Painted White

Painted White

            It is very difficult

            To find and collect

            An object

            That is

            Puritan New England

            This collecting of object is

            Not of an object that is ABOUT Puritan New England but is...

            An object that IS Puritan New England.

            Yes:  THAT clears THAT up.  Doesn’t it.

            “Godly”.

            And then “old”; (early) dates:  Sixteen whatever... and keeping both the Middle Ages’ design influence of “Pilgrim Style” AND the “was burned” (primitive English settlement structures ‘burned’ “by them”) (“the Indians”)... at the mind’s eye front...:

            Then back to object.  And dates... relative to ‘settlement’ and the... falling away of the primitive English stock of that ‘early’ (“earlier”) “dirt floor” (object) settlement.  Okay so 1760 is “LATE” and 1740 is “FAIR” and 1720 is five years before English New England settlement was “cleared” of “Indians” and

            1704 was the Deerfield Raid and the resulting

            Deerfield Door to the Deerfield INDIAN HOUSE.  Hatchet marks.  The hole.  The peen nail boards.  The preserved door frame.  The Indian House was torn down in 1848.  They saved the door.  The Indian House Door is a shrine... to this day.

            “DOOR you say.  OLD DOOR”.  Salvaged old door; an Indian door from an Indian “RAID”.  Hatchet chopped hole... or is it tomahawk chopped door hole?  “Belt axe?”.  Is it?

            No... it is not a Puritan door; a ‘godly” door.  Or is it.

            It is a shrine.  One may not collect it.  One may, actually, collect objects about

            This object but I

            Never.

            No.  I always do look at those (the ‘about objects’)... very closely (scrutinize).  No particular reason for doing that.  Just old school fascination.  I gather.  It is not a Godly door.  It is not a Puritan door.  Or is it?  Anyway... it is a shrine.  I accept that; it IS my heritage concisely.

            NOT MANY ‘much of church goers’ in MY family.  That’s that.  NOT many ever ‘stood’ as shadows of their sins.  No.  Not cold winter mornings walking there.  Standing there.  Kneeling there.  Praying there.  No... and that (not church going) is all covered as early New England history anyway.  No:  They didn’t go to church.  My people did not.  And still don’t.  Walked by the damn buildings.  Damned walking by damn buildings?  Of course... but never show it.  Just stick it on the shirt cuffs and walk by.  “Deacon”.

            Door:  Church door.  The big ones on the front of the building (church)... have long been understood to be outstanding design specimens of early New England.  Their wood.  “Fitted” wood.  Their hardware.  Hand forged wrought iron ‘door’ hardware... preferably of extra effort scale and craftsmanship.  “Prominent Feature”.  “ART”.  But hard to collect.  Too big to ‘take home’ and “hang” in ‘the collection’.  The big hole upon the building from doing that would leave the front of the old New England church... wide open... to have ‘em chasing you down the street... right away

            Anyway.

            And anyway...

            Most of those doors are not old enough

            Anyway

            To be Puritan New England...

            Anyway (“too late”).

            So what is a tomahawk mark of the Puritan church... going church?  “Ahhhh....”

“They tore most of those down”.  And built a better one (church buildings).  By the mid seventeen hundreds the old ‘first churches’ were being ‘torn down’ to build ‘better ones’ (the ones with the grand front doors).  “Meeting House”; yes THAT’S the old WORDS for it.  Understand that the old ones were the first ones near the first settlements and those ‘first ones’ then were the first ones to build the new ones and

            Tear down the first ones;

            The ‘old’ meeting house.

            Many (“some”) survived and are... mostly... “painted white”.  That is not the way they were at first (‘painted white’).  I remind... like... who had any white paint

            Anyway?

            Was the white paint a sort of commemorative paint job?  That argument could be pushed.  I’m not.  I know the difference.  The difference?  Early Colonial New England meeting houses that have NOT been painted white are... ‘very rare’.  And... the INTERIOR of the early meeting house that has ...NEVER BEEN PAINTED (white) is...

            Very Rare.  Don’t trust me.  Go look for yourself.  White paint... covers up the shadow of sin that the early New England meeting house... that was the ‘before’ the fine 18^th century New England church... was

            Torn down.

            Or preserved; ‘painted white’.

