I've gotten back to researcing the wallpapers I found under the lath and plaster of my house. This crude almost Kraft paper stuff was pasted right onto the interior, horizontal 1/12s despite the cracks between them...it served as insulation too.
Because it was underneath the floral types, at first I thought it was early Art Deco, but the more I look the more I think it was Gothic Revival paper, which would make it from the 1840's! Any experts out there? There isn't much that resembles it anywhere online that I have found, but the primitive blockprint quality of it lends credence to its age.
I'll keep looking, of course, but since I already decided my exterior was once board and batten, before the siding was put on in maybe 1916, this makes it possible that the original style was sort of Gothic Revival. The house itself doesn't have the usual height for that style, but people who built their own houses didn't necessarily stay true to any architectural plan. If Gothic Revival was in style, that was just external decoration to a degree.
Modifying it to a style more like a Craftsman bungalow would be something easily done with a facelift such as the clapboards and porch columns might add.
The brown wallpaper was in what must have been the parlor since the front door is there, and the turquoise of the same pattern was in the bedroom. It extended across the back and looked like it was there before the closet was put in, because the closet wasn't papered with the same layers. The closet is where the 1850's lockset was installed. The floral paper was clearly pasted over the blue stuff, which makes it unlikely that the blue stuff was Art Deco. The timing just wouldn't be right.
The blockprint technique and crude design makes it possible that the stuff was produced locally or in San Francisco and not imported. Lots of things were made here, so it is possible that someone had a small wallpaper shop. More perusal of the newspapers and city directories might shed some light there.
Of course proving much of anything is pretty much a guess, since everyone is long gone from the scene. I did figure out who Lycurgus Davis was, Samantha's brother who came with her and her family, the Benjamin Davis family, on a Peek wagon train in 1847. They were the second family to settle, right after the Skinners. He eight and left home at 13 to become a ranch hand, but for 38 years was a carpenter and contractor and built many of the early homes in the downtown area. There has got to be documentation of some of that.
That is a thrilling clue, because he could well have been the original builder of this house. The Davis claim was out on the river road, which we still call River Road, but I haven't pinned down exactly where. They had reportedly good relations with the natives (after a lot of trouble on the way here, in the Rogue Valley) who were still in place when they got here, so we assume still burning off the forests to protect the wetlands camas crops. Apparently Catherine Davis loved trees very much and fought to have two large Doug firs saved from development, so there might be some documentation of that and of their original location. Catharine is quite famous for being a doctor who made a lot of trips to save lives in the hills around here, and raised her remaining five children after her husband died only 11 years after they arrived, when she was only 47. (He only lived to be 50, though he was a locally famous judge.) Curiously, in several censuses and the original records of the wagon trains, Samantha seems to be named Cynthia almost up until the time she got married. Probably this is just mistakes made by the census takers, or people who read their handwriting.
Tiny bit by tiny bit, things are revealed. I think Cynthia wanted a more contemporary name and chose Samantha herself. You might imagine that someone who came west in an oxen-drawn wagon might have some gumption. She was ten at the time. Lemuel, the oldest, settled on the coast and has a little cemetary of his own, south of Newport, the South Beach cemetary. At one point Cynthia/Samantha isn't listed as living at home and that may have been a period when she was working for the Skinners as their babysitter/ house help.
So many stories. So tantalizing.
I know a couple of people are waiting for an update on my surgery, so let's get that out of the way. It went fine, and all the metal came out pristine and undamaged. I didn't suffer any post-anaesthetic trauma. I've been sitting and icing and elevating for a week and everything looks fine. I'm not requiring any medications at this point though I could use something for the boredom.
I'm doing okay with it. Got perty low yesterday what with my Mom being in the direct hit zone with the Frankenstorm and my frustration with moving around being so difficult and annoying. I guess this was cousins week. Got a call yesterday from one on my Dad's side telling me that one of my friends from the past had died in a car accident.
Dorinda Hoarty Hartson had been living in the Sedona-Parks-Scottsdale area of Arizona and I don't know much about her since we parted ways way back in the 70's. She was really important in getting me unstuck from Delaware and I joined her in moving to Colorado and New York City. She was both brave and tender and a great companion for adventure. We landed in Boulder and found it too crowded and got an apartment in Colorado Springs and waitress jobs at the Broadmoor. I'm still drawing on the material from those days.
