Comments on: Back to the farm

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Just a note about the basement. I most plantations, the basement is actually the kitchen. The two fireplaces could actually be used not to heat but to cook and provide hot water for the entire household. I’m not saying that the house in you case could be an exception, but I would doubt slave owners would want slaves under their roof or near food supplies from what I have studied. Beautiful house!

By: ben

ben — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Nice pictures. Yet, there was no such thing as slavery above the Mason-Dixon line.

By: Higgins

Higgins — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:08:04 +0000

Lovely post and pictures, sir. For what it’s worth, those doorknobs are often resold/recycled to folks fixing up their old places. I’m just sayin’. (Of course, if someone eventually plans to save the building, I guess stealing their doorknobs would be sorta mean.)

By: Molly

Molly — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:54:29 +0000

I went to college on the Eastern Shore too, Robin! Where did you go?

Where is this awesome farmhouse located? It is gorgeous. If I had a million plus dollars, I would love to find an old place like this and pour all my love (and new plaster) into it.

By: Gloria Owens

Gloria Owens — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:52:16 +0000

Having worked for MD DNR at one point, I’m aware of a lot of properties that the agency has purchased over the years and never improved. What they really wanted when they made the purchase was the land that the home sits on. While this is a worthwhile effort in and of itself, it is a shame to let such a beautiful home waste away.

It’s sort of the same attitude as the old chicken houses on the Shore that are abandoned and left to go back to the soil from which they sprouted!

Often these properties are rented to State employees, but it would take a lot of salary just to heat that property and none of the State employees I know make that kind of money.

It’s sad, but Sid is right. When you sell it, the buyer gets to do what they want with it. At least it hasn’t been replaced by a strip mall, or condos, like so many other beautiful places on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:35:08 +0000

Wow, the place is beautiful. I own a 170 year old home myself.

Regarding plaster repair work: it’s frankly not very difficult (even on supposedly hopeless cases). People just have to be willing to take the little effort to learn how. The worst thing possible is when a moron moves in and guts the place, replacing it with garabe drywall, because “the plaster was shot”. Inevitably, they destroy the place forever and fill it with lead dust in the process. Nice work, morons…

Don’t get me started on idiots who replace old windows… also easily restorable and retrofittable to good energy conservation capability.

Hopefully, they are at least maintaining the roof. As long as that is maintained, a house can be largely ignored for years without too much long term damage. Once the roof goes, the building can soon become a total loss. NOTHING is more important that keeping the roof leak free (even if it means temporarily installing something cheap & ugly).

Not to rag on your family (I don’t know the specifics of their situation), but this is what happens when 1 generation “drops the ball” as far as preserving a long time family heirloom. Teach your kids your family history, record whatever you can, and don’t sell off long time heirlooms if at all possible. Once gone, they are gone forever…

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:13:00 +0000

My god, what a treasure. Ransom — please go win big at the casinos, move in, and restore this thing immediately.

By: Lillian

Lillian — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:39:56 +0000

I believe that you should post a piece in the local newspaper regarding the purchase of the home and the fact of it just wasting away. It is indeed a beautiful home, many people in this world are homeless and would love to have a place to lay their heads at night. Seriously, if you approach the company that purchased the home, you can probably buy it back for just pennies on the dollar of what they paid you for it. Something should be done. Its a shame that the beautiful home is wasting away–not to mention the memories it holds for your family and the tax dollars of citizens that was used to purchase the home for no reason.

By: JaneM

JaneM — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:32:26 +0000

What a beautiful home. I can almost see what it would have looked like in its heyday.

If I ever hit the big lottery I would love to buy it back from the gov and restore it to its former beauty. Loved it. Thanks

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:42:45 +0000

Interesting stuff – I’ve always had a weird gravitation toward abandoned structures. My college had an old dorm on campus that hadn’t been lived in for about thirty years; a couple of us managed to get in one evening and we took about three rolls of film. The college started renovating it the very next year, so in a way we were doing a good deed for the historic record. They completely gutted the old structure, and it’s interesting to think I was among the last to see it in its original state. Also, in retrospect I’m probably lucky I didn’t go crashing through three stories to meet an untimely demise. (Although there aren’t many historians who’ve died in the line of duty, so I suppose there would have been something to say there).

Ransom – don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there’s an excellent fairly recent book called The World Without Us. It’s a sort of speculative science work on how long it would take the environment to reclaim itself in the absence of humans. It’s well written, and parts of it are along the lines of this and some of your other posts.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312347294/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4635023-7671304?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193845320&sr=8-1