            It is very hard to collect a Puritan New England object that has not been

            Painted white. 

            I did... I do.  Collect.  Puritan New England... that has not been painted white.  Not that I “keep”; I am a antiques dealers so ‘don’t ... keep’.  “It’s for sale”.  And when you do not buy it... then please leave it alone.  Puritan New England that has not been painted white does not need a ‘you’ to... bother with it.  Go paint something else white.

  What I offer are two old doors.  They are very old New England doors that have never been painted ANYTHING ever.  No.  They are both old New England first growth White Pine coastal forest wood... and nothing else excepting the natural oxidation coloring to the finished wood surface.  Only that for two hundred and fifty years (1750) (at least).  Okay... “earlier”; 1740.  Anyway... they are old ‘never painted’ ‘doors’.

            To.

            They are meeting house pew box doors.  Or:  They are old doors to meeting house pew boxes.  Doors... to a ‘box’ in a meeting house.  A meeting house ‘sold’ (at auction) pew boxes in the meeting house.  Each pew box had a door.  That opened and closed access to the pew box.  For the owner.  When the meeting house was built, the pew box doors were ‘hung’.  When the meeting house was torn down, the pew box doors were... torn down too.  And ‘pitched out’.  If the meeting house ‘survived’, it was, most often, painted white.  The pew boxes and their door ‘were too’ painted white.  But going back to the moment of ‘pitched out’... did they; someone... “from the family” “TAKE THE DOOR” to their pew box... take it home and ‘keep it’.  That could have happened... couldn’t it?  Yes.

            Where... did they put it?  Oh how about ‘upstairs’ in ‘the shed’.  “THAT’S A GOOD PLACE FOR IT!”  Then they leave it there for two hundred years until the day I am up there... in the old garrets... and spy it and... purloin it... with very little fanfare I assure you.  And it (the old pew box door)... is never painted

            White.

            The Old Indian House Door was never painted white either.  “NEAT!”

            Puritan New England early meeting house pew box doors.  Never painted.  Original as intended plain New England White Pine Coastal Forest ‘wood’ with a naturally oxidized surface.  Looking for details?

            My eye amplifies the oxidation surface shadow of the once present now removed ‘butterfly’ iron hinges (that ‘hung’ the door) inclusive of their ‘took those too’ handmade rose head nail holes.  One door had a lock.  Now removed.  One ‘locked’ their pew box?  One could and did.  KEEP them OUT.

            One door has its top rail.. for the human hand.  The other door has lost its.  No matter.  BOTH have a single wide pine wood beveled panel “FRAMED” with mortised and pegged.... thumbnail molded... BELOW the open ‘gate’ that includes, on each, two lathe turned maple ‘spindle decoration’.  Those are an absolute last gasp of old English Pilgrim Style:  An absolute last gasp that screams the object title:  “Pew Box Door”.  “THAT’S HOW YOU KNOW”

            One

            When you see it (the spindles in the open ‘gate’).

            Denote that ‘old door’ up in the old garret when your ‘looking around’

            For something that IS Puritan New England

            And not ‘painted white’.

            (“Puritans didn’t paint?”)

The Oldest House - A Follow Up - Bits and Pieces

The Oldest House

A Follow-up

Bits and Pieces

            “That part… (in the previous post; “I don’t want to be outside here tomorrow talking with the owners and all locked out and have a ‘I didn’t go in there’ thing.”)… I LIKED THAT; that you got that in.  TRUE IT IS.  I don’t EVER want that.  But, of course, I’ve HAD THAT HAPPEN.  Don’t like it and it don’t happen NOW like when I was YOUNG.  Oh boy back then.  I WAS BUNK ONCE.  But I know it.

            “So I was thinking about all that.  And I want to show you something.”

            He takes a …jagged but squared-off broken piece of dark olive green glass… out of his pocket, rolls it with his thumb in his palm and then presents it in his palm toward me.  I know exactly what that is.  He knows I do and he continues.

            “You probably remember this.  NOT this piece of glass but where it came from.  Remember… well… twenty-five?  I THINK ITS twenty-SEVEN years NOW.  Ago.  I got that Barter farm.  You remember that?”

