Mullens Folly Restoration

Storms don’t just fill my yard with sticks and branches, they also bring lots of things to the surface! One part of the front hill keeps turning up various pieces of glass from the 20th century. Scattered throughout the rest of the yard are other pieces of pottery and pipe stems periodically.

One of my favorite things to find while taking things apart here are reused pieces! In between the rafters upstairs random pieces of wood were added in to naill the lath to when James Berriker plastered this room in 1869. In this case they used what must’ve been part of an original 18th century door frame. The piece has 2 fragments of early H or HL hinges on it that are both secured with early rose head nails!

Behind the lath, I am starting to see how the room looked before 1869! Exposed beams and log walls in an old white washed surface

Today I pulled up the bathroom floor to reveal the original random width pine flooring!

One last project for 2023! Today my dad helped me move the cast iron tub from the bathroom upstairs. Plumbing was installed in the house around 1955 and I believe that’s when the tub and sink date from.

We pushed the tub down the stairs, and then realized we couldn’t get it to make the turn at the bottom. So, we then pushed it back up the stairs where dad would then break it with a sledge hammer so we could carry it back down again.

in 1896, Ella Louise Berriker married Charles P. Fitzgerald at her home. Today marks 127 years since they tied the knot! Pictured are 2 newspaper clippings from the Cecil Whig dated early in January of 1897. I also believe a photo still survives from this wedding with the family, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Some more progress upstairs. Slowly removing all of the 20th century framing that was added for drywall. I have also fully exposed the one remaining board partition wall that is upstairs. It has amazing original blue/green paint showing through under the wallpaper!

Lately I have been working on removing all of the 20th century framing, trying to reveal all of the 18th century framing. This is with the hope to find evidence of how the rooms on the second floor were finished and to see what the original layout was.

“The Friendly Lot” 1789 versus 2023

A lot has changed since 1789. Roads have been moved, property sold and divided, but the old house is still here!

An interesting construction method noticed on the board partition walls from the first floor. I would have assumed they were tongue and groove, however both sides of the boards have grooves, and a thin strip of wood that goes between to hold them together. Has anyone seen this method of construction before in 18th century walls?

Beginning to treat all of the flooring from the first floor for powder post beetle, before storing it all in my sea container. After I finish moving all of my wood from the first floor, I will begin digging out the crawlspace down a couple more feet to have it ready to put a new foundation underneath in the spring!

Thank you to everyone who came out in person to listen to me ramble on about my house and all of my finds! Everyone seemed to enjoy it!

I understand there were some problems with the audio on the live stream, so I will work on a recording this week with better sound and upload it sometime soon!

Today’s the day! Tonight at 6:30 I will be presenting “Restoring Mullen’s Folly” at the North East branch of the Cecil County Public Library. Registration for in person attending is full, but anyone can watch from home! It will be streamed live on Facebook!

Seats are completely FULL for my talk on Thursday! For those of you who can’t make it in person, don’t forget you can tune in and watch it here live on Facebook!

Tomorrow I will do a practice run of the live stream to make sure everyone can figure it out before Thursday. It will be streamed through Facebook Live. To watch, go to the “Mullen’s Folly Restoration” page on Facebook. It will start tomorrow, Sunday November 26th at 1:00 PM and I’ll probably be on there for about 15 minutes. You will be able to ask questions in the comment section, and I can see them and answer them.

You don’t need to register to watch the live stream on Facebook. The online registration is only for those of you who plan to attend in person next Thursday. There are only 8 seats left for in person viewing on Thursday!

https://www.cecilcountylibrary.org/event/restoring-mullens-folly-53034

Micah 4:4 “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make thee afraid…”

These words were penned by Jacob Berriker in 1867 when he made his final payment to James Trimble for Mullen’s Folly. For the previous 20 or so years the Berriker family lived next door in a small house on the property of the Brick Meeting House. Since they were care takers of “The Brick” and the cemetery there, they had a free place to live. In 1859 an opportunity arose for them to purchase the small log house next door, and to move in to their OWN house. I’m sure Jacob was incredibly thankful to be able to sit beneath his own vine and fig tree.

