We are so fortunate to have met so many of the descendents of this old house that have shared history, stories of days gone by and pictures. I thought it would be a good time to give you alittle more information about this old home place.
The oldest picture we have of the house is 1896 with the big Ashcraft family all standing in front and a set of twins in the rocking chairs. You may know the twins as the Griffin twins. One grew up and inherited the house and raised her family and lots of grandchildren until her death. Turns out that was my best friend growing up grandmother. Small world in a small town.
When we bought the house we had no idea of the age or the special history attached. We simply wanted to be in the country in an old white house with a front porch and a pond. As we started working on the house one year at a time to bring it back to life so many of the family raised here through the years came to see the house and meet us and tell us what they knew.
We learned there are Sherman army bullets actually in the house. We had always heard there were bullets in the house but as we scraped all the paint off the outside of the house we came to the conclusion it was a myth. Then we got a visit from a great great granddaughter that showed us the bullets were actually inside sprayed all over the hallway. Here is the story as we understood. The women were still at home and the men still at war when Shermans army came through this area. We knew his army has burned down all the beautiful homes at White Store just 5 miles down the road and wondered why this one was spared. Well turns out they had food buried out back and food stored under the stairway steps in the hallway. They nursed the soldiers wounds and the soldiers then demanded their food. Well the women gave them half the food under the stairway and told them their men were still gone to please leave them with a supply. Well the soldiers began shooting up the hallway to show their disagreement and took the rest of the food stored in the stairwell and spared the house from being burned. Good for these strong women the soldiers never knew about the food stored in a bunker outside so they still had food to eat until the men could return. You can barely see the indentions in the walls in the hallway with 40 coats of paint through the years but they definitely are there.
The backrooms attached to the house use to be the kitchen in the early years and set out 50 feet from the house. You never attached the kitchen to the house back in those days because of fire. In the early 1900s it was moved and attached to the main house but continued to be the kitchen and dining until 1970s when kitchen was moved to a front bedroom. We use the back rooms now as a guest bedroom (still has a chimney suspended over it that use to be for the wood stove), office for the business with comfy couch for relaxing, full bath, walk in closet so it really is a complete little apartment if we ever need it to be. Its a step down from the main house with original steps worn through the years but all now enclosed to make one big house.
The bedroom that now houses the kitchen use to be called the preachers bedroom since only mode of transportation then was horse and buggy so they stayed awhile. It has a fireplace in it and when we were remodeling the kitchen and taking it back to its original roots we removed plywood on the floors and fortunately discovered beautiful old heart pine floors just needing alittle tender loving care to bring them out. Boards on all the walls were in fantastic shape just took off paneling and they had 50 different coats of paint. We scrapped and sanded paint for days and as we were scrapping on one wall Mitch discovered writing on the original whitewash. We stopped the scrapping afraid of taking off the writing before we could discover what it was telling us. Ever heard of "if these walls could talk". Well with a magifying glass we could read the date 12-18-1871 and it appeared to be a goodbye letter to the house written on the wall by a Ms L J or L G Ashcraft. Very hard to read since we left paint on it afraid to mess it up. I've seen this same name written on a wall upstairs as well. Someday I'll find out the right way to clearly read the entire thing. We even tried black lights. Its written in pencil. We painted the rest of the kitchen leaving this part uncovered and I plan to frame it like a picture once we find out what it says.
This is a picture of the Ashcraft family in the early 1890s. This picture shows them on the front porch of the house. We received this picture from a new dear friend and part of this awesome family of descendents from Missouri. Thanks for sharing with us Barbara. We also have a picture of the house where they are standing in the front yard of the house in 1896 but it is printed and I haven't had it scanned yet to include it on the website. You can see the windows around the front door just as they are today. Looks like cotton stacked on the front porch as they were farmers but I'm not sure what all is on the front porch in this picture.
Barbara also shared a picture of the Griffin twins that were born Ashcrafts in 1895 and both married Griffins. I beleive they were brothers. One lived and raised her family in our house and the other lived in a house right down the road near Lanes Creek. I'm not sure of the date on this picture or actual location since it doesn't appear to be in front of any of the fireplace mantels in our house.
Not sure why but I can't get this picture to be smaller so it would appear clearer but you'll recognize they are twins and have history and their kids and grandkids have more stories than most of the history of this old house.
I will share more later as I get a chance to scan some old pictures we have gathered. Stay tuned.
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