I was in my early twenties. Each person I met led me to some person or place that became an essential part of my story. I had to work out some weighty issues in those days and I wasn't particularly graceful about it. Dorinda used to call me Diana and she was very graceful. I learned a lot about how to imagine bigger things for myself. There's no way I would have lived in NYC without the safety of her friendship and even though that only constituted six months of my life, it was pivotal. I took a calligraphy class at the Art Students League where I opened up the world of art and letters. I accompanied my Mom on her first big trip, to Greece. I saw the Bayeux Tapestries at the Cloisters and really got a taste of the amount of everything that is NYC, back when danger didn't seem so daunting.
I shouldn't have let her boyfriend seduce me in that gentrified lower East Side walkup but those were those days. At least it got me back to Colorado for the rest of my adventures, which led me to Eugene and helped me create the safe and healthy life I needed. It's rather amazing how each little choice and each little interest we follow leads us toward and away from our various destinies and futures.
Anyway, I might not be here in Eugene without Dorinda, and it's too bad I didn't seek her out before it was too late. This is how the choices work too.
Cousins from my Mom's side fed me pineapple upside-down cake on Sunday and we got caught up with my Aunt Lud, Mom's oldest sister, and her husband Homer, two of the sweetest and oldest people I know. My generation is getting old now and these direct descendants of the Nebraska homesteaders are showing us the way. My cousin Bobbi is submerged deeply in geneology so it was super fun to let her get a glimpse of my house and house research. She said my lot description is a prime example of "meets and bounds" descriptions, which are usually long-winded things starting out with "Beginning at a point in the west line of ...."
We didn't have time to get very far into the research results but I plan to consult her some more as we go. We're trading books. She has researched the homestead records of our Nebraska family, and I know they will be fascinating. They took a tree claim too and had to document extensively each tree they planted and all the other improvements to show whether or not they proved up, so that will be some cool detail I can look for here too.
Monroe street would have been pretty close to the center of the Huddleston holdings and I kind of see it as a grand entry to the racetrack property, so I'm thinking those huge Catalpa trees south of the Fairgrounds can probably be traced to the Huddlestons. Since the lands they claimed here in the westside were grasslands and wetlands, there were few trees when they got here, so most of the old trees were planted by the early settlers. They were farmers, after all.
So they planted fruit and nut trees, and maples and oaks to shade their dairy cows and horses. The Catalpa don't have an easy explanation but they could have been nostalgic for someone. These people weren't far removed from Virginia and Missouri. My big Gravenstein tree could have been planted pretty early on. I'm not finding many clues yet about the Vaughan Dairy farm but I think I will at the County. I think it was gone by the time the neighborhood was platted by Samantha and her son Henry in 1908.
My property wasn't platted at that time, sitting on a little peninsula still attached to the Fairgrounds. I'm thinking that this was because there were the leftover outbuildings here that became my house and the one next door. On some map I am going to find the proof of this, if I am lucky and persistent.
Mostly my research is stalled until I can make it down to the County Deeds and Records office for a few hours. I may be able to make that happen next week. I need to do it. I'm actually getting bored here, looking out the same window and walls for far too many hours in a row. I do have things to do, but you know how when things get funky you sort of lose the energy for improvement.
I just want to walk normally again. I really can't feel content until I am back on my two feet and my bike. I don't want to rush my body and prolong the healing though, so I am resting and elevating and trying to make slow progress without pain. Really not too big of a challenge compared to running into a tree or being in the path of a giant storm or permanently disabled, which I sincerely hope I am not.
I almost had my full mobility back before last week and I will get it back soon, no matter how many times I have to go up and down those library stairs practicing. I probably won't make it back to the Park Blocks for any more outdoor Markets this season. This is hard for me.
Loyalty is one of the qualities I have tried to develop (despite the betrayals of those early years) and I am loyal to my Market. I feel virtuous about selling on the rainy days and the days when it gets dark before I get home, and I feel like a deserter sitting here taking it easy. I probably could make it through a Market this weekend if I had people to drag me down there and help me with my stuff, but that is just too much work to do for marginal pay and questionable weather. It's a practical decision, and I also try to be practical, but I still get romantic fantasies and going to Market is one. I can go next year. I will be at Holiday Market, and it makes sense to rest up really well so the load-in of that goes smoothly.
