sheathed with boards that are a full one inch thick and range from 10 to 16 inches wide, all nailed in place with hand cut square steel nails. Customary to the era before insulation, double lathe and plaster was used to trap dead air in the space in the walls, one layer directly on the inside of the board sheathing, and another layer to create the interior surface similar to how we use drywall today. The exterior is both pine or spruce clapboards, 3 1/2 inches to the weather, and mostly original. Although showing the expected signs of wear and tear, the house is in remarkably good shape for being 137 years old. With a wee bit of periodic tlc, this house can live on indefinitely.
