I am reading a social history of the American house, "Open House," by Merritt Ierley. I was astonished to read excerpts from the diary of Joshua Hempstead, II, the owner of a house in New London, Connecticut, built in 1678 and still standing as a house museum. For example, in July, 1728, Joshua writes that it was raining, and he spent the afternoon mending the roof and "Stoping ye holes." He worked on the roof on and off through August, and on August 24, "finished Shingling the Roof where it was broke to put in the Coping plate." In 1730 he tarred the clapboards. In 1735, he made a pair of casement windows and put them in. At the age of 60, in 1738, he was shingling the house. In 1749, at the age of 71, he was mending the back side of the house, roof and sides using sixpenny nails. In 1758, at the age of 80, he bought cedar shingles, but was unable to put them up, and died.
What astonishes me is not the amount of work one needs to do about the house, nor that he was doing it into an advanced age, but that he did everything, apparently, that needed to be done, without help, and did it as a matter of course, including being able to make his own casement windows. |