Lots of people skip Markets for much more dubious reasons and I know I'm forgiven and understood, so the dilemma is pretty much an interior one with no real weight. This is not a big deal, this frustration and annoyance and boredom. It just seems like a big deal because I am so seldom this annoyed, frustrated, or have so much time on my hands.
You would think I would just be able to enjoy it, for heaven's sake. I'll try to do better today. Maybe I'll watch some more footage of east coast McMansions being dragged off the beach and enjoy the refreshing intervention of nature into our best-laid plans. Anyway it's time to get up and get out some more ice.
Hope you are all out there biking and raking leaves (kinda too breezy for both today) and I will be joining you soon!
Heading off on a bike ride to my dentist, a long ambitious bike ride in the morning fog, but I am compelled to get as much exercise as possible this week. Yesterday I walked downtown to see how far I could indeed walk and guess if I can walk myself to my surgery on Monday.
Yes, I am getting the metal removed from my foot on Monday. I'm about as anxious as can be, so I'm distracting myself with preparation. Put meals in the freezer, and gathered my favorite snacks, some movies, lots of books. Cleaned everything, including windows.
I'll be off the foot for two weeks, and then will have to still be careful about the incision and my general health. The bone breaks are healed, but taking out the pins will leave holes in the bones, if the pins even come out. But sometimes negative thinking patterns are coping mechanisms and I'm trying to use my minimization and denial techniques to keep my calm about what is a minor, not life-threatening experience, under normal circumstances. I'm a lucky person.
I distracted myself all day yesterday with house research, and it was rich. I went to the Lane County Historical Museum which is right here in my neighborhood, and found out some crucial research techniques. I hurried off to the library, ignoring the lifted fog and sunny day, and checked out the Polk's City Directories which list Heads of households and how much they paid in taxes in many of the early years.
Turns out Samantha Davis Huddleston paid huge tax bills in the early part of the 20th century. I'm guessing she had so much property (most of which was taken for free in the donation land claims) from her husband's acquisitions, that she couldn't sell it off fast enough to save on taxes. She and her grown son lived in the neighborhood for a very long time, and I'm going to walk by their house if I can find it. Eugene changed its street numbers in that time, so it is sometimes difficult to pin down a particular house.
I'm beginning to wonder if Frank and Grace Bowers ever lived in this house, even though Frank splashed his name inside so many walls. He certainly engaged in fixing it up. I have to go back to the County records to figure out more of the little details.
I found reference to Tillie Van Harken living here as early as 1925. She may have bought and sold it. She was 65 in 1925, and had come here from Holland in maybe 1908. She may have done some of the work decorating...maybe that early wallpaper came from her. I hope I can tease out the progression of work somehow from the county records. It won't be easy, so I don't think I will accomplish it today. But it's really, really fun.
The women working at the Museum were super and I will go back there many times to fill in details for my eventual articles or book. I'm tempted to write about Samantha now. She must have been quite powerful. Her father, Benjamin Davis, was a judge and I'm reading the earliest probate records now. He has just died and James Huddleston is settling his estate. This is in 1858. The list of his effects is astounding and does include several city lots with stables. I'm so excited by this I wish I didn't have to rush off to the dentist now.
So my latest theory is that I am living in one of the former stables. This would explain the wide, inadequate spacing of the rafters and joists that were not meant to hold the weight of asphalt shingles or an attic. This place was not built to be a house in the beginning, I'm sure.
So I will rush around for a few more days trying to find out more, and come back and tell you about those possessions and their distribution, and we shall see what we can learn about Samantha, Grace, and Tillie. And starting Monday I will be icing and elevating my foot again and trying not to enjoy myself too much on my little vacation.
I'll miss a week or two of Market, and Hallowe'en, and a few other things I might like to attend but won't be. I'm not planning to need a lot of help. Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I'm able to prepare this time and I'm experienced at this now. It will be fine.
Onward into the fog! Last day to hang up laundry, so I hope it clears soon.
