Hope You Enjoy History As Much As I Do

I am not ashamed to admit that I LOVE history and apparently research as well. Buying an older home has given me the excuse to spend what some may say is an excessive amount of time researching the history of our house. I don’t regret one minute of the probably 15+ hours I have spent researching the house. Hey, its winter, I don’t play video games and I love avoiding housework so its been a great use of my time I feel (#stillgratefulgradschoolisover #nomorehomeowork).

Why we want to know more:                                                                                             I am sure many home owners feel the same desire to know the history of your home. I want to learn more about the age of the home, what it may have looked like when it was built and generally get a picture of what life in this area was like.

What we know about the house:                                                                                    When we bought the home we knew from the sales records that the house was aged at 1900. When we did the home inspection the inspector mentioned that based on the foundation the home was probably older then 1900 and the city listed that age on any home built prior to the turn of the century where the origins were uncertain.

When we had our first oil delivery the owner mentioned that he grew up in the area and remembered our house and the vegetable stand that the family ran.

I started my search online at the Town Clerk’s records and found the previous owner (the one before the one’s we purchased from). The previous owner was listed as Marjorie Bauer.  Online records only go up to 1969 so I googled Marjorie and found her obituary that listed her parents and also mentioned the vegetable stand again. Marjorie inherited the house from her father, George Bauer.There were a few other records listing George Bauer connected to our property as well. It looks like the land was subdivided at some point and the back 12 acres were sold separately from our house and 1 acre. Here are some pictures of the outside of the home from 2005 when Marjorie’s estate sold the home.

I also found an article written by a local historian, Liz Warner, that was very helpful in that it informed me that Millbrook Rd was once Johnson Lane.                                                                                                     middletown-ct.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/millbrook-road-farm

I started searching census records on George Bauer and was able to trace him in the home back as far as 1940. The house number was different but still listed as Millbrook Rd. I ran into a wall with the census after that due to limitations with the 1930 census search options, which doesn’t let you search by address like the 1940’s does.

I decided to go to ancestry.com, which can be costly but I signed up for a 2 week free trial.                                                                                                      Side note: I used ancestry.com this past summer to research my family genealogy and it was incredible. Using the free trial and one day of research I was able to trace my father’s side of the family back to the 1600’s when they immigrated from Paris to Canada (another 8 hours well spent!!).                                                                                                                                                                             With ancestry.com I was able to confirm that George was living in the home in 1930 according to the census but was listed at a different address on the 1920 census. Also the street name changes from the 1920 to 1930 census from Millbrook Rd to Johnson Lane so I wasn’t able to match up any addresses from one to the other. I looked through many census pages one by one and the best I could do was compile a list of possible  owners by a process of elimination on who appeared on both the 1920 and 1930 census, but it was hard to tell because the house numbers were all off.

I hit another wall with ancestry.com after the 1930’s census and knew it was time to pay the town clerks office a visit. Thanks to the snow day today I was able to do that. I was expecting to be there a few hours but was surprised at how easy it was to find the records I was looking for and the staff was really helpful. I was able to trace George Bauer’s deed to 1926 when he acquired the home from Mabel Bailey for $1. Mabel was the widow of Ellis Bailey (who was on my list of possible owners from my previous research) who apparently inherited the land/house from his father Andrew P. Bailey. The deed goes into great detail about the land (14 Acres) but unfortunately no details about the house.

The 1926 deed references an earlier deed with the volume and page number which made it very easy to find the next record. Andrew P. Bailey purchased the land/ house from George S. Hubbard for “Ten Hundred Dollars”. This deed was hand written and not very easy to read.  The deed again goes into a lot of detail about the land, where it is compared to the neighbors but does not mention a house. It is possible that this deed was for the purchase of the 17 acres only. I believe this deed is dated April 25th 1860. What do you think? 

