The House That Carrie Is Building Has Checkered Past

Betty Reynolds Carrie's house once belonged to a notorious counterfeiter, Samuel Ford Jr., and was called the Hammock.

"I'm pretty sure it would be the oldest home in Indiana," said Dana Grove of the Northern Regional Office of Historical Foundation in South Bend.

The 2,700-square-foot house is being rebuilt in Washington Township by Dana Cone of Cone Construction.

In New Jersey the house was on the National Registry, and of more than 1,300 listings only a handful have ever been de-listed, according to Terry Karschner, who has overseen the National Registry Program for 20 years.

"I cannot recall another instance in which a building lost its designation because it was taken out of state," he said.

The house was built on property that was originally part of a 2,000 acre tract deeded in 1712, sold by land agents and authorized by Queen Anne herself.

According to a history book, "Saga of a Crossroads" by Eleanor Wies, the original part of the house was built in 1721 by John Ford, grandfather of Col. Jacob Ford, whose Georgian mansion in Morristown was used as Washington's headquarters during the Revolutionary War winter of 1779-80.

Before the Revolution, the Hammock was home to Jacob Ford's nephew, Samuel Ford Jr.

Samuel Ford owned an iron forge like many of the Fords and sold it to get into the counterfeiting business.

The father of five honed his counterfeiting skills in Ireland, where in 1766 he married a second wife without divorcing the first.

"Ford introduced her to his first wife and the Irish bride quickly ran off in horror, never to be heard of again," according to historical documents on the house.

When Ford returned to America, New York and New Jersey saw a jump in counterfeit New Jersey notes. The law finally caught up to him in 1773 when he was arrested at the Hammock.

Ford escaped hanging by breaking out of the jail in Morristown with the help of a sheriff. Using his mother's maiden name, Baldwin, he started fresh in Virginia, marrying a third wife and having seven more children.

The property was sold off over the centuries bit by bit until it was pared down to three acres, purchased by Carrie in 1961.