colonial home foundation caches?

[HollandsBrook]

Hello. I was reading something recently that said a good hiding spot for caches in colonial times was the foundation of their homes. Does anyone have any experience with this? I've found a colonial foundation/cellar hole recently and would appreciate any tips on how to search it without really dismantling it. (although time and mother nature have done rather extensive dismantling already)

also the foundation is rather small in terms of square footage and i was wondering if anyone knew of any resources on the web to learn more about common house sizes in colonial time.

cheers all!

marc

 

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[BuckleBoy]

I have some information on house sizes before the CW--and these will be similar even close to 100 years before--unless the houses were brick or stone. I'm talking about log structures here...

The book this information is from is a memoir written by a man who turned 90-something back in 1940. If you'll send me a PM and remind me, I can send you this via PM. (I don't know whether I can post it here or not.)


P.S.--to search the walls of a cellar hole, wave the detector across the stones.



-Buckles

 

[HollandsBrook]

thanks buckle boy.... i dont know much about log cabins, but were they typically built with stone foundations?

 

[BuckleBoy]

Well...If it was under copyright, it's been published in only one edition back in the 40's...so I think I can post it here.  (Had to find it in the stacks of papers first.)




Here's the excerpt from the "Articles of Charles Noah Dome" (1858-1945).  It should help you with the plan of early houses...


"The plan of the log houses remained practically the same from pioneer days up until after the Civil War.  There was a fire place in the middle of one end, a door in each side, a window in the end opposite the fire place, a window on each side of the front door, one between the fire place and the corner, and perhaps one window in the back side of the house, a stairway running up 3 or 4 steps against the side wall to a landing against the end containing the chimney, thence up against this wall to the upper floor--the part against the end wall being enclosed.  This upper room or loft as it was usually called remained unfurnished, the roof being the ceiling and a 8 x 10 inch, 6-pane window sash in one end and sometimes one such in each side.  The older children slept up there and it was also used as a storage room.  The lower part was partitioned--one part for the living room, the other, a bed room.  Some houses had porches on one side extending the whole length of the building and others on both sides.  Some had part of the back porches enclosed for a kitchen."

He goes on to describe the furniture in a typical cabin, procedures commonly followed for harvest time, the size and location of a typical garden plot, and even the types of things which were grown in the garden.  (Flax, for example--since it was needed to make clothing.)


As you may have found, it is VERY hard to find such detailed descriptions of these early houses--since no one evidently thought much about writing a description of them down.

So that should give you an idea about the early log cabin.  Stone structures, taverns, and brick homes were a different matter entirely--and they usually indicate wealthier inhabitants.


The foundations on these cabins were usually made of stacked stone in my area--and ranged from a full foundation all the way down to a flat stone or two underneath the corners of the structure.  It seems that the structures were indeed much the same in my area, as the author indicates, back to the turn of the 19th c.


Houses in the Northeast may have been different from those around here...


I've never heard of a colonial cache hidden in a cellar.  Perhaps those that have been lucky enough to find one have kept their mouths shut.  One reason I can think of for caches of that time period being Extremely Rare is that there was a scarcity of good coinage in circulation.  One normally sees caches associated with the time period c.1900-1930.


Regards,


Buckleboy

 

[HollandsBrook]

wow that was very interesting buckleboy! thank you for sharing this.

i'm starting to think that this dwelling was in fact a cabin due to its small foundation size. Although i typically associate cabins with off-road home sites rather than alongside the road as this dwelling is. Ill bring a tape measure and a camera down there next time.

this particular foundation ive stumbled upon is alongside an old road in my town that leads up to the original town settlement in the early 1700's. it sits what is now inside the tree line of a wooded area (no more than 10 yard from the road); this is probably why no one has ever spotted it. 10 more yards downhill of the foundation is a crumbled stone well where i dug a french colonial navy button. then about 15 yards and downhill of the well is a creek that averages today about 6-12 inches in depth.

im wondering if they would have gone across that creek much to plant their gardens because there really isnt much space on the side of the creek where the foundation is. do you know how big these gardens typically were? i really cant wait for the weeds and tall grass to die down so i can get back down there!

 

[HollandsBrook]

after a little more research i found out that the majority of colonial settlers in nj lived in log cabins. it just so happens that my town was a major dutch settlement in its day. i also found this link which gives an overview of the cabins in general: http://www.essortment.com/all/logcabininfo_razi.htm

 

[MEinWV]

Sometimes, the cellar hole was smaller than the house itself. The hole itself may have been located in only one corner, while the rest of the house sat on other stones that rested on the ground. They may have been used as root cellars.