Author: PHW

Friday Photos: Revisiting the 1976 Survey

East Piccadilly Street

The following albums on Flickr have been updated with additional photographs this week. Most building photos were part of the 1976 survey files, though some photos were later updates. As always, the new additions are placed at the end of the albums, and all the new uploads are added at the beginning of the photostream.

1976 survey images of West Cork Street
1976 survey images of East Piccadilly Street
Town Spring building on Amherst Street
Kurtz Building charette, exhibits, fundraisers, and kids summer camp
433 Kern Lane (demolished in 1986 after a fire)
Old Frederick County Court House cupola and column work, 1984

Winchester’s National Register Expansion Approved

PHW received word today via the Virginia Department of Historic Resources that the National Parks Service has approved the expanded National Register Historic District. The application was approved at the state level in mid-September, 2015. Congratulations to the 395 buildings and objects which have received recognition as contributing historic structures!

How To: Research an Old House

Due to the fortuitous circumstances of rearranging the PHW library for the 2015 Holiday House Tour, PHW will be digitizing some of our research materials that are full of good information but have received little attention from researchers. To start the series, we will begin with perhaps the most common question we receive – how to research an old house.

Many frequent research topics and resources are linked at PHW’s page Research Your Property. The starting point of any effective, in-depth history is finding the chain of title, or the history of the property’s owners. It is assumed you have some familiarity with researching deeds in the following collected tips.

From John G. Lewis:

First check:
1. What I Know About Winchester by William Greenway Russell for any names he may have and those of adjacent property owners.

2. Map of Winchester showing the in-lots by number, as these were often used in the deeds.

3. Sanborn Insurance Maps

4. The Story of 100 Old Homes in Winchester, Virginia by Garland Quarles for his deed references.

5. The 1976 survey files held by PHW, as some contain deed research. (If you complete deed research on a property, PHW will gladly add a copy of your findings to our files.)

City Clerks Office, which holds the deeds, deed indexes, wills-chancery cases, and land books. Look for copies of auction advertisements or listing of improvements. Note that if a woman inherits a property it will be in her father’s will and not in the deed indexes. If you hit a dead end like this, check adjacent lots for owners of the lot you are working on, prior to where you are, and check will indexes for that name to see if the lot was left to a daughter or widow who has since remarried, etc.

As some deeds are in both the City and County Clerks Offices, in your notes use WDB (Winchester Deed Book) WWB (Winchester Will Book) or FCDB and FCWB for the County.

Be sure of the location and adjacent owners, and make notes of these, as some people owned numerous properties in different locations and left some to sons of the same name!

When you get to original owners, circa late 1700s or early 1800s, and after checking construction materials of the original and/or and changes of additions and what if any outbuildings there are, check the Mutual Assurance Policies in the Handley Archives in the names of the early owners. Most of these show a location and the width/depth of the structure, number of stories, and kind of building material, like the Sanborn Insurance maps.

Sometimes you have to play the long shots of a possibility based on your information at hand; these often pay off, and sometimes not.

Street directories, found in the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Library, are the quickest way to find and track resident names if you have a street address. Note that street numbers and names have changed over the years, and you should verify the names uncovered through the directories through other resources. Learn more about the resources and tips for researching old houses at the Handley Library website.

Via the National Trust for Historic Preservation, remember to check census record, probate records, marriage records, court records, building permits, and minutes of public bodies like the city council. Consult obituary records for previous owners, articles on natural disasters or arson, and articles on development of subdivisions. If you are lucky, you may find original architectural plans, but those are seldom available. Don’t forget to check the local archives for family records like diaries, letters, account books, and scrapbooks. Corroborate any oral traditions you can collect with other research materials to verify stories. If you can, you may use dendrochronology and nail chronology in dating the building.

