One time, I was working in the circa 1790 townhouse of Penny and George Bachelor in Society Hill, with my co-worker, Paul. Paul was the person who got me fascinated with antique tools, and aspired, I think, to be a "period" carpenter in some place like Colonial Williamsburg, where he could give public displays of his considerable talents using the old methods of woodworking. He was a little wacky, that guy, but more about him later. He had purchased some very expensive boxes of hand forged wrought iron finish nails for his own use, but thought that Penny's house was the perfect place to use some of them. Penny walked in while he was nailing some edge on one of the shelves we had built for her, and although she was a naturally calm and cool person, pitched a fit, and told him to use regular finish nails, from the hardware store.
Nether of us understood why this was so important to her. We knew that she was an architectural historian for the National Park Service. What we didn't know is that she had written the definitive study of dating buildings by the type of nail used, and was vehement about not confusing the unlikely archaeologist studying her house in the future, by using inappropriate nails.
Penny was a member of the Yearly Meeting of the Arch St. Meeting House, along with my employer at the time, Ted Nickles. Quakers, being notorious in their thriftiness, as well as meticulous record keepers , they had kept detailed records of every addition, repair, and alteration to the building over the course of its 250 year life. Penny began examining every record, and then carefully disassembling the area in question until she had a few nail samples, which she examined and documented. By the time she published the study, she could date a building within 5 or 10 years, simply based on the nails that were used. Her insistence on our using contemporary nails was quite understandable, in that light.
If you are interested in a simplified history of the changes in nails over the years, you can find it here:
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~histpres/services/naildating.htm
Before 1790, the only nails available were hand made by blacksmiths, and expensive, This accounts for the superior joinery found in buildings of the period; almost nothing structurally depended on just nails. Dating by nails before this date is further complicated by the fact that derelict buildings in colonial days were burnt to the ground, and the ashes sifted to recover the precious nails so they could be reused.
******************************************************
So recycling is not a new concept, it once was common sense. It used to be fairly common, in fact, to move entire houses, from one plot of land to the next. I mentioned the moving of the Salem municipal Building in that post, but smaller houses were often moved from town to town, and the process of doing that with no damage to the building was more art than science to its practitioners. I had the pleasure of working side by side with a team of two brothers who did that their whole lives.
Old Swedes' Church sits off to the right of King's Highway as you are leaving Swedesboro heading west. A new church was built in the 1770's and 1780's to replace the log church that had occupied the site since 1703. The present building was erected in 1884. By the 1980's, the structure of the huge open ceiling had begun to fatigue, and an engineer's report predicted imminent failure and collapse. In order to stabilize it until the considerable money needed to repair it could be raised, the two brothers (sorry I don't remember their names) were hired to erect structural scaffolding, the way they might secure a building before moving it.
Our job, as restoration and preservation carpenters, was to remove pews, floorboards, etc. so that they could run their scaffolding from floor to ceiling. I call this "surgical" demolition. Each piece is carefully removed, numbered and safely stored and catalogued so that it can be put back in pristine original condition.
Old Swedes' Church(Trinity Church) Swedesboro,NJ
What was fascinating to me was the way these two old guys worked. They had done this so many times, that I don't recall hearing them say more than a dozen or so words to each other, or to anyone. One of them would come up to the balcony and point to show us where the next couple of holes needed to be, then go back about their business.
The best place to eat lunch when you're working on a church is always the cemetery, and Old Swedes' is no exception. Clean, quiet, plenty of places to sit. One of the prominent graves there is that of Dr. Bodo Otto. His house is a couple miles further up King's Highway, though it's actually his second house, in the same location. The first was burnt down, not to retrieve nails, but to exact revenge.
Dr' Otto and his father, also a doctor, ministered to George Washington's troops over that brutal and fateful winter spent at Valley Forge. His house was burnt down by British loyalists.
The Bodo Otto House
Dr. Otto was an extraordinary man, much loved by his patients and neighbors. Before his death at the young age of 33, he added to his extraordinary legacy by successfully pleading for the sparing of the life of the only man captured for the burning of his house.
Further still up the road stands the "Death of the Fox" Inn, where Dr. Bodo Otto died of tuberculosis on Jan.20, 1782. I'll try to remember to tip my hat every time I pass it.
The Death of the Fox Inn
No comments:
Post a Comment