Historical Research – Part 5
In which we find out exactly how old the house is and discover Victorian facebook entries.
At this point we were sure something had happened in 1892 but weren’t so sure we would ever know exactly what. We left the Notarial Archives with an expensive stack of printed copies of the documents of sale and extreme hunger because we’d spent all afternoon there and missed lunch.
Read MoreHistorical Research – Part 4
In which we trace the notarial history and find that a big flag in the 1890’s.
It turned out that the very next day was the last day in the National Archives month of October in which the Notarial Archives was giving a tour to the public. We set off to the Notarial Archives downtown on the floor below the office of Mortgages and Conveyances we had spent so long in with those big books and were treated to a lovely tour of the small offices crammed full of great books of recordings going all the way back to the 1700’s.
Read MoreHistoric Research – Part 3
A few more clues…
At this point we knew that Moise Waldhorn owned it from 1890-1900 and sold it to Herman Levy after 1900. We knew that George Powell had it in 1880. But the troubling this was, we weren’t sure it was the same house. So it was time to visit the Notarial Archives.
(To catch up on our story read parts 1+2 below).
Historic Research – Part 2
In which we do genealogical research and learn that people married their neighbors.
Quite some time passed with us blithely telling people that the house was built in the 1850’s-1860’s, referring to the carriage house out back as “slave quarters” and insisting that the peeling paint we had seen up in the second floor of that carriage house was shaped like a black woman who used to live there in antebellum days. But the thing is we weren’t really sure…
Read MoreHistoric Research – Part 1
In which we trace the sales history of the house back to 1898 and hit a dead end.
The first thing we did when researching the house was to go to the office of Mortgages and Conveyances and do a title search. Each document of sale is recorded there and you can do an initial search on the computer which will lead you to a big bound book (like 2 feet x 2 feet and a good 8 inches thick bound in old board and leather) and you pull it out and find the document. Then each document references the previous sale of the same property by folio and book number, so you go and pull out another 20 pound book and leaf through until you find yours and so on.
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