The main house was built in 1783 and consisted of a two-story brick building with eight rooms, four up and four down, each room having a fireplace. The lower fireplace and the upper one were connected to a single chimney resulting in four chimneys protruding from the roof of the house. Later an addition was put on the north end, with three rooms on the second floor [for sleeping] and a dining room, kitchen and large walk-in pantry on the first floor. The kitchen had a large walk in icebox, lined with metal. It was cooled by one hundred pound chunks of ice, which were placed in a special ice container that was entered through a door high in the main cooler from the back hall. This hall ran the length of the kitchen and pantry and provided access to the two-hole dry pit toilet. The use of this was discontinued, later when a plumbed toilet was installed just off the kitchen. This hall also had a large wood box, that held the wood that I had to bring in from the attached wood shed, the wood being used by the cooks to feed the large cast iron stove, which cooked the food and heated the water that was dipped out of a tank attached to the stove. Later an upright hot water tank was hooked into the stove, thus increasing the quantity of hot water available, both for the kitchen and bathroom.
Just next to the kitchen was a large walk-in Pantry, which was surrounded by shelves that reached almost to the ceiling and had cabinets underneath the shelves on three sides. On the wall without cabinets, there stood three wooden barrels, which held sugar, salt, and flour. These barrels had removable covers for easy access. In the center of the room was large work area that covered drawers both in the front and to the rear. This area provided lots of room for any food preparations that might be needed. It was in this area that my dad and I would steal snacks from time to time. I remember once when we stole a whole pumpkin pie and took it to the barn for our consumption. Mother was quite upset, until Dad owned up to it, as she thought she lost a pie or had miscounted, Ha!
Attached to the back hall was the woodshed, where our supply of winter wood and kindling was kept. I was never sent to the wood shed for punishment, as my mother was in charge of any punishment that was to be handed out. This shed also had a large open bowl where water was heated by a fire built in a fireplace with doors under the metal bowl. It was here that water was heated after a pig had been slaughtered. Scalding hot water was poured over the hide of the pig, so that the hairy bristles could be scraped off.
I do not remember when the plumbing was installed in the bathroom. Water for the whole house was pumped in the summer from the brook across the road into a tank in the attic of the ell, there to be fed by gravity to the open faucets. Because the supply pipes ran over the top of the ground, they had to be disconnected in the cold weather to keep them from freezing. This meant that a very noisy “one-cylinder “ type engine had to be used in the cellar during the winter, which was not a very desirable situation (loud and kerosene smell). After electricity was installed, which I remember happening in the early 20’ies (installed by Chet Drury), they soon installed an electric pump on the well in the cellar. This eliminated a lot of problems. A similar one-cylinder engine pumped the water from a cistern in the brook into a tank in the barn. Before that a windmill was used to perform the pumping.
The cellar also housed a coal-fired furnace, which provided steam heat to the house. In cold weather this furnace required a lot of attention; feeding the furnace with coal from the coal-bin and shaking down the grates to put the ashes into the ash-pit. Because it was steam one had to constantly watch the level of the water in the boiler. The ashes were removed to the pump room under the pantry area, until spring, when they were removed and spread on the circular driveway. As I became older I helped out, not by choice, I used a wheelbarrow for this job.
The house itself had many windows, approximately 15 as I remember. Each window had a large four-pane storm window to be put on in the fall in preparation for the winter that would soon come. These windows also had shutters that had to be removed before the storm windows could be put on. The storm windows or shutters were stored in the main house attic, which of course was the third floor of the house. Each fall the ladies of the house would go to the attic and wash all those windows on both sides. When Dad was ready to put on the windows, he would take off all the shutters and place them at the south end of the house. The attic window on the south end would then be removed and a rope with a noose and a pulley attached would be hung from the attic window frame. One end of the rope would be placed around a storm window, and the other end, now touching the ground, would be placed around a pair of shutters. The storm window end would be sent down, the weight of which would help to raise a pair of shutters up to the attic. This process would continue until the windows were all on the ground and the shutters were all in the attic to stay for the winter. In early summer this process would be repeated in reverse. In the fall each storm window had to be placed on the respective window sill, and some body would hold the window in place from the inside, usually done by grabbing the glass trunion [wooden cross piece] with a pair of pliers, thus pulling the window in tight until my Dad could put in place 6 screws to draw the storm window in tight against the window framing. Many of these storms had to be put on from a big ladder. Quite a process, hey?
I have forgotten to mention, that there was another building behind the woodshed, which was used for the storage of ice. At one time the ice was cut from a pond behind the barn. This pond was part of a tannery process that went on at the farm. The dam for this pond still stands with its spillway as a part of the brook that still runs through the old farm property. The ice was cut into large blocks and transported to the icehouse, where it was packed in sawdust to protect it from the heat. I never was a part of this process, for the tannery was not there when I was a lad. I do remember that we bought ice from the Mason family, who would cut ice on Echo Lake and stored it in a large ice house up there and then distributed it out to their customers as needed during the summer. At that time my Dad stored the ice that he bought in our own icehouse. Not too long after that the Mason’s started to deliver ice on scheduled basis direct to the customer. Each cake (weighed 50 to 100 lbs.) was taken off of the delivery truck, weighed, and carried with ice tongs on the deliveryman's back to the house. He wore a thick rubber apron type protector to keep his back from getting wet.