More history.....

Last week I posted about the new "Corktown" book published by Arcadia. It's great. I was able to get into contact with the author through the publisher! I emailed the publisher on sunday evening and by 9am Monday morning I had an email from Armando! I was hoping that in his research or connections he would be able to hook me up with a historic photograph of my house. Alas after about two weeks of asking around he was unsuccessful. But I very much appreciate the effort and promptness he gave me. Maybe there is a historic photo out there yet.

A couple months ago I went back to the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit public library and continued my earlier research. I just haven't gotten around to posting it.

One interesting thing I found is that the earliest owner (that I can find), Joseph Kingston, had a wife listed as "Eliza". He died in 1899 where the house changes into his wifes name. In 1904 it changes ownership to "Charles E. Rhodes" with wife "Eliza". Either a coincidence in names of Charles marries Eliza Kingston. Later on in 1941 Charles E. Rhodes is listed as being married to "Mary A". I'm tempted to explore the Catholic Church marriage records (which I know still exist in the Burton)

I'm a little sad to see the sparse amount of Detroit directories in the last 40 years. I would of expected them to be more complete. Where about 25% or more are missing. I'm sure I can find these records elsewhere when I have the time.

The matrix.

Year	Owner	Address	Description
1850	x	Woodbridge Farm?	This is the last available directory before the 1865 directory where the house first appears. So the build date for the house is 1851-1865
1865	Joseph Kingston	104 Baker	first time the house appears in Detroit directories. Joseph is listed as a "dray man". Which is one who drives a "dray" or a flatbed cart for moving heavy items.
1867	Joseph Kingston	132 Baker	Address changes from 104 to 132
1899	Eliza Kingston	132 Baker	Owner changes to Eliza, this leads me to discover Josephs death entry in Michigan records. Eliza is a "housekeeper".
1904	Charles E. Rhodes	132 Baker	Charles is a carpenter. In earlier directories he lives in Delray, which is a place I have a lot of interest in. In Delray he is only a "Laborer"
1922	Charles E. Rhodes	xxxx* Baker	The entire city is renumbered and the address changes to it's current 4-digit address
1920's	Charles E. Rhodes	xxxx* Bagley	The street is renamed "Bagley" after Governor John Judson Bagley, who served Michigan from 1873 to 1877
1932-1933	Charles E. Rodes	xxxx* Bagley	It appears at this point the house was a duplex also listing a now non-exsisting address between my neighbor and I. There is also mention of a "MO&I Express Inc. Operating out of the back.
1941	Charles E. Rodes	xxxx* Bagley	Last listing for Charles E. Rhodes
1949-1950	Freda McCreary	xxxx* Bagley	the phone number is WO5-0497
1953	No owner is listed	xxxx* Bagley	vacant?
1958	James "Alma" T. Slater	xxxx* Bagley	He is a porter at a dealership Chevrolet (1960), Royal Pontiac (1964),
1970	James "Alma" T. Slater	xxxx* Bagley	Last listing for James T Slater.
1970-present	?	xxxx* Bagley	Sadly the Burton Directories get very sparse here. Although these might be electronic documents.
2005-2006	Bank of New York	xxxx* Bagley	Who I bought it from
2006-2007	This guy!	xxxx* Bagley	House gets a little redemption...

*omission of the current address is only to protect the quietness of my project. Anybody who has been near Corktown knows what house it is.

Digging myself into a hole...

...something that I often do. Frequently with the ladies.

But this is a special hole. It's for the chimney and footing.

I like natural fireplaces. Nothing quite like a roaring log fire. Gas just doesn't do it for me. Everyone I've spoken to has suggested that to me and if one more person does, they might just get a surprise. But anyone who knows me, knows I'm all about the genuine. No fake beams, or imitation products or fake facades.

I'm looking forward to bricking this chimney though. I've never really done masonry and I'm looking forward to learning from my buddy Scott.

Anyhow it's a big hole that required a lot of digging by my brother Patrick and I. 4'd x 5'w x 4'd. It took a day and a half to dig.

Anyhow, my brother and said hole.



Saturday my old Habitat co-worker and buddy steve came over and we talked insuation strategy for the house and crawlspace. He loaded me up with plenty of good ideas to get the house tight.

Apparently I'm a spider... that weaves houses...

Not much more to say really. More wood. More reenforcement of studs/rafters/ceiling joist/my belief that this project is completable.



Couldn't do this round without a little help from my friends Andrew, Andreas and Tom.