            I nod acknowledgement as a flashing memory of a large Victorian farm… up on a hill… outside of town… years ago… BEFORE it was ‘restored’… as it is today as I drive by it all the time… ‘comes back to me’.

            “You remember that one.  Big one.  This is FROM THERE.  This.” he says holding it up by his thumb and forefinger “is the LAST THING I got out of there.  I keep this… well… I KEEP IT for more than JUST THIS but… KEEP IT… to REMIND ME.

            “You remember:  We were in there for TWO WEEKS.  Left alone all ok for that was a BIG clean out.  And I knew it and was right on top of it.  Started at six (AM) everyday.  And of course we emptied it.  And cleaned it.  And then I creeped it.  The whole thing myself.  Never said a word about it to anyone.  I’d do it in bits and pieces EARLY.  No one was around.  It was fun too.  THAT HOUSE; the Victorian one… was built AROUND an early house that was built in 1822.  So I knew that.  And the family.  It was ALL in the same family.  So you know what that means and that’s good:  LAYERS[1].  But that’s not the point

            “The point…  was that there was a lot to creep; barns and sheds.  MOST were attached to the house but one shed was out back off  from the rest.  You had to go out the back door of the ell to get to it.  And of course that ell was part of the OLD house.  And that back door was once THE back door to the old house.  And I still feel that shed was the FIRST barn for the WHOLE FARM.  Anyway…

            “I’d go in and out of there the whole time.  Cleared that shed.  Great old shed and found good things in there.  But back and forth.  Through THAT door.  And I never stopped.  Nope:  Never.  Right to this day I know that.

            “So we got done.  Everything.  And I tell ‘em we’re done and we close out.  So I go over and Mr. Man he’s all real pleased and we walk through everything and its all so cleaned out empty he keeps saying you’d never KNOW the place and THAT’S THAT.  Including going over that shed out the back door.  We go over, walk the building, close it and he LOCKS IT.  You know; the lock out.  Fine who cares I’m done.  We walk back to that back door.  Chit-chat.  We stop there looking at the yard.  Its all over grown. 

            “So THEN… I just happen to look down along the foundation line to the right of the door.  And this little piece of line runs up into the corner where the old ell butts into the Victorian HOUSE.   I just look there for no reason.  And I see THIS piece of GLASS (he hold up the broken piece).  I see it lying there.

            “And I know EXACTLY what it is just like you do only I’m four feet away.  And I see it and I don’t let on but I’m ‘OH NO’.  Yep:  Right there it all hits me.

---

[1] “Layers” in the realm of estate contents and antique hunting… is a big point of hidden value.  Worthy of a whole post - story, the subject will be covered.  Understand it to mean the “layers” of the generations who, all of the same family, always occupied an estate “for generations”.  Preferably seven to eleven generations.  Each generation lived upon the top layer of the last generation further burying the past generation’s “stuff” “in layers”.  Ideally, “nothing” “was thrown out” “ever”.  It (“the family’s stuff”) is “all there (inside the estate buildings) in layers”.

            “So not only do I know I’m looking at a piece to an early blacking bottle (1820-1840 New England made olive green pontiled molded glass and typical form shoe/boot blacking bottle) but I also realize that THIS being the BACK DOOR to the first house that they probably threw the trash out that door RIGHT THERE where that piece of glass was lying so it was a dump of sorts and I had not DUG THAT.  In fact I’d never even LOOKED or THOUGHT TO LOOK or ANYTHING like an IDIOT.

            “All at once that all hits me and Mister Man is going on chit-chat about the BIRDS and I’m staring at the piece of glass over there next to the house like clubbed rabbit.  I ain’t listening to HIM at all and I step over and pick up the piece of glass and look at it.  He stops talking and looks too.  So I’m pretty quick:  I say ‘someone’s gonna get CUT stepping on THAT!’.  I hold it up and then put it in my pocket.

            “That there was the last thing I got out of that place.  But:  I still can’t drive by there without KNOWING I didn’t DIG THAT SPOT.  Right to this day.  AND THIS PIECE of GLASS:  I’ve kept that all along now and I SEE IT all the time… so I KNOW, if you know what I mean.  That’s why I’m showing it to YOU.  I have never shown this to ANYONE until right NOW but you know WHY I am and WHY I have it.  When I FOUND that I was already ‘locked out’.  And don’t I know what being locked out means because of that.