From Margaret T. Peters, a former research historian from the Division of Historic Landmarks (now Virginia Department of Historic Resources) come the additional tips:

Check Swem’s Index for a comprehensive index to several publications concerning Virginia history and genealogy. Check patents under a family name in Cavaliers and Pioneers. Check the index to the Virginia Gazette edited by Lester Cappon and Stella Duff for advertisements and public notices of auctions, runaway slaves, and ship sailing dates from 1735-1780. This is most useful for the Tidewater region. Check church parish record for births, deaths, and marriages. The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War can be useful if there was Civil War activity near your property. This book is a reprint of the 1891 report Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

All of these tips are just starting points and suggestions – not all sources are relevant or applicable to all properties and families. Researching your house is like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces hidden in a scavenger hunt with few clues to their locations. You may not find all the pieces of the puzzle that you would hope to find, regardless of how long and diligently you research. All the individual pieces, however, will add up over time to form a more complete picture of the house and its occupants.

Partners in Preservation Lunch and Learn Lecture Online

Patricia Zontine and Gene Fisher present the PHW Lunch and Learn lecture covering the adaptive reuse of the Old John Kerr School, the Feltner Building, and the old Solenberger building, among other Shenandoah University rehabilitation projects in Winchester. The lecture was recorded October 14, 2014. Watch the lecture on YouTube.

The interview with Mr. Feltner at 22:30 can be viewed separately and full screen on Shenandoah University’s YouTube channel.

Coming This Weekend: Candlelight Tour of Historic Houses of Worship, Dec. 27

Merry XmasLooking for something to do after Christmas? Join the American Guild of Organists and eight local historic churches for mini Christmas organ recitals and tours of the decorated sanctuaries on Sunday, December 27, from 2-5 PM. Donations from the event benefit the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter (WATTS program). The public is free to come and go to any church in any order during the stated hours.

Participating Churches:
First Presbyterian Church, 116 S. Loudoun St. (2-4 PM only)
Braddock Street UMC, 115 Wolfe St.
Centenary United Church of Christ, 204 S. Cameron St.
Christ Episcopal Church, 140 W. Boscawen St.
First Baptist Church, 205 W. Piccadilly St.
First UMC, 308 N. Braddock St.
Grace Lutheran Church, 26 W. Boscawen St.
Market Street UMC, 131 S. Cameron St.

The event will be helf between 2-5 PM. Organ recitals will be held on the hour and the half hour. Tours of the sanctuaries will be held on the quarter hour and three-quarter hour. Special organ programs for children will be held at 3 PM at Braddock Street UMC and at 3:30 PM at Grace Lutheran Church.

A map the the church locations and the flyer is available online at at First Presbyterian Church.

Friday Photos: Followup Questions from the Hexagon House

During the Holiday House Tour, there were a few questions and requests that we could not answer fully that day. Friday Photos this week will shake things up a bit and take the form of question and answer.

1. What were the china/silverware patterns on display?
The china patterns are Adams Calyx Ware Regent and Regent Purple. Regent Purple may date back to the 1880s and was the pattern on the teacups and saucers. The plates in Regent with the gold accents were a brief revival, stated to be 1969-1973.

The silverware pattern was Nobility Plate Royal Rose, first released in 1939. The history of Nobility Plate and Oneida is apparently deeply intertwined. From nobilitysilver.com: “Oneida designers, Grosvenor N. Allen, Mary Parker Fleming, and Lloyd E. Ressegger, created the first three pattern designs for the original Nobility Silver Co. in 1938. Each design was back-stamped or hallmarked with the Nobility Plate name followed by the four crowns. Caprice (1939-1962), Reverie (1939-1962), and Royal Rose (1939-1958) were officially patented on March 7, 1939. The earliest documented sales of Nobility Plate dates back to mid-1939. The actual trademarks for the pattern names however were not filed for and patented until 1944. These three patterns were the only designs they sold for the next sixteen years.”
Dining Room Table

2. How did you make the pomanders/how are you curing them?
Making pomanders is fairly simple. The largest expense is finding a sufficient amount of whole cloves, especially this time of year. The best way I found was to order a pound of cloves through Amazon, which was more than sufficient for the pomanders at the Hexagon House. Pierce the skins of the oranges/lemons with a pointed skewer and push in the cloves. This is tough on the fingers; thimbles are recommended if you are making many pomanders.