Pictured is one of a pair of chairs originally owned by Jacob Berriker and likely brought with him here when he moved from the Meeting House property.

I am incredibly thankful to Mr. Fitzgerald giving me the opportunity to purchase and to care for his family home. It has been an amazing experience this far, and I can’t wait to see where it goes! I am also super thankful to have a family who supports me on this journey, and everything else I do.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I’m here today at the house working on some projects for the shop. Don’t forget to register online for my talk next Thursday at the library! There are only 14 seats remaining! If you can’t make it in person, it will be live streamed on Facebook.

https://www.cecilcountylibrary.org/event/restoring-mullens-folly-53034

An update to my previous post regarding this house that just became for sale next door. I went inside this evening. Unfortunately the house is not log underneath. I don’t know what made the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties identify it as a log structure. It is just a frame constructed house. Evidence indicates that it was probably constructed somewhere between 1820-1840. Also, here is a quilt in the collections of the Historical Society of Cecil County currently on display. Made by Hanna A. Griffith in 1846 who lived in this house with her husband Nathan from 1866 until her death in 1917.

Who wants to be my neighbor? The house on the opposite side of the cemetery just hit the market yesterday! The Founds Log House is estimated to be built at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century by the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties. The house was built on part of the original piece of property purchased by William Mullen in 1788. Cloud Pierson sold the property to Rosebank Cemetery in 1847, but likely kept living here afterwards, since he shows up in Martinets 1850s map of Cecil County still living here. The Rosebank Hall was built between this house and Mullen’s Folly in the late 1840s. The house remained on the same property as Mullen’s Folly until 1866 when it was sold by the Proprietors of Rosebank Cemetery to Nathan Griffith. After his passing it went to his wife Hanna A. Griffith. She passed in 1917, and the house was eventually sold to the Founds family. They were good friends of the Berriker-Fitzgerald family. I don’t know how long they owned the house.

In recent years the house has changed hands multiple times, with renters in and out of it. It has been vacant for several years now, and a tree fell on it about two years ago and knocked the chimney off the one end of the house. Underneath that aluminum siding is a beautiful early log house that needs saving! It sits on a little over a half acre, and is listed at $149,900. Someone come save it and we can restore our log houses together!

Photographing artifacts today for my upcoming presentation “Restoring Mullen’s Folly”. It will be held Thursday, November 30th, starting at 6:30 pm. For those of you who can’t make it in person, make sure to watch on Facebook Live from this page!

Did I hear it’s today? Since the start of this project I have discovered over 250 buttons dating from the late 18th century through the mid 19th century! Numerous materials including brass, pewter, bone, horn, porcelain, ivory, glass, mother of pearl, vulcanized rubber, and I think maybe one or two other things.

There have been a few military related buttons, two with eagles on them! Several metal ones that are cloth covered, if you look closely the cloth is still there! There are a handful of buttons made of “vulcanized rubber” which is like an early version of plastic. Developed in the 1840s by Goodyear. These buttons probably date to the 1850s and 60s.

One recent find that I found really interesting was a mother of pear button “blank”. Made from the shiny part of an oyster shell (which I have found many of). You can see it next to a completed one, they never put holes in this one!

Back in the workshop today. I need to clean some artifacts to clear up my work surfaces. Here’s another late 19th century linoleum piece I’m cleaning that was found in one of the bedrooms upstairs. It’s the same pattern as the last one I cleaned, just in a different color scheme.

I was given permission by the library to be able to live stream my talk on November 30th for those who can’t attend in person. I will stream it via Facebook live, from this page starting around 6:30 pm on November 30th. For those of you who can attend in person, make sure to register online!

Before and after cleaning a piece of a late 19th century floor covering. This was recovered in one of the bedrooms upstairs along with fragments of several other different floor coverings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries underneath linoleum that was put down in the 30s or 40s I think.

Gotta keep an eye on my neighbors tonight, they can be a handful this time of year.