Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The oldest house in Indiana has yet to be constructed. It arrived here recently from New Jersey, where it perched on a hill slowly swallowed by commercialism, highways and pocket-emptying tax levies.
The house, owned by Betty Reynolds Carrie, was built in 1721 and added onto in 1800 and 1825 and was listed on the National Historic Register. It was too dear for Carrie to leave behind in Florham Park, N.J., where it would have fallen to the wrecking ball.
Arriving here boxed in bits and pieces, the home will be reconstructed by Dana Cone and crew of Cone Construction, Dewart Lake.
Carrie and Cone have communicated on the project for three years.
"She just called me up out of the blue one day," Cone said, "and asked if I would like to rebuild her house in Indiana."
Cone has brought several existing buildings back to life - the Pound Store in Oswego, the Elks building in downtown Warsaw, the Merrill Lynch building, the Old Jail Museum and the Victorian Hotel (The Victory).
Reconstructing a 279-year-old house board by board and plank by plank is another matter.
He has worked closely with New York dismantler George Turrell of AchterCol Historic Restoration during the process of taking the old home apart.
It has all been photographed and charted. The windows, fireplaces and fixtures were packed and catalogued. The floor boards were pried up and marked so it all fits back together on Washington Township soil.
Carrie, 77, has purchased a 20-acre property along Ind. 13, just north of old U.S. 30. She resides in a family home at Lake Wawasee.
"I love this house," Carrie said. "I cannot tell you how much I love it."
In 1961 Carrie moved into the 18th-century stone and clapboard farmhouse and raised her two daughters there.
Encroaching development and an $8,000-per-year tax bill forced her to consider leaving the property five years ago.
Then came a miracle in the form of a tidy inheritance and a hefty offer on the property, which gave her the means to relocate not only herself but her old treasure as well.
She immediately thought of the northern Kosciusko County area where her family, beginning with her grandparents, have summered for four generations.
Carrie has taught Colonial skills in the house for 18 years - embroidery, rug hooking and the like.
She intends to foster Colonial crafting here and to sell her work and that of others in a shop called the Hammock Store, a building already constructed on the property.
The house is tucked further back on the property, near an orchard.
The house has 1,700 square feet on the first floor and 1,000 square feet on the second floor.
The 1721 portion of the building is half New Jersey fieldstone. That portion will be rebuilt with Indiana rock.
"I'm going to make it accurate," Carrie said.
She intends to have plaster walls and said that the nails will be hand hammered, not shot from a gun.
Over the centuries the house was modernized according to the times.
While taking the home apart the original dining room walls were found. During a 1937 upgrade pipes and wiring were laid along the old walls and new walls were constructed.
"We found the original wallpaper on the sweetest little chair rail," she said.
She was told the banister was made of African mahogany and the pine flooring was of a tongue and groove design.
An unusual gambrel roof covers the 1825 portion of the structure.
In New Jersey the house was on the National Register of Historic Places. It was removed from the list when Carrie announced plans to dismantle it.
Once the house is rebuilt in Indiana, Carrie can apply for listing on the National Register again, but said she doesn't intend to do that.
She's more interested in making her house a home and allowing it to make its own history.