Because I knew how tight time would be the week of the tour, the pomanders were made about three weeks in advance and refrigerated in the crisper drawers in open containers of cinnamon powder (to help with the curing/preserving) until the week of the tour. The pomanders were rotated every few days to prevent flattening on one side and to keep them coated in the cinnamon. The excess cinnamon powder was wiped off before the pomanders went out on display. In past years, I have also used allspice and nutmeg powders for additional varied scents. I have personally not used orris root (called for in many older instructions) for curing pomanders.

3. Do you have more copies of the Hexagon House floor plan?
Hexagon House Floor Plan
This floor plan was created by John G. Lewis. The text for each room was added for the tour. In this view, the back walls (pantry, kitchen, stair hall) would be a “normal” half of a hexagon. The three front rooms (dining, foyer, parlor) all have the unique bay projections. To my knowledge the Hexagon House is the only building with this combination of projecting bays in the United States.

You may read the 1850 version of Orson Squire Fowler’s book Octagon House: A Home For All (with an unfortunate OCR typo in the title) on Google Books for free. The “typical” octagon house layout on display during the tour for comparison was taken from Figure 25 in the 1973 Dover Publication reprint of the 1853 version of Fowler’s book (on page 124). Fowler made many variations on his octagon house plans over the years, and it seems James Burgess took a little of everything he fancied and discarded what didn’t work when he built the Hexagon House.

4. What was across the street from the Hexagon House?
There was a football field for Shenandoah Valley Academy in the approximate location of the Wellspring (old A&P) building and parking lot. There are several photographs at the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives which show Shenandoah Valley Academy playing against Randolph Macon in 1912, with the Hexagon House visible in the background. The two with the clearest view of the Hexagon House are:
Accession Number 121-22f thl
Accession Number 121-22h thl

5. What are the two houses on either side of the Hexagon House?
To the west, on the other side of Hawthorne Drive, is the house called Hawthorne (ca. 1811). This house is best known locally as the location where Cornelia McDonald wrote her diary during the Civil War. The Old Town Spring building is located farther west, at the intersection of Amherst and Whittier Avenue. The National Register Nomination for Hawthorne and the Old Town Spring is available at The Virginia Department of Historic Resources (PDF).

To the east is the second Selma, rebuilt in the 1870s after the original Selma was razed during the Civil War. At the time of the Civil War, Selma was home to James Murray Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave Act. The original Selma was a twin to Hawthorne.

6. What was the layout of the Hexagon House kitchen?
By the 1980s when PHW had its office here the first time, the kitchen layout was still quite minimal. There was a photo taken during the 1988 Holiday House Tour that shows the refrigerator and stove were located side by side where the bookcases are in place now, with a plain shelf above them. Presumably the sink was in the same location on the opposite side of the room. A table was set in the middle of the room, as it is now, for extra working space. The wood floors were covered with linoleum.

From Holiday House Tours

7. How many square feet is the Hexagon House/how many stories are there inside?
The Hexagon House is approximately 2700 square feet. The house has a basement, first floor, second floor, and attic.

Do you have other questions for PHW? Let us know and they may be answered in a future blog post.

Thank you from PHW and WLT for the 2015 Holiday House Tour

An open thank you letter from PHW’s President John Barker to everyone who contributed to the 2015 Holiday House Tour:

Holiday House Tour 2015As the dust settles from the 2015 Holiday House Tour, we have a chance to reflect back at how things went. Thanks in part to beautiful houses, great weather, and the Bough & Dough Shop, this year’s attendance looks to be among the best ever. This is only possible through the efforts of so many, many people, it’s hard to imagine exactly how many.

On behalf of PHW, I would like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone who helped with this Tour.

To Joe and Julie Curran, George and Jeanne Schember, Richie Oram and Debra Johnson, David Look and Terry Frye, and Sandra Bosley at the Hexagon House, thank you for opening up your homes to a bunch of strangers. It’s bad enough doing this any time of year, but worse trying to do it during the Christmas season. We truly appreciate your generosity and hard work in getting ready for the tour, and hope that it was an enjoyable experience for you.

To Bill and Katy Wiley, thank you for a wonderful party house. We are grateful for your welcoming us in a home you have barely had a chance to get settled in to, and then let us bring all our friends. Your efforts, along with Chef Dan, provided for a wonderful evening. And now welcome to the neighborhood!