            “I’ve probably had A DOZEN of those bottle MINT since then.” He continues

            “I’ve got a couple right now.  I’ll go get one.” I said.

            “Don’t matter:  That PIECE is the WHOLE STORY.  Don’t matter to me to have a whole one when I got THAT PIECE to haunt me EVERY DAY of my life.  Of course I LIKE IT; like the HAUNT too.  Foolish are we all.”

The Oldest Object in The Oldest Thing in The Oldest House – Part Two

The Oldest Object in The Oldest Thing in The Oldest House

Part Two

            “Waiting.

            I.

            Did next.

            “I did not plan to wait but HEARING mister Bunk above… bunked me… at the cellar door.  For good reason I THANK HIM for that bunking.  For good reason it made me wait.  I waited at the top of the cellar stairs.  I stared down into the black hole.  I could hear Bunk on his creep up in the chamber.  He’s going too fast I said.  I closed the cellar door.  All the pennies down there are going to have to WAIT I said.  I sit down in an old dumpy chair.  Just for a minute.  I can hear Bunk up there (in the attic chamber) screwing it up.

            “WHY?  He’s at it TOO FAST.  And too far off.  WAY down in a corner under the eaves.  WAY down and there’s no window down there.  Nothing but black and dark.  Ain’t EVER been someone THERE hiding pennies ever.  EVEN if they had a candle… would they CRAWL on their KNEES to HIDE a penny back THERE?  Hide ANYTHING back there?  So I laugh to myself and get up and go to… well… CREEP that first floor and wait him out.

            “WAITING OUT?  Lunch is coming.  And that mister Bunk KNOWS it.  He’s hurrying to be done.  Up there where THREE HUNDRED YEARS have passed he’s old mister FORTY-FIVE (minutes and I’m DONE).  Yep.  LESS than forty-five left before that LUNCH BREAK that gives him another forty-five (11:45 – 12:30 allotted team lunch break; an enthusiastic group activity) of what?  NOTHING I say.  He’ll be done before lunch I say.  You watch.

            "So I go around the first floor.  Creep it.  There’s five rooms.  The big old kitchen – family room.  The bedroom on the other side.  Then three rooms across the back (north side away from the ocean).  One’s the buttery but it might as well be a shed.  Then a room that IS a shed; the back door.  What they call a MUD ROOM today.  Then the room from there over off the bedroom.  GOD knows what went on in there.  PROBABLY had the COW in there FIRST.  There’s no cellar under those rooms.  WEREN’T ROOMS even originally.  MORE BARN than HOUSE out there.  But they finished ‘em eventually.  That means put in the FLOORS.  So what ever treasure they hid there is UNDER the floors.  So I can’t RIP THOSE UP.  RIGHT?   Anyway I already know all that so just creep around the cupboards and try to SEE in behind the mantels.  See ROUND the chimney BEHIND the wood work.  Ain’t been anyone in there EITHER.  Just been left alone in there since they finished it.  Probably didn’t FINISH IT until the seventeen fifties.  AT LEAST.  Probably… I looked at it…  probably not until even seventeen EIGHTY some of it I bet.  Anyway.  I can SEE that.  So I know what I’m gonna find around THERE:  NOTHING.

            “That’s what I found:  NOTHING.  A lot of that.  But I find a lot of that anyway.  And I know MISTER Bunk is finding that TOO.  I hear him.  Off in another corner.  Ain’t gonna be NOTHING up there ‘cept round the FIREPLACE and up on the CHIMNEY.  THAT’S where the people WENT up there.  Except to HANG something UP.  OR FETCH something DOWN.

            “So I go back to that chair and WAIT.  And don’t he come CLOMPING DOWN in his BOOTS.  Paid TWICE as much as I pay him for a WHOLE DAY for them CLOD HOP’EN BOOTS.  I have to LAUGH.

            “So he SEES ME and I say LUNCH?  And he asks if I finished the cellar.  I say NO and that I creeped this floor.  He says ‘Find anything?’  NOTHING I say how about YOU?  ‘Nothing’ he says so I say LUNCH?  He looks at me so I say AFTER LUNCH go down and clean out that shed.  Don’t SAY anything.  Just go do it.  Put everything outside so when I finish up here that building’s EMPTY when I come down.  He says ok to THAT and goes up to lunch.  I look over at that cellar door and tell it I’ll be back for YOU after LUNCH.