Back on Anscetry.com with the new names I was able to find Ellis and Mabel on the 1920 census at 303 Johnson Lane. I was able to find Andrew Bailey on the 1900 census at 445 Johnson Lane, that I am going to assume is the same residence. I found records of Andrew at the house as far back as the 1870 census which I am hoping means we were right to assume the home’s age is older the 1900. In 1860 Andrew is listed as living in Haddam, where he was from (per the deed) and in 1865 he registered for the Civil War draft where it also lists him as living in Haddam. So at some point between 1865 and 1870 Andrew Bailey moved to Johnson Lane. It is possible that during  1860 and 1870  the house was being built.                                             George Stocking Hubbard was the owner before Andrew Bailey. George is a descendent from one of the earliest families to settle in Middletown. He is the descendent of Nathaniel Hubbard, who was his great, great grandfather. Nathaniel was the son of George Hubbard, who immigrated from England to the Middletown area around 1650. There are many “Hubbard” homes in Middletown, many of them listed as historical. Ours is not one of them but I was able to find a small mention of it in the Middletown Historical and Architectural Resources. This also dates the home at mid 1800’s. http://www.middletownplanning.com/Committees/DRPB/historicpropertieslist.html.

My best guess is that our property was subdivided from a larger Hubbard property on the same street inherited by family members for farming.  All of the owners listed “Farmer” as an occupation up until the 1930’s when George Bauer listed he worked for a local Factory. I was able to find a permit from 1976 that George Bauer pulled to demo a 34’ x 40’ barn on the property as well. Although the Bauer’s were not farmers as their main occupation it is clear that that maintained a substantial garden and vegetable stand. While at the Building Records Office the clerk  also remembered “Old Man Bauer” and his vegetable stand.

All in all I am very satisfied with what I have found so far. It looks like we may not be able to find any more information on the house specifically but I won’t give up.  Also I think it is a given that we have to revive the garden and farm stand, but that is for another blog, maybe Mark can handle that one!

Also in honor of our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple we are doing nothing… but we are having a contractor over to give us some estimates so that’s exciting.  To celebrate here is a picture of two cats in love from our Honeymoon in Amsterdam.

One Month Anniversary and a Sun Room Facelift

This weekend was our one month anniversary in the house. We celebrated by giving the sun room off of the kitchen a much needed facelift. We have been using the space as a dumping ground for empty boxes and anything else we don’t know where to put and as my niece Leah was so kind to point out, it was a big mess. I mentioned that we took out the carpeting when we moved in and the hardwood underneath is in rough shape, which we plan on refinishing at some point but not right now, otherwise the room just needed a cleaning out and a throw rug to make it a livable space.

The biggest motivation to get this space more functional was the need to have an additional place to hang out downstairs. I have been complaining (a lot) that on Monday nights when Mark races I am banished to the cold upstairs and how we needed another space for me when the living room was in use. Thus Jen’s sunroom was born.

Photo from listing

All in this room facelift only cost $100, which was the purchase of the throw rug from Marshall’s. Everything else we already had expect for the super cute Moroccan end table that Mark’s parents gave us yesterday (honestly we went over hoping to find something in their stash and they didn’t disappoint).  I am pretty impressed that we had enough stuff to basically fill up the house.

Paint didn’t cost anything because we used the leftovers from the living room. I literally used every last drop but I was able to finish. Thanks to a snow day I had the day to paint. Lolita was a royal menace most of the process and I listened to some records. Today’s playlist included; Marvin Gay, Rob Stewart, Simon & Garfunkel, BIlly Joel and Jack Johnson.

Now I have a place to hang out, do some art and write blog posts. Mark likes the room so much he said he is going to start reading the paper in here. Having the extra living space downstairs makes a big difference to the overall feeling of the house. Not bad for $100 and a few hours of painting (okay 7hrs).

Other things around the house: The washer in finally fixed so no more Big Daddy’s Laundromat for me, but something is leaking now and a fuse blew in the kitchen and bathroom today and it scared Lolita and me. It was ticking for a long time and was really smelly afterwards.