A huge thanks go out to all the decorators, docents, ticket takers, and everyone behind the scenes. We appreciate you giving up part of your weekend to help out PHW. Without you this weekend would not even have been possible. And extra thanks to everyone who comes back each year to help again and again.

We never get tired of saying it, but a big thank you needs to go to Sandra Bosley, PHW Executive Director, who usually gets stuck with not only hosting a house, but also directing, coordinating, and organizing the bulk of the event! The marketing, PHW website, print literature, and brochures all fall on Sandra’s shoulders each year, and she continues to amaze us with her ingenuity and expertise. Also thank you to the PHW Board of Directors who stress over this event each year as we try to get it organized, and then for your help in pulling it off.

Winchester Little Theatre has really stepped up over the past few years with the Bough and Dough Shop to make it a huge part of the weekend. Thank you to all the WLT members, and non-members, who helped out this weekend for the shop. It was again a huge success this year.

Everyone’s efforts have been rewarded simply by this year’s attendance. Your participation shows your dedication to the community and to PHW, and the success of this year’s tour shows how your community appreciates what you do, and how important it is.

Again, thank you to everyone for your help, and I hope you have a great Christmas season.

PHW Board of Directors:
John Barker, President
Mary Scully Riley, Treasurer
Kathy Cresegiona, Asst. Treasurer
Bruce Downing, Secretary
Ed Acker, VP for Education
Richie Pifer, Jr., VP for Issues and Advocacy
Doug Watson, VP for Membership & Development
Nancy Murphy, Director
Sarah Smith, Director
Martha Shickle, Director
John Flood, Director
Jimmy Stewart, Director
Sharon Collette, Director
Sandra Bosley, Executive Director

And from Henry Ticknor, President of Winchester Little Theatre:

Greenery 2015Thank you first to to the PHW team of Debra Johnson, Jackie Tobin, John Barker, Sandra Bosley, Bill Tobin, Nancy Murphy, and our own Nate Windle who worked worked with both the WLT team and the PHW team. The Shop both inside and on the deck was well organized and ran smoothly.

Thank you to the entire WLT crew who helped with getting the Theatre ready for the Shop – Jim Daddio, Lynn Tedrow, Dolly Vachon, Donald Vachon, Bill Heavner, Shirley Echelman. Special kudos to Shan Kilby for the Christmas decorations that made the Theatre glow. A big shout out to Rhonda Morris for finding us a steamer so we didn’t have to spend a day ironing.

Thank you Kathy Morgan, Kathi Adams, Pam Bell, Linda Fenner, Joan Scorgie, Shirley Echelman and Dot Wallace who graciously helped in covering the shop and the WLT Box Office.

Thank you to Marion Cerwensky and Vonderene Swigart our costume mistresses who creatively outfitted the carolers. Amazing how fast they managed to outfit everyone and make them look great.

Thank you to our carolers – most of whom didn’t know each other yet melded into a beautiful chorus of voices. You did both WLT and PHW proud. Nancy Ticknor, Robin Pedlar, Michael Sweeney, Jim Huttar, Jerry Tracy, Bill Westgard, Melanie Miller and her mother, Tamson Stone-Conrad, Sherry Chapman, and Donald Vachon.

Special thanks to Amy Thomas who is directing the January show for her patience and willingness to share the Theatre space (and tables) with the Bough and Dough Shop.

Valerie O’Keeffe and Sally Anderson made sure that the Bough and Dough Shop and the Holiday House Tour were advertised as widespread to the community as they could muster. Thank you both so much.

Last but not least, thank you to Don and Bernadette Miller for accidentally dropping into the Theatre as the shop closed and staying to help with putting away tables and getting the lobby back in order.

And of course, thank you to everyone who came out to see the houses, attend the Preview Party, and do some holiday shopping at the Bough and Dough Shop. Without the community’s support and interest in this event every year to kickstart the holiday season in Winchester, the Holiday House Tour would not be looking at the milestone of 40 consecutive years in 2016!

If you have not already, you may with to give PHW feedback on the House Tour at Survey Monkey or the more open-ended survey by snail-mail to PHW, 530 Amherst St., Winchester, VA 22601.