Tomorrow we dig the pit for the chimney footing, Sunday we start putting the floor back where the old chimney fell through, and Monday maybe rebar and pouring a footing.

peace my readers. More word content next time. I promise.

"Hey Bob, pass me the REALLY big nails....."

This week after me friends helped me sister all the rafters, I cut in a ridgeboard. Building permits didn't start getting issued in Detroit until the 1880's. So things I would consider essential like a ridgeboard weren't always installed. It was a great project for a solo night. Jacking the massive 18' board into place was therapeutic and it went in without any problems.





Oh and a look ahead into the weeks to come! and the total number of roofs on the house comes to....FOUR! Black 3-tab, black rolled roofing, green hexagons (pretty cool) and pink 3-tab! During some initial exploratory surgery on the porch, it appears that it has more layers right down to the original shake shingles...I will let you know.

keeping pace...

Pedal down...

A lot of framing has been-a-going on. And I don't see letting up. I love it.

Sorry about all the pictures and not so much talk. Should be some more history and maybe some explanation of what is going on shortly.


Did I ever mention how much it tickles me to see my truck loaded up with lumber?

By the way a book on Corktown came out this week from

Arcadia publishing. Plenty of historic pictures and information!

Joist

Beam round 2

It's been a productive week. The heartache of deciding to rebuild a 3rd of the 2nd floor is sitting well after a lot of progress.

Friday and Saturday I built up the 2nd beam. with dimensions of 7"w x 14"h x 20'l. Weighing in at over 600lbs, it's a serious beam.

And while Tuesday night Andreas, Andrew and I muscled the smaller beam (400 lbs) into place, my sore shoulder was telling me that we would work smart with this one and not kill ourselves.



John Roos, Dan Garan, 4 saw horses, 3 ratchet-straps, 2 ladders, a 40 ton jack, a half million chunks of lumber, a nail gun, 3 clamps, a sawzall, a staircase and a 55 gallon drum of ingenuity later and the massive beam was set.

All sorts of things

Devils night.

"What is devils night?" you might ask if you aren't from the metro Detroit area....

Let me translate for you. In your area it may be referred to as "Cabbage night" or "Gate night". If you are from Quebec you would call it "Mat night" and you are planning to steal your neighbors doormat.....

It's a night that has a lot of history for Detroit.

It has been said that it can be tracked back as far as the 1890's where kids would play small pranks on neighbors. Up through the 1960's it consisted of ringing doorbells and leaving, egging houses, toilet pappering trees, soaping car windows, lighting bags of dog poop on fire on peoples front porch steps and small other harmless pranks.

But in the 70's it took a turn for the worse and the world would watch to see Detroit set itself on fire. Houses, Cars and piles of debris were all targets. By 1984 the fire department would report 810 fires during the 3 days leading up to halloween.

There is a debate over this. Some firefighters say the numbers were higher, while records show up to half of those were plies of debris and cars and not houses. There is also a lot of dispute as to if these fires were set by teens and gangs, or by people from the suburbs that owned vacant detroit houses and wanted the fire insurance money.

Anyhow the city was sick of burning itself down so it took action. It mobilized "angels night" recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers to take to the streets to patrol. It asked people to adopt abandoned buildings to watch. The city imposed a curfew of 6pm on devils night for minors. It also set a $500 fine for anybody filling a portable gasoline container in the 4 days prior to "devils night". These actions severely reduced the number of fires in the 90's....

...With the exception of 1994. Statistically it sticks out as an increase of fires and this is inversely reflected in the amount of effort the city led to recruit volunteers and promote protecting the city.

On a normal day detroit has 40 real fires and 20 false alarms. This devils night fell below this daily average thanks to the residents that care about their city. Owning an "abandoned" house in Detroit I had a slight amount of worry, but after researching recent history I had no concern and was confident leaving my house after a long night of work.

I am beaming.

Tuesday night was a good night for me. We built up and installed a very large beam. 5.25" wide, 14" tall and 18' 2.5" long. There was some difficulty getting it into place at first. And let me tell you, the anticipation of the burden of guilt for killing two of your close friends and yourself is not easy to deal with.

But Andreas and Andrew manned up and we lifted this sucker into place and it looks awesome. They are my best friends ever. I bought them dinner and may have to buy them lower back surgery in the future. MASSIVE BEAM!!!!

P.S. the 2nd beam is wider, longer and heavier. (are you busy this weekend?)

Oh and I passed out candy at my house and stuff for the childrenz on the halloween.

happy all saints day!