            “I go up there (to the barn) and have my lunch with ‘em.  All of ‘em.  They don’t EVEN MENTION antiques the whole time.  Been putting antiques in boxes for over FOUR hours but never say the word.  FINE WITH ME it is.  They talk about some TELEVISION show they all WATCH.  I DON’T CARE.  But I listen.  Sounds STUPID to ME.  And here they are at MY oldest house talking about watching TELEVISION.  They think I put the ANTIQUE in the BOX and then put that antique in a STORE and then I SELL it to someone who puts that antique THEIR LIVING ROOM.  They think that’s the WHOLE THING:  Antiques come in a BOX!

            “And I’s sitting there saying nothing except ‘don’t come BUG ME when I’m on MY cellar creep.  Leave me ALONE’.  That’s where it REALLY is:  ON that CREEP in that CELLAR HOLE of that OLD HOUSE.  CLEAN OUT THAT SHED mister Bunk and LEAVE ME ALONE in that old HOLE that some man DUG BY HAND WITH HIS SHOVEL.  Three hundred years ago.  Now THAT’S an ANTIQUE I’m not gonna FIND AGAIN;  that CREEP.  And I know that and have since I first seen that hole.

            "So I go down in there and I don’t WHISTLE when I WORK.  Nope.  I just STAND up against those rock walls and LOOK.  And FEEL with my fingers.  EVERY LITTLE BIT OF IT;  that whole damn hole.  I stand there at one spot.  What’s that?  Thirty inches wide in front of me?  That piece of wall.  FROM THE floor beam to the DIRT FLOOR…get down on my knees and LOOK.  And FEEL.  SLOWLY.  EVERY INCH.  Finding NOTHING.  Oh some old nails and THAT.  Put in my pocket.  But I WANT something.  SOMETHING I WANT.  I want to find something I WANT that’s OLD.  VERY OLD.  So I know to keep at this every inch.  I don’t want to be outside here tomorrow talking with the owners and all locked out and have a ‘I didn’t go in there’ thing.  Nope.  Don’t want THAT.  SO DO IT RIGHT I say.  So I creep it; that hole.

            "And nothing.  And the PROBLEM is that where the stone meets the beams there’s little HOLES where I can SHINE (the flashlight) IN and see under the FLOORS.  So I’m spending a lot of time doing that.  NOTHING but if I DO SEE SOMETHING I gotta get it and.  Well.  I’d jig it out SOMEHOW.  And there’s these little spaces between the beams.  NOT FITTED.  Didn’t need to be.  They’re just RESTED on the stone.  So I can fit my hand in here and there along.  AND SO COULD SOMEONE ELSE.  Right?  So there we go.  Right?

            “So I go all along up past the chimney base and around under the stairs and then ACROSS from the stairs out under the BEDROOM.  And I can SEE out under there pretty good.  Nothing.  So I’m doing those beam spaces as I go along.  AND THERE IT IS.  Yep.  See the bottom with my head lamp first.  Off on its side.  Set it up THERE and it tipped over backwards HOW MANY CENTURIES AGO?

            “I pull it out and I’m JUST OH.  (A New England – North Shore above Boston) REDWARE Pitcher.  OLD.  CRACKED.  Dirty.  But WHOLE.  BEEN IN THERE HOW LONG?  So I take that right up the stairs and look it over.  Cracked but whole. They used it cracked.  AND CRUDE; spout all crooked off wrong.  Must be a NOTHING potter made it.  OLD.  Dark brown and that TALL form.  I know THAT.  Eighteenth century no problem but OLD.  So COLONIAL I say.  Look it all over and I KNOW I FOUND IT:  That’s it.  NOT GONNA BE MORE.  I know that.  Just great.  Take it up to my truck.  Don’t say a word to anyone.  Show it to my wife later.  IT’S GONE.  She had it washed off in ten minutes.  I’d ah left it dirty.  I DON’T CARE ANYMORE: I FOUND IT.  No one else would have found that.  That’s what I DO.  You leave me alone in one of those old houses I’